Florian Delille

The path from $1m - $50m ARR is a graveyard for sales leaders. The average tenure for CRO / VP of Sales is under 18 months. You almost never hear of the same sales leader leading a company from $1m to $50m+. Why is it so rare for sales leaders to level up as the company scales? The "$0 - $1m" sales leader struggles to get to $10m. The "$1m - $10m" sales leader struggles to get to $50m. And so on. You see so many examples of this across the B2B SaaS industry. Working in an early stage company is kinda like playing jazz. Everyone member of a jazz band has their speciality, but the music comes from how they improvise and push each other to play. As you scale, the company looks more like an orchestra than a jazz band. Each section of an orchestra is highly specialized. The music is structured to blend each section together to make a sound - a symphony. Sure, a jazz player can learn to play in an orchestra. But it is rare. In the same way, the $0-1m sales leader can learn to be the $10m or $50m leader. But this kind of personal growth is uncommon. It requires a level of self-awareness and a commitment to learning that most people don't have. I've heard this trait called "dynamic range" - the ability for a leader to improve their skills to match the stage of the company. When you have a leader on your team who shows dynamic range, invest in them. Give them the opportunity to learn how to play in an orchestra.

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I've promoted 30+ SDRs to AEs 🥳 (how to do it and hit the ground running) 𝗚𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲: 1. Learn how to do discovery calls and demos. Study calls. Make this the focus in your 1:1s with you AE buddy. Do mock calls with your peers. Prepare ahead of time so you're not scrambling. 2. Focus on performance. Do whatever it takes to get great results in your current role. Easiest way to stand out and get the opportunity to interview. 3. Know your numbers and strategy. Be able to speak in detail about your results to date, where you stack up, why that is and what you're working on to improve. 𝗢𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲: 1. Commit to working as hard as possible. SDR to AE is the biggest jump in sales in my opinion. Especially if you're selling a complex product with 1, 2 and 3 year commitments. 2. Be super proactive. Ask your manager/team a ton of questions. Loop your manager into calls. Ask them to review calls and give you their harshest feedback. Use every single resource at your disposal. 3. Be ruthless with your calendar. Only go to meetings that are absolutely necessary. This means saying no to things that are great and really blocking time to study, drive revenue and outbound. What tips would you give SDRs looking ot make the jump to AE? - Mike G 👉 Join 5,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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The NUMBER one sales prospecting blunder I see in my inbox from fresh SDRs (can be fixed in 5 seconds): 😮‍💨 "Hey Zoe, I see you lead strategic finance at Apollo..." I do not.... There are two Zoes at Apollo. Double-check that you're emailing the right one:) Personalization + relevance ONLY hit if you have the right contact. Ps. Use Apollo.io for free to get in front of the RIGHT person with the right message at the right time:)

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How can AEs 3.1x WinRate AND close deals 4.7x faster? Analysis of 4 million opportunities on $54bn of B2B sales pipeline shows preparation pays...   The better you prepare, the more you get to work great deals.  But what is the preparation to 3.1x WinRate?    → Prospect your ICP + Ideal Personas. - It's crucial to know your ideal customer profile.  - It's crucial to know the best personas to target.     →Top Performing AEs Disproportionately prospect both.     - They source less deals but close more self-sourced revenue.   - Most AEs half heartedly prospect "big accounts".  - The most successful AEs whole-heartedly prospect "ICP accounts".       → Preparing the list of ICPs + Personas is hard work.   → That is the best part, most don't do it.     Give yourself a fair advantage.     1. Discover the criteria of ICP & personas. 2. Apply the criteria to your prospects. 3. Target the top 20% of accounts that meet the criteria.   It sounds simple, but most people give up half way through.     So once you find deals.... what then? How do you close opportunities 4.7x faster?    The Answer? → Be Prepared to Hard Qualify.    → Apply the sales methodology you follow.     If you don't have 80%+ of MEDDPICC or SPICED by the end of Discovery... Sounds harsh, but without it at discovery deals slow down and often don't close.   Seriously consider walking away from the opportunity.     → The best AEs close deals at discovery 3.1x more than average AEs.     Hard to do with pipeline at a premium.    → In 2024, AEs don't have time to waste on unqualified opps.     → The big thing is PREPARATION for qualification and discovery calls.    Research the prospect, bring a perspective on the methodology.    e.g. following MEDDPICC?    I'm guessing your trying to solve X, because of the comments your CEO recently made.     What company initiative/OKR does this align with?    What business metric does this help?      Now you’re a step closer to M. (Metrics)      I'm guessing you've tried to solve this problem before?    What else are you considering?    Drilling into this brings you closer to C. (Competition)      When we send across paperwork...what happens?    Starting to understand the P. (Path to Paper)      If doesn't matter if your using MEDDPICC, SPICED or an internal custom sales process.    What matters is your prepared to use it in qualification and discovery.     Know the questions, form a POV on each from research.     If you’re an AE in 2024, then use the data to improve you're attainment.     Hat tip to Guy Rubin and the team at Ebsta for their AMAZING B2B Sales Benchmarks 2024 Report. p.s. want to fast track your AE Skills? I've one spot left for an AE to join my coaching program in July, send me a dm saying "90"🔥

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4 tips for running better discovery calls +1 bonus tip +1 one give-away [last line] Discovery isn’t just a stage in the sales process. We've all heard this. Yet, too many reps walk away without truly understanding the pain or the cost of doing nothing. Here’s how to fix that: 1. Start with curiosity. Don’t dive in with generic questions. Instead, open with something thoughtful: → “What made you take this call?” → “When did this challenge first show up for you?” Simple, yet effective. 2. Go deeper. Surface problems aren’t enough. Your job is to dig into the why. → “What’s causing this issue?” → “Who else is impacted?” → “What happens if it doesn’t get fixed?” Get them talking about the ripple effects. 3. Tie pain to metrics. No impacted metrics = no urgency. Find out what matters most to their business: → “Is this impacting win rates, pipeline coverage, or forecast accuracy?” → “What’s the cost of missing those targets?” You’re not just finding pain. You’re quantifying it. 4. Call out the cost of inaction. Paint the picture of staying as is. → “If this isn’t fixed in 6 months, what does that mean for your team?” → “How does this impact hitting revenue goals for the year?” They need to feel the pain now. Bonus tip... 5. Know when to walk away. Not every problem is urgent. If the impact isn’t big enough, qualify out. Save your time. And theirs. Great discovery isn’t about pitching. It’s about listening, digging, and connecting the dots. Get it right, and you’ll build urgency without ever needing to offer a discount. Which number could you be doing more of? ------------------------------------------------------- 🔔 Follow me for more on sales James Bissell ♻️ Repost and I'll send you a Discovery Call talk track.

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CROs: Run this outbound play to break into massive accounts 👇 Most CROs don't engage in deals. Or help reps break into ent/strat accounts. I've never been a CRO before—so I can't tell you whether that's good or bad. You have a lot of responsibilities as a CRO. But, I recently met a CRO who lands meetings with the C-Suite in MASSIVE accounts. The biggest companies you can think of in every category. The key principle: Power is more willing to engage with power. Leverage the C-suite title. Here's how it works: ✅ Pick 10 accounts to get started Choose the top 10 accounts that can make the quarter/year if you win them. The best accounts are ones that reps have worked but not been successful in breaking through. We'll assume you're already going after low-hanging fruit accounts where execs have existing relationships. So we won't count those as part of this exercise. ✅ Work in tandem with a great SDR Pick one of the top SDRs to help. Ideally, this is someone with great leadership potential that you want to promote at some point. ✅ Optional: Give the SDR access to your LinkedIn account This one will make you uncomfortable. You also have the option of creating a separate LinkedIn account as well. But give the SDR autonomy to send approved messages. ✅ Execute the outreach The SDR should do basic account research to find existing initiatives where your solution can add value. Then they need to research the individuals in the C-suite to find podcasts interviews, features, etc. if available. Pick 1-2 similar customers to mention in the message. This should be mentioned in the outreach, along with how you can add value. CTA: Ask for 10 minutes. Send via email and LinkedIn message or InMail. Here's what an example message could look like. --- Eric, Solid Q1, and congrats on the success of Nordy Club sales. Looks like membership growth is a key growth lever. I imagine member retention is a big focus. Our team has had tremendous success helping CVS, BestBuy, and Kohl's run world-class membership programs. Opposed to a quick 10-minute chat to learn more? Jason ✅ Run intro call These will likely go longer than 10 minutes. And the CEO will send you over to someone else in the C-suite. Run a solid intro call and make an offer to introduce key team members on your side. ~~~ The email/LI message should have all of the components of a great cold email: research, problem, social proof, and CTA. But the big difference is leveraging a c-suite title to get a meeting in the c-suite. I wish more CROs and execs in companies would leverage this approach. Agree or disagree? #sales #outbound

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"This AE sold $1M at Salesforce so can sell $1M for us." Far too many sales leaders buy into this fallacy. Speaking from personal experience, here's why that fails. I hit my $1M quota as an AE at Salesforce - I've also been AE#1 at another startup - I was also my own AE #1 at my own startup - And I didn't come anywhere close to $1M in either Why not? Mature sales teams have: - Their ICP clearly defined - Their Buyer Personas outlined - Relevant messaging for each of them - Inbound and/or Outbound lead gen working - Leads converting to real pipeline and revenue - A bottoms up plan to achieve their revenue target - Carefully designed territories, targets and commissions In other words, salespeople are setup for success - They need to execute a playbook that is working already Inefficient sales teams have: - A vague idea of their ICP/Personas - Generic messaging that resonates with no one - A large number of "leads" that are not converting - Stale pipeline that isn't progressing or closing out - A lack of any real sales methodology or sales process - A sales culture built around hero, lone-wolf, salespeople - And/or they simply have none of this in place yet In other words, new salespeople have to figure it out from scratch - They're not executing a playbook - They're inventing the playbook themselves - On larger teams this means everyone has their own playbook When I did this, everything took 10X the time and effort. - I spent a LOT of time calling the wrong companies - I spent a LOT of time calling the wrong contacts - I spent a LOT of time creating my own assets - I spent a LOT of time on prospecting lists - I tried a lot of the wrong messaging If we had just one good RevOps Person, I could have: - Spent much more time calling the right people - Leveraged RevOps to analyze what messaging works - Saved time implementing Salesforce and uploading data - Worked twice as efficiently & effectively every single day - Brought in revenue faster to fund investments into marketing - Let someone else focus on analyzing what works in aggregate - So I could focus on what works in each step of my own process - And the whole revenue team could get better much much faster ✌️

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Signs of a world-class sales org: Reps multi-thread the sh*t out of their deals Want some stats that'll blow your mind + double your win rate (literally)? Have your Ops team pull win rates based on: ✅ Avg # of attendees to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd sales calls Gong data is pretty conclusive on this one. Closed/won deals have twice as many participants in 1st and 2nd calls as closed/won deals. You'll probably find a similar pattern. Action: Get more proactive in adding participants to 2nd and 3rd+ calls ✅ When specific personas are on calls Example: You might spot that early engagement from a particular role or persona leads to better win rates. For example, you sell a security solution. But you don't involve SecOps unless the buying group recommends it. But win rates are higher every time you involve them early. Action: Sell the story on why that particular persona should be involved—how does the buyer get a better outcome? ✅ When more of your team is invited to calls Example: You might spot that when you engage a similar persona on your side, those deals have better win rates. Like inviting an HR leader from your side if you sell to HR. Action: Get better at looping in your internal team ✅ Win rates based on when SEs join calls Example: You might find that engaging an SE earlier in your deals leads to a higher win rate. This one BLEW my mind. Very counterintuitive. Buyers love speaking with someone who really educates them. Action: Bring SEs in earlier/later based on what the data shows you ✅ % of single-threaded deals Pull patterns between the % of single-threaded deals and win rates. I bet you'll find low win rates on reps who are more single-threaded. Action: Prioritize enablement for reps who find themselves single-threaded ✅ % of deals with access to power Pull patterns between win rates and engagement with a VP+ stakeholder. Action: Help those specific reps get access to power quicker in their deals ~~~ This is the granularity that's needed to multi-thread better. Get specific with your sales motion and look at win rate correlation and stakeholder involvement. Nail down: - Who should be involved - When they should get involved - When to bring in internal resources Then run your deals based on that data.

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Steven Bryerton, SVP of Sales at ZoomInfo, shared this cold-calling tip 👇 You need to come with a strong hypothesis on what you think the prospect is focused on. I call this a reverse pitch. Instead of pitching your solution within 60 seconds of meeting someone, you pitch the problem. What you hear every single one of their peers working on. This sounds like: "In a few recent conversations with Logistics leaders at companies like A & B, we're seeing a theme around two challenges: 1) Reliable Capacity. Securing affordable capacity in an uncertain marketplace to stay under our transportation budget. 2) Visibility. Get better freight visibility in transit to improve predictability and overall customer experience." You can layer in more relevance based on your research. But those are the nuts & bolts of a great reverse pitch. ⛔️ What to do if none of this resonates with your prospect This is where Steven's tip comes into play. Don't make a big deal about it. Keep moving. This sounds like: "That's interesting, Steven. That's all the logistics leaders are sharing in the last three conversations I've had. What's #1 or #2 for you?" ~~~ Make your best educated guess. Show you did your homework. That will activate the law of reciprocity to work in your favor. Put in the work and, even if you're wrong, the prospect will put in the work to correct you.

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To all SDRs or anyone entering B2B sales, read this post to avoid falling into common traps. 1. The most successful AEs I have met were the best SDRs. 2. SDRs who didn’t excel in the role and are now AEs are still struggling to generate their own pipeline. 3. AEs who skipped the SDR role, often due to an MBA or strong interview skills, fear switching jobs and roles without inbound leads. They’ve never faced the grind of building a pipeline from scratch, filled with rejections. 4. AEs who have never been an SDR majorly rely on their SDRs or Inbound leads from marketing to help them build pipeline and if any Quarter they don't get inbound or enough meetings from SDRs they sh** in their pants. 5. When these AEs become managers, they often question their team—"Where are the numbers?" or "Why isn’t there a pipeline?"—instead of guiding them on building it. Lacking experience in pipeline generation, they fail to lead by example and eventually lose the respect of their team. Learn the art and science of being an SDR and excel at this job at any cost, you will never have to look back or depend on anyone for pipeline EVER. Prospecting and Generating Pipelines is fundamental to Sales whether you are an SDR, AE, Sr Manager, or VP if you don't know how to do OUTBOUND you will continuously live a sales life of fear and anxiety. So SDRs ask yourselves do you want to be such AE and Managers in the future who depend on others to determine their performance and faith or would you like to own your job? #sales #prospecting #outbound #pipeline #sdr #ae #b2b #saas

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You can't scale a sales team without this. A document that tells reps exactly how to create new opportunities, run demos, and close new customers. Call it a script, playbook, or whatever you want to call it. Your team needs one. I put off creating playbook for too long. It felt like busy-work. Empty calories. Something that you do to pretend that you are being productive. Salespeople should be selling, not documenting their processes. Similarly, sales leadership should be leading and coaching, not writing things down. Right? Wrong. The naive and inexperienced version of me thought that hiring good people was enough. I felt like if I could just get the right salespeople on my team, then they will figure out how to sell and the revenue will go up. So I ran an intense interview process and sought out the best sales talent that I could find. After failing to onboard a few hires that should have been all-star salespeople, I realized that I was the problem. Or rather, my lack of a documented sales process was the problem. New sales hires were learning on the fly, which slowed their progress and made it harder to make money. I wasn’t doing enough to show them how to be successful in their role. Then one day while I was sitting on the sales floor, I heard something that made the hair stand up on my neck. Three different sales demos happening at the same time from three different reps. Each salesperson was using a different version of our sales deck. Each salesperson had a different way of explaining who we are and what we do. Each salesperson had a different method of ending the demo and setting clear next steps. And these were three of our tenured, successful reps! How could we possibly scale a sales team with such a mix of sales execution?! I decided to make a change. I rushed back into my office and started a word document: “How to Run A Demo”. This document outlined the exact steps for running a Levelset demo, in excruciating detail. I was done assuming that salespeople would know how to do things the right way. Leave nothing to chance. If they know, they will do it well. If they don’t know, then at least I have it written down. I included things like: - how to set up your zoom so your video stream looks professional - the ideal structure for a product demo - email templates to make sure your prospect shows up to the demo - what questions to ask your prospect to kick off the demo - key objections and how to overcome them - how to use the sales deck to drive conversation - how to set clear next steps For most experienced reps, it was too detailed but it reminded them of the fundamentals of generating new business. For new reps, it was like I gave them a magical compass. It was a blueprint for success. You can do the same for your team. Start with one page. It will grow into something that you can use for every new person on your team.

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SDRs - struggling for the best way to improve? Here are 5 ways I did it FAST: 1) Imitate the best: Find the top reps in your company for specific things. One for processes, prospecting, cold calling, cold emailing, social selling, objection handling - you get the idea. They clearly have a process that works so utilise it. 2) LinkedIn: There are lots of good (and bad) sales content creators out there, the likes of: Kyle Asay Brian LaManna Salman Mohiuddin Chris Orlob, Chris Ritson and Mike Gallardo are my go-to people to name but a few. Find a handful of creators you like and soak up their content and if you can, check out their paid stuff. This will speed up your development and allow you to skip mistakes. 3) Actively Seek feedback: Don't just wait for your call/deal/forecast review for feedback, chase your managers and actively set up extra sessions to go over weak areas. What's going to bother them more, you asking for help? Or you missing your number? 4) Meet with other teams: Struggling to understand persona pains? Meet with your ICP at your company. Need help on use cases? Chat to a CSM. Product knowledge? Meet with your SE. If there's an area you're finding difficult there are likely multiple people to lean on at your company to help you, so use them. 5) Help others around you: You only really know something if you can teach it so if a new joiner/teammate is struggling with something you're good at, help them out. Sales Karma is a real thing. BONUS) Take what's useful and discard what's not - Bruce Lee: Not everything you learn will be useful, so correctly filtering the bad and applying the good will allow you to make steady and consistent progress over the days, weeks, months and years. Anything you'd add?

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Here is the real impact that value selling is having for revenue teams: Tom Pisello David Yockelson 🔑48% improvement in winrate 🔑35% increase in deal size 🔑25% reduction in sales cycle time BUT...... ⛔️ only 19% of reps and 19% of pipeline is using value selling today. BIGGGG opportunity here...!

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The 3 main metrics I use to determine a successful day as a seller: 1) Pipeline created 2) Outbound activities 3) Useful meetings held with clients or partners How do you determine a successful day as a seller?

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A good reminder for any AEs and SDRs figuring out how to get in front of that senior leader at your ’must win’ account. To get the interest of executives you need to show them a risk, opportunity or threat to their business they weren’t aware of, And often it’s the people doing the work that can help you formulate that unique perspective.

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Want to get acquired? Know the "try before you buy" M&A strategy. This is what Salesforce (and other big acquirers) do to validate potential M&A deals. Salesforce has backed 300+ companies and acquired 25. 28% of Salesforce’s acquisitions had a prior investment from Salesforce Ventures. On average, the time it took from first investment to M&A was a bit over 3 years. And 36% were built natively on Salesforce or were available on its AppExchange. What does this mean for founders? If you want to get acquired, position a product into your potential acquirer's ecosystem. Build native integrations and capture a relevant amount of their existing users. Develop scalable strategies that provide added value to their users. Remember: Great companies are bought, not sold. i5growth - international growth / i5invest: Investment Fund, global tech M&A arm, team of 100+, offices in San Francisco, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin, Frankfurt; 200+ exits & strategic partnerships with tech leaders such as Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, Naspers, NBC, … #strategy #startups #investing #venturecapital #technology #i5growth #i5invest Source: CB Insights

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10 Best Tools to streamline SDRs Sales Process. 1. Cognism:   ↳ A sales intelligence platform.  ↳ Offers a globally compliant database for company and contact searches.     2. Salesforce:   ↳ The CRM giant provides a suite of tools that ↳ Analyze sales data.  ↳ Manage the Sales pipeline.  ↳ Track customer interactions. 3. Outreach:   ↳ A sales engagement platform that helps SDRs to   ↳ Automate and prioritize their sales activities.    4. Chili Piper:   ↳An automated scheduling tool that helps SDRs   ↳Book meetings without the back-and-forth emails.    5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator:   ↳ A tool that uses LinkedIn’s vast network to help SDRs   ↳ Find and connect with potential leads.    6. Aircall:   ↳ A cloud-based call center and phone system that integrates with productivity and helpdesk tools.    7. Hunter:   ↳ It helps find verified email addresses quickly.    8. RocketReach:   ↳ Connect with prospects through emails and direct dials.  ↳ Boast a large and accurate database.    9. Snov.io:   ↳ Offers a free email verification tool to help SDRs   ↳ Spend less time finding leads and more on converting them.    10. HubSpot:   ↳ A top-level CRM that ↳ Connects data between teams and departments.  ↳ Offer various hubs for marketing, sales, and operations. Remember, These tools can help SDRs to be more efficient in their roles by  ↳ Providing valuable insights.  ↳ Automating repetitive tasks.  ↳ Facilitating better communication with prospects.  It’s important for SDRs to choose tools that integrate well with their existing tech stack and align with their sales strategies. P.S. Which Tool do you like the most and why? 🔔 Follow Zain Arif for Daily Sales Tips 📌 Book a 30 Minutes Sales Consultation with Munzai Solutions! Link in the Comment below 👇 #Sales #SalesTools #SDRs  

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The future of outbound is not: ⛔️ Turning SDRs into "influencers" or "thought leaders" ⛔️ AI written cold emails ⛔️ Any single channel being dead (phone, email, or social) ⛔️ AEs relying on marketing & SDRs to hit their number The future of outbound is: ✅ Making the SDR role less "smile & dial" and more strategic Sales teams will spend more time teaching SDRs about the personas they're prospecting to. What they care about. What their day-to-day looks like. The business problems their solution solves. There will always be a need for proactively reaching out to prospects. Let's not pretend that SDRs are going to be thought leaders who generate a ton of inbound interest for their sales org. ✅ AI will be an "extra set of hands" vs. an "extra brain" AI has nowhere near the ability to do the thinking for the rep. But it's very fast at compiling data points you'd otherwise gather manually. AI will: - Gather accurate contact data from multiple data sources - Gather relevant triggers for you - Suggest stakeholders to reach out to - Tee you up with talking points - Help you prioritize the best accounts ✅ Outbound will always be multi-channel The hardest part about prospecting through phone & email is all the noise you're competing with. Email volume is at an all-time high. Cold call pick-up rates are at an all-time low. Relevance & great timing will always be the answer to punching through. The future of outbound isn't reliant on any one channel in particular. But on the ability of a rep to prioritize accounts most likely to engage, find relevant triggers, and engage with creative messaging. AI will be a big help in this area. ~~~ Agree or disagree with my takes? I'm talking all about this and more in my coffee chat with Salesforce on Tues 6/18 @ 1pm ET. Topic: How to make outbound work for you in 2024. Register here to join us in the Slack channel: https://sforce.co/June18CC hashtag #sales #outbound

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Good SDR leaders help their SDRs understand how many calls they need to hit quota. Great SDR leaders enable their SDRs to hit quota with the least amount of calls possible.

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