kelsey calabro

Cold call phraseology the lowers the zone of resistance: “We’ve never met but…” “I know you weren’t expecting my call but” “I know you’re probably in the middle of something but” “I know I’m interrupting but…” “Full transparency, this is a cold call, but” “You don’t know me. I’m a complete stranger.” These phrases lower resistance because they validate the prospect’s feelings and expectations. They create a sense of psychological safety. Each one uses “preemptive empathy.” The caller knows the prospect might feel annoyed or defensive and acknowledges it first. This approach aligns with what the prospect is already thinking. When the caller openly says, “This is unexpected,” or, “I’m interrupting,” it makes the prospect feel understood and respected. This little bit of validation can trigger a subtle “Alright, I’ll listen for a second” response. By addressing resistance head-on, the caller lowers the prospect’s guard. Being straightforward, transparent and respectful creates a momentary opening.

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Converting your AEs to start sourcing a majority of their own pipeline might not be such a good idea and here’s why: Typically this transition fails for three main reasons: 1) The pipe gen goal that’s assigned is completely made up and is based on the financial model and not relevant sales data 2) You don’t have the right resources in place including an airtight ICP, deep understanding of your persona, the right messaging or tech stack  3) Typically exec or senior level leaders are disconnected from the realities of how difficult cold outreach really is and don’t give the campaign enough time to be successful Here’s what you can do to give yourself a better chance at success: 1) Pick a few key data points to track (such as number of accounts worked, positive contacts, opportunities created, pipeline generated, closed won $$$s) and benchmark these over a period of time that makes sense for your sales cycle. Use this data set to understand what is or isn’t working and make adjustments from there. 2) Start with a small campaign to select accounts within your ICP using targeted messaging and an intriguing offer 3) Cold outreach is a team sport, get your execs and senior leaders involved by having them look through your target account list and see if there are any doors they can open from their network 4) Have some fun while doing it, celebrate the wins along the way! What do you think?

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Want to sell with me?  I'm hiring for a Founding AE at 30 Minutes to President's Club. If interested, read on.... We’ve spent the last 5 years at 30MPC building a massive & loyal audience of hundreds of thousands of sellers who've used 30MPC content to learn how to sell, uplevel in their careers and (yes!) make it to President's Club! We've recently launched our Club Pass training program for sales teams and we're looking for a Founding Account Executive to help us sell and scale it! 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝟯𝟬𝗠𝗣𝗖? 1. You’ll learn from 2 of the best sellers out there. If there was any place to master your craft in sales, 30MPC is it. 2. You’ll learn what it's like to build and grow a non-VC backed company from $2M (where we are today) to $5M in ARR. If you’re considering starting your own business in the future, you’ll learn step-by-step how we’re doing that. 3. We sell in a way that’s fun and doesn’t feel like traditional selling. Selling is hard, but it doesn’t have to feel defeating. I promise: You will have more fun selling and develop more as a professional working with 30MPC than anywhere else in your sales career. Interested? Check the job posting on my profile (details on how to apply are listed in the posting) 

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We probably won't agree on this point... I believe that in-office sales teams are more effective than remote sales teams. Especially for high-velocity sales with an ACV < $20,000. I know there are many examples of successful remote sales teams. But these are the exception to the rule. There is no substitute for getting a group of sellers together in the same room every day to work toward growing the business. The learning and development cycles are so much faster when you are in-person. Every person on the team is sitting right across the room from their manager or the executive sales leader. Maybe even the CEO is in the room. The energy is electric on the sales floor. You can feel the sales velocity dripping from the walls. It's impossible to re-create this environment when you are working from from your couch (err "home office"). When you couple this kind of atmosphere with a strong coaching culture and a performance-driven leader? That's when the magic happens. _____ I used run a 70+ person revenue team using one report. I call it the One Page Sales Overview. You can get it for free right here: https://lnkd.in/g8EuVeXF

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If you’re in sales, chances are you’ve experienced change: Stuff like: A comp plan change. A territory change that takes away your best accounts. It feels like a gut punch. All your work, your planning, your momentum—gone. You think: “This is so unfair!” “Woe is me.” You get angry, frustrated and depressed. You carry the resentment around for weeks, months or even years. Here’s a different way to look at it: What if this is a test? A test of resilience and adaptability. Stoics teach us that setbacks aren’t punishments. They’re here to toughen us up. When you experience “setbacks”, try framing them differently. Shift your perspective. There are always multiple lenses to view things from. Maybe your manager had to make tough calls to balance things for the team. Maybe it was a call from the top. There’s always more to the story. The switch? Setback -> Stepping stones. Remember: Events (territory change) aren’t a choice. Frames (setbacks our stepping stone) are.

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Your Founding AE Will Make or Break Your Business—Ignoring Their Product-Market Fit Feedback? That’s a Fast Track to Failure Hiring a founding AE isn’t just about “filling a role”—it’s a high-stakes decision that can make or break your company. Think of them as your lifeline to the market. They’re not just selling; they’re the ones gathering real-time feedback on your Product-Market Fit (PMF), and ignoring their insights is like throwing away a roadmap to success. Here’s why their feedback isn’t optional—it’s critical: - They Know the Brutal Truth About Your Product - They’ll Define Success, Whether You Like It or Not - Scaling Without Their Insights? Good Luck - Competitive Intelligence You Can’t Afford to Ignore - Their Wins Validate Your Business Model The Harsh Truth: Ignoring Your Founding AE Is Self-Sabotage Your founding AE isn’t “just” a salesperson; they’re your closest connection to the market. Ignoring their insights on PMF is actively sabotaging your potential. Let their feedback guide you—it could be the difference between sustainable growth and an expensive lesson in what not to do.

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Ashi from Gong is fast (😮‍💨10k) But not as fast as Gong Engage users when they use Lavender. Access to your Gong calls in our personalization assistant ✅ Access to our coach & "Ashi fast" personalization in Gong ✅ Better 🤝 Faster 3.0 (and so much more) coming soon

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Hot Take: Hating on Signal-led and outbound means you don't get either or don't understand how to build it. We are having the best pipeline month in company history and about to beat our best quarter after going signal led(Q2 '24 results to follow). How did we do it = Stacking Signals!! The key to success here is that each signal is not a solution, you need to stack them together and triage them to get your best strike zone. Here is the list of signal's I captured manually. An OKR for me this quarter is to add more to my repository of signals and I plan on doing this by integrating all these signals into Common Room and further track their activity for unique trigger and conversion events. In an ideal world I plan on "Big Brothering" my leads/signals to see if they become hotter over time and convert. These are some of the signals we are working with currently and you can find the resources of signals from Common Room in some of the links i'll share. 1) CRM signals: Lookalike customers and prospects in your deal committed stage. 2) Social Signals: Community engagement, Dark social conversations. 3) Website Visitors: De-anonymized 4) Product Signals: Sign-up's, lookalike sign-ups and sign-ups engaging with competitors. What's fascinating is that these signal produced leads are converting to qualified opportunities and closed won 37% faster. These are also outperforming our inbound demo's and hand raisers. This is the current workflow and how as a PLG org, stacking the above signals and doing a bit of manual work is a must. I'll stress again - all these signal's without the right enablement and sales talent will fall short. Enter Debdutta Saha 🧘‍♂️ - This is how Deb stack's our signals and build's glorious qualified pipeline. Step 1: Deb tracks all sign-ups on our Tablea dashboard and looks for unique sign-ups. Aka has somebody hit room limits or has somebody invited other internally to sign-up. These events increase the score and turns the sign-up into a signal. Step2: We check de-anonamization took to check visitors on our site and validate who to reach out to. 40% activation failures exist in PLG and this signal combined with the above shows us sign-ups that might be in market and actively evaluating. Step3: Then we look for unique trigger signal to get a better sense of the org - aka do they have open headcount, are they hiring for roles that are end users of my product. Here is a repository of signal's from Common Room that you can use https://lnkd.in/gSC6Px-9 Step4: We prospect and talk to all ic's to learn what could be ATL messaging for the leaders that will help us convert an account to an opportunity. The above is just 1 of many play's we run. The hypothesis is that by integrating all my signals and product data into Common Room, i'll be surfaced more wins to go after. I'll share Q2 results soon - playbook in comments. #sales #khantent #management

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SDRs - A great boss can actually change your life 🙏🏾 4 things leaders shouldn't want to hear from their SDRs: 1. ''Sorry -- I missed lunch so I'm eating it now on the call'' 2. ''Can I take some last-minute leave for a family emergency?'' 3. ''Sorry I'm late, I was at the doctor's this morning'' 4. ''Can I work from home today, I'm not feeling good'' Why? Because SDRs aren't 5 years old. They're fully grown adults. They don't need to give you a play-by-play every 2 minutes. SDRs deserve to be trusted more... If we all did that, the SDR world would be a much better place. Do you agree? PS. ♻️ Every SDR should see this. Reshare to your network. Follow me, Chris Ritson for more on SDR Leadership. If you’re serious about being a better SDR leader, consider my bootcamp that starts 28th October. DM for deets.

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You're thinking about renewals wrong. 66% of your renewals will be decided when you’re not in the room. Want higher NRR? Here’s the non-obvious CS strategy that's key to SaaS renewal: Hold customers accountable! In our current economy, customer acquisition is harder than ever. Every board of directors is obsessed with net recurring revenue (NRR). And they should be. After all, close rates are down (18%) and so are deal values (21%). There is no easier source of revenue than an existing customer. And nothing more painful than losing a customer, when all of the time, effort, and expense of building the relationship goes to waste. So of course we invest in the process. We hold our weekly meetings. We educate our champions. We have quarterly QBRs. We find success stories. But too often, we’re talking to one part of the organization. And we lose visibility to what happens when we aren’t in the room, when our champion needs to roll out or deliver using our stuff. It’s hard to see around corners in companies. A simple question suddenly gets hard to answer: Did they train the users they said they would? Did they share out the data or results? Did they get the feedback needed to tune the offering? When I worked at Ariba, which went from $0 to a $4B IPO in 4 years, we had a saying: Success has 3 ingredients: your people, your process, and our software. In other words, 66% of success depends on the customer. If they don’t do their part, they won’t get the value they bought from you. That’s a problem for them. But also a problem for you, because that’s a customer who won’t renew. Why should they, when the value didn’t happen, whoever’s “fault” it was? You need to flip the script. Accountability means asking the hard questions. Was the data delivered? Was it understood? When is the feedback coming? If the answers weren’t there, escalate to the economic buyer. They are at risk of not getting the value they bought. That should be a red flag for them and us. Are they still committed to the project? How do we get back on track? With all of our weekly tactics, we often lose sight of the most important question of all. Why did the customer buy in the first place? If the customer didn’t do what they said they would, that's bad news. And it’s 100% our fault. Want the renewal? Hold customers accountable.

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I’ve helped 12+ AEs and SDRs transition into SE/SC roles. There’s no doubt that you can earn a lot as an AE. AEs can make $1,000,000+ in a good year - a very lucrative career path. But the reality is most AEs don’t get there. It takes an exceptional AE to earn consistently at high levels, year in and year out. (I personally would be a terrible AE 😅) A big reason why folks pivot to Sales Engineering is because the earning potential is solid and much more consistent. That’s what the data in the image shows: 36% avg quota attainment for AEs vs... 74% for SE from this same company, with similar OTE’s As an SE, you don’t always have the extreme upside* that your AE counterpart will, but your income is more stable. (*there are some companies that pay SEs similar to AEs, with SEs able to clear $1M+ in a great year, though this is more of the exception than the rule) As an SE, there’s also less pressure to hit quota, quarter after quarter. The roles are different, with different responsibilities and varying degrees of risk (and upside). Both paths can provide tremendous opportunities depending on your strengths and the type of work you enjoy. Hope this provides some perspective for those who are considering SE or AE career paths. #sales #presales #compensation (source: RepVue)

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I get it—closing deals is exciting. No one likes to close deals more than I do. You hit your quota, ring the bell, everyone claps. But here’s the thing: It's a marathon, not a sprint. If all you care about is closing, you’re setting yourself up for long term failure. 💼 Being successful in SaaS sales (any sales for that matter) is about how well you solve problems. If you’re pushing for a close before understanding what your customer really needs, you’re basically just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks. I've been working with client looking to figure out why their churn rate is skyrocketing. Not to be a spoiler, but it turns out that they are much more interested in closing a deal than they are in helping their clients solve a real problem. Churn = slow, painful death. Here’s what I had to tell them—and what I tell every sales rep who thinks closing deals is the end-all-be-all: 1. Listen More Than You Talk - You've got 2-ears and 1-mouth for a reason - I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen salespeople talk themselves out of a deal. Just shut up and listen. They’ll give you the answers to the test. Your job isn’t to rattle off features or recite your product demo—it’s to identify the pain points and offer a solution. For my client, this was a game changer. Once they started actually listening to their customers, they could tailor their approach and make the sale a lot more smoothly. This also makes customer retention easier too. 2. Qualify Hard, Disqualify Harder Alex Cramer is the best at this. Not everyone is a fit for your product. The reality is, if you’re pushing deals through just to hit your numbers, you’re going to end up with customers who churn faster than you can onboard them. Churn = slow, painful death. (I should put it on a t-shirt) I worked with this client to focus on the ones who are a great fit. Let's get the "ideal" back in ICP. It’s always better to lose a deal upfront than deal with a churn nightmare down the road. 3. Deliver Value at Every Stage, Not Just at the Proposal So many sales teams act like the only point of the sales process that matters is the proposal stage. This couldn't be more off base. If you’re not delivering value at every touchpoint, you’re basically just throwing in the towel early. The sales team at this client raced to get proposals out the door, but were like robots during the overall sales process. We changed that. We focused on delivering value at every conversation. To be curious and empathetic. Not surprisingly, the deals started closing faster, and the churn rate? Down. Win. Bottom line: If you’re laser-focused on closing without solving, you’re setting yourself up for short-term wins but long-term headaches. SaaS success isn’t about closing—it’s about solving real problems and building lasting relationships. So what’s your secret to shifting from “salesperson” to “problem-solver”? Drop your best tips below! 🛠️👇

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14 meetings, 9 opportunities, 4 closed/won deals, all in less than 60 days, all from one hour of prospecting. How'd we do it? This is a play I created at ON24 that I call our Executive Power Hour. A team of 8 or so pulled in our CRO and another senior leader for an hour meeting. Each person brought two accounts they were targeting, we all had LinkedIn and Sales Nav pulled up. "I'm trying to crack Komodo Health...who do we know?" We weren't looking for who knows who - that's table stakes with Nav and if you have TeamLinkExtend enabled. (<---don't sleep on this insanely impactful feature of Sales Nav). We were looking for who knows someone who knows someone. We were looking for the, "I don't know anyone but my neighbor is connected with their CMO and it looks like they worked at UHG together for seven years, I'm on it." Your executives' networks are brimming with senior level people who also know senior level people. And execs are more likely to say yes when other execs make the ask. In one hour of teamwork, we put referrals and relationship selling to the test, and it stands to be one of the easiest ways to source meetings. We not only found camaraderie and motivation through these wins, but we increased speed to lead and speed to trust by coming in through trusted sources. Bonus? It gave that team great exposure to senior leadership that they didn't ordinarily get. Double bonus? You can create a killer monthly or quarterly SPIF around this, complete with leaderboards and prizes. The full playbook for this move is available in our prospecting playbook, along with nearly fifty pages of education and plays that will set your bookings on fire, but will also teach you how to use Sales Navigator to sell exactly like I do. https://lnkd.in/g4kSRRVe #samsales

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Huge blindspot for early stage CEOs When they hire their first salesperson: ❌ Thinking that person will build their playbook Whether it's a SDR or AE. It won't happen. Setting meetings with and selling to your prospects is NOT the same. Building a repeatable, scalable playbook is a very different skillset.

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Don’t get hung up on a buyer’s “budget.” You don’t know what it is, and can’t do much about it. The other reality is, purchasing decisions are often not based on budget at all, but urgency…i.e. “Get this product now, or else…!” Think about Zoom, Slack, Guru, etc. A lot of companies “didn’t have a budget” for such seemingly frivolous tools until the pandemic necessitated their use. Suddenly, money appeared. Actually, it was always there, but put towards more urgent things. Decision-making requires prioritization. A budget is a snapshot in time, not a life sentence. The phrase "we don't have a budget" often translates to "this isn't important at the moment." While you don't want to try and fit a square peg into a round hole, our job is to shift the conversation and demonstrate how your product or service addresses a more urgent need. If you accomplish the above, the money can always be found.

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Opinion: every AE should be sending this note out prior to a discovery call - most miss this Let’s say you’ve got a call on the books with a Director of Marketing and they’ve decided to bring a couple more folks including their Sr Dir CX and head of IT. Take 30-sec and send those folks a quick note a few days before the discovery. It could sound as simple as this: “Hi Devon - see that you’ll be joining Linda and I on our call this Thursday @ 2. Looking forward to it. So I can make the most out of your valuable time, what would be 2 areas you’re looking to level up as it relates to driving a better experience for your customers on digital channels? P.S. read your post last week on the new product Z launch. Exciting times! ………………………….. Uncover what’s top of mind before you even speak with them. Multithread early and often in your deal cycles. Come in warm on your discovery calls. It’ll help guide the conversation. P.S. the SDR could also send this note out prior to the discovery pretty good intel to share with the AE you’ve booked the call for

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Is your team not hitting quota? Hiring more sellers won't fix it. You need the data on why, And a solution in place. Maybe you can't figure out the right hires -You need to test for - Will, Beliefs, and Skill Maybe people don't know what to do -You then need to create the right onboarding process Maybe folks are struggling with how to do it -You then need to figure out exactly where and focus there Maybe, just maybe, you have the wrong quota -Have you done the backward quota math to see if quota = your systems? Fact is: Tossing more people into bad systems doesn't work Sales = systems. Not just something you can "throw headcount at." Remember, a single bad hire pays for the investment in ALL systems A bad hire costs that much. Use data to figure out the real problem. Fix the problem. /end rant David out ✌️ 🚨 PS - If you want killer cheat sheets on quota math, process audit, or questions for better hiring, drop a note in chat and I'll send them to you. 👋 If you liked this, give me a follow ♻️ Repost if this landed with you.

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Best way to achieve target is to focus on clients with a genuine problem you can solve. Filtering out people who will not buy is crucial to build a realistic and achievable pipeline!

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How can RevOps be more strategic? How can we drive more revenue with less resources? Right now, coming off "Growth at All Costs" we're all strained for budget and resources. Meanwhile, it's harder than ever to land and expand customers. What can we do as revenue and operations leaders to better utilize what we have, to build more efficient Revenue Engines? My team and I have spent years thinking about this. Here's a preview. 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱 2. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝟯. 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲: 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Where do we start? On 𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝘀𝘁, I'm joining Ben Murray to dive into this. In this webinar, we’ll introduce the: -> 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝘆𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗱, a proprietary model designed to measure your company’s operational maturity and identify the most critical bottlenecks hindering growth. We’ll also show you how to: -> Prioritize projects and align your teams towards large strategic goals using a 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗮𝗽. And we'll dive even deeper into a tangible example: -> How to conduct 𝗣𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀, a process used to spot issues in the sales process and reinforce optimal pipeline management. Register here: https://lnkd.in/e3qqMEaf ✌️

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