Laurence Langstone

AE’s - you must consistently train your SDR’s… If you want them to produce great leads consistently. ————- As an AE it’s your job to onboard any SDR’s you work with. This includes: Reading them into existing oppty’s you are working. Training them on your territory What prospects are responding to What messaging to avoid Biggest problems we are solving for existing customers Who your existing customers are in your territory A plan of attack with names of specific prospects and ideas on how to reach them Bonus: do call/prospecting blitzs with them. ———- Most SDR’s aspire to be in your position one day soon. Help them. It’s a win-win If you put more time into helping your SDR’s the quality of leads you get will be worth it. ——- Also, (unpopular opinion) AE’s should be doing their own lead gen on top of this. #InTheArena

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An AE on my team closed 25+ deals last month. 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: Some of this stuff sounds easy but I actually find it quite rare to see someone do these things consistently. 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗶𝘁: 1. Salesforce is up to date. I know this is every seller's worst nightmare but every top AE is highly organized and detailed when it comes to their pipeline. - Stage is correct - Close date is correct - Detailed notes on the account - Next step is future orientated w/ a date 2. Fights for every deal. At Deel we get both small and large customers in SMB and deal sizes can vary significantly. To him, size doesn't matter. He goes after every account with everything he has and gives a world class experience no matter what. Interestingly, a lot of the smaller deals turn out to be bigger than anticipated or make referrals to larger companies. 3. Is a sales professional. Shows up to every call prepared and dressed professionally. I think this is actually an underrated strategy in all-remote selling. Easy to dress casually (sweatshirt and hat) but if you're looking to close 100k+ deals the small things like this matter a lot imo. People can be judge mental and old school so you have to cover all your bases. 4. Differentiates like a pro. He's super well studied on and articulate with how we communicates about: 1. Our customers top priorities 2. How we solve those priorities 3. How our solution is different 4. Why those differences matter Discovery call: He learns their top priority and the associated challenges. Spends time explaining how we would solve it and how our solution is different from others in the market. Teases the solution to build interest for a longer demo. Demo: Starts with a slide deck focused on what he heard. The demo is focused on what solving their priority would look like. Does not show every single feature. Only the ones that matter. 𝗕𝗼𝗻𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗽: He manages up really well. He asks a lot from his manager and myself. And is not afraid to say what he needs in order to get things done. What tips do you have for closing deals? Let me know in the comments! 👉 Check out my 250+ page course for everything I know about outbound prospecting and selling here: https://lnkd.in/gP_-mVXR

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Multi-threading... A skill that's fast becoming the most critical in a sales reps arsenal. Why? 🤔 The market is tough at the moment. 🤔 Buyers are more budget conscious. 🤔 CFOs are asking teams to reduce spend and cut back on investment. 🤔 Prospects that once had buying power and sign off capability now have to get approval from C-Suite. It sounds like an uphill battle 🏃‍♂️‍➡️⛰️ but the truth is, multi-threading is not as daunting as you might think. ⭐️ Here's some tips that have worked well for me in the last 6 months ⭐️ 🗺 Map out your accounts. Org charts are critical for multi-threading. You need to understand who your prospects are, who they report to, and who holds decision making power. Tip - LinkedIn SalesNav let's you build drag and drop org charts! 🗣️ Check with your your champion. Confirm your org chart is correct. Ask them what the process is for bringing on a new vendor. If they don't know, 🆘 they are not a true champion. 📧 Share content early. Begin introducing yourself to key stakeholders quickly. Tip - Connect on LinkedIn with a short and sweet connection request, something like "Wanted to put a face to a name following some great conversations I've been having with (champion name) re (challenge). I'll send over some content via email shortly. I look forward to hearing your thoughts." 🎺 Make sure your content is personalised, engaging, and stands out. TOP TIP - Using a tool like trumpet 🎺 (digital sales room) is a sure fire way to encourage stakeholder engagement. Upload clear and concise value props, how you can solve their businesses challenges, client case studies and more. Ask these contacts to bookmark the page as you will regular update it with content as the deal progresses. And, track their engagement, so you can meet them in the moment. So far, my prospects have been LOVING it! 📞 Pick up the phone. Once you've connected on LinkedIn and sent content, call prospects to ensure that they have seen it. Ask what questions they have and tell them about next steps. By doing the above, when it comes to negotiation these stakeholders will be informed and aware of the entire process to date, and you and your product will be top of mind 🧠 Tenured AE's in my network (I know there are a lot of you), what do you do to successfully multi-thread? P.S. You can guess what I'll be doing in the office today :😉 #multithreading #sales #digitalsalesrooms #dsr #aestrategies

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SDR Dashboards - what do you want to see? Gimme your top 3 stats/charts/reports you like to see on YOUR dashboard for pipeline gen. There's the obvious activity levels and SQL/SAL volumes but what else do you like to see.....

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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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Some great advice here for those in the Biz Dev world! Let's go!!!

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🗣️Pipeline Development is one of the biggest revenue growth challenges for most companies today 🙂‍↕️ Though only a minority include pipeline generation as part of the sales incentive compensation plan. Every AE can relate … when you’re sitting in the bench because you have little pipe, it’s absolutely miserable … Usually when you’re working on a ton of deals at once, it’s so hard to make and stick to the time to prospect… As a AE, I would have loved pipe gen to be part of my comp plan… Hear me out … keeping your reps motivated is EVERYTHING … so why not motivate them even more by rewarding quality pipeline build…. It’s not rocket science 🧬 You then have reps that are not only motivated to close deals… But also super motivated to build their own pipeline too … How would that work at your business?

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Founders from Foam cold called Target and closed a $130,000 deal They then got a deal on Shark Tank They are true BDR Lifers If this doesn't tell you cold calling and BDR Lifing can work I don't know what will Keep dialing and keep BDRing!! #bdrlifer #bdr #sdr #sales #salesdevelopment

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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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Overcoming sales resistance is crucial because it directly impacts the success rate of sales conversations. By effectively addressing and navigating through customer objections, sales professionals can foster trust, demonstrate understanding, and ultimately guide the customer towards recognizing the value of the solution being offered, leading to increased sales and customer satisfaction. NEPQ probing questions in sales conversations are significant because they shift the focus from pitching to persuading through understanding and emotional connection. This technique leverages human psychology to create genuine relationships with clients, ensuring they feel heard and valued. It's a transformative approach that enhances client connection and potentially increases sales effectiveness. Probing questions allow sales reps to delve deeper into prospects' needs and pain points, fostering a better understanding and connection. This approach helps in tailoring solutions that address specific issues, ultimately facilitating a more effective sales process. Share your thoughts.

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Scaling isn’t about hiring more people. PEOPLE DON’T CREATE DEMAND. Sure, adding headcount looks like growth on paper. But without demand, they’re just added costs—not revenue drivers. Let’s think about this. How many of your reps are consistently hitting quota? Are you maximizing revenue per FTE? What’s happening with activity levels, pipeline health, win rates, and conversion rates? Is there room to optimize? And what about ACV and ARPU? Are you leaving money on the table? Could better automation, smarter AI, or streamlined processes shorten sales cycles? Is your tech stack doing its job, or just adding complexity? (Believe me, it happens). Can smaller customers self-serve via PLG? Is that even a possibility? How are your SDR-to-AE ratios? Is Customer Success stepping in early enough, or just post-sale? Please, please, please: answer those questions before you even think about adding headcount. But scaling isn’t just about zooming into the details. It’s also about stepping back to see the bigger picture. How’s your LTV:CAC ratio? Are your pricing and packaging strategies protecting margins—or eroding them? Is churn under control? How’s NRR? GRR? Are you capitalizing on upsells and cross-sells? Again, how much can you gain before adding costs? Then there’s the market. I know, I know, it's getting longer. But it's critical (and sometimes ignored). Are you nearing saturation? Is there room to grow, or is it time to explore new verticals or product lines? And let’s come back to demand. Really? Really. People don’t create it (yes, I’ve said it before—and spoiler alert—you’ll hear me say it again). Can your inbound-outbound engine scale? Is inbound strong enough to support growth, or are you overly reliant on outbound? Outbound isn’t getting any easier. Without the right balance, more reps just add noise—not results. Are you adding quality behind quantity at the top of the funnel? Is your messaging resonating with ICPs? Are marketing and sales truly aligned to convert intent into revenue? If you’re going upmarket, is your product-market fit proven? Is the whole company ready—not just GTM, but Product, Dev, and Ops? Scaling isn’t about throwing people at the problem. It’s about building a machine that works—and works well. Clear, repeatable processes. A documented, applied enablement strategy. Teams trained and empowered with the right tools and data. And the most important piece of the puzzle: people. They are (by far) your most important asset—but only if they’re set up for success. Diversity, creativity, and motivation within your team is what really drive results. Scaling isn’t just a numbers game; it’s a people game. Are you creating an environment where your team thrives? Beyond the slogan, are you? Fix what’s broken. Optimize what’s working. Empower your people. Then scale. Because scaling isn’t about more—it’s about better.

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Revenue blindness is a condition that a 2/3 people in sales suffer from. When undiagnosed it can lead to... - Constant Peaks and Valleys - Scaling Suck - a 'Just do more' mindset - Hives - Dispair and Misery What is revenue blindess? When all that is looked at in terms of success is the revenue number. If you hit = Things must be good. If you miss = The team/individual/leader suck It's actually far more dangerous on the 'hit' side, and I see it all the time. A rep is hitting their number, but tearing down the culture, but it's allowed because of... Revenue blindess A team of 10 hits the number, but off the back of the manager or or 1 top rep, so the decision is made to scale to 30 even tho they have nothing proven in place... Revenue blindess It works the other way too. A team is hitting their marks, hitting the activity, working the deals, using strong messaging, and yet miss the number, because the number was unhittable. The number doesn't get changed, the people do. Revenue blindess. A rep IS crushing their number, but because of that they don't get the recognition, attention and support they want/need because well.. they are hitting the number Revenue blindess I talk about this with my leaders all the time, we can't fall into revenue blindness. We have to stay below the number to drive results. Behaviors. Issue Diagnosis/Inspection. Process. Skills. You - This is where BIPSY comes in. We have seen some amazing results over the last 6 months. We're talking some 2-3x type results. BUT We stay obsessed over what's causing them, not just the end result. This is the key. Revenue blindness is curable. If you know someone that suffers from revenue blindness ... Send them to the Sales Leadership Accelerator - it will take time.. but we can save them. https://lnkd.in/ejPDhZw4

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Half the outbound prospecting tips I see on LI are RevOps tips in disguise. Things salespeople had to do to hit quota that RevOps should have, but didn't, do for them. Here are just two examples. 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 There's no bigger waste of time than calling suboptimal prospects outside of your ICP and Personas. The first step here is a data science exercise. You take your ICP and Personas definition and run it against all available internal and external data. Then you map out the capacity of each rep to determine how many accounts they can handle. How long does it take to complete each step in the sales process? How many accounts can they do that with before they run out of time and skip steps? Then you take that number of accounts and use your data to identify the absolute best accounts for each rep. Does any of this sound like a "sales activity?" Is this really what you hired expensive salespeople to do? To fumble through something RevOps could do 10X better and 10X faster? 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 What salespeople should be doing is research on that carefully curated list of accounts and contacts. RevOps can give them a BIG headstart by aggregating data into a single place so that they can quickly see things like: - Contact Info - Website URL - LinkedIn URL - Firmographic Metrics - Technographic Metrics - Marketing Engagement - External Intent Signals As an AE, I spent 30% - 70% of my time on all this stuff. As AE #1 in a small startup this took up most of my time, as I had to start from zero. But even at Salesforce, working inside their well-oiled machine, I still had to do a lot of this on my own. Most companies will give reps thousands of accounts when they can only handle a couple hundred or so and expect them to do the data science instead of spending their time actually selling. Don't waste money on AEs. Set them up to use their time more effectively. If you want to read more, we wrote up an article on this a while back in 📰 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 https://bit.ly/43lFOxQ ✌️

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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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SDRs and AEs are sending way too many emails these days. All you need is 4. 𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Jill, looks like your team’s growing quickly. How’re you planning SKO for all your new AEs? We help sales leaders pick everything from destination, flights, meals and events. Simply put in your team size and budget and we’ll give you all your options in seconds. Curious to learn how? 𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Here's a quick video showing how you can plan SKO (flights, meals and events) in less than a minute: [insert video] ♻️ And then repeat that (a week later) with a new pain point That's it. 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆: Don't send break up emails. Those get marked as SPAM. What cold email tips do you have? - Mike G 👉 Join 7,000+ sellers getting my (free) sales newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/gwQVvVBK

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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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Sales teams are getting smaller. If your an AE this can be a good thing for YOU personally. less reps = more opps coming your way = more money (we all know it) This can also be a bad thing if you don't know how to manage your time accordingly. One thing I would do is stop wasting time on tire kickers. Use data to determine the accounts you should spend most of your time on. Here is an example: After I have a first demo with a prospect I share my interactive demo center (built with Tourial) filled with self-guided demos, videos, slides, pdf's, examples basically everything they need to go get other stakeholder buy in for my solution. Before sharing the demo center I create a customer share link so I can easily see how that account is engaging with my resource. Every morning when I start my day I look at all my active opportunities then look at their engagement data in Tourial, Website visits via Warmly, Email opens / clicks via Salesloft, and of course if they've messaged me anything. The Tourial Data is my personal favorite (yes I am biased). Check out these 3 Account's Demo Center engagement data that I looked at this morning. Which Account would you invest more time in to bring to close? Spoiler Alert: I choose Account 3 with the 9 unique visitors checking out my demo center 👀. Happy Hunting Y'all ✌🏽 #sdr #ae #salesleader BONUS: I can also click into these links and see exactly where each visitor is spending their time inside the experience. Basically, which demos and other material they care about most. I use that to send them more nurture material that is similar to what they are already engaging with. *All of this is based on my own personal experience and other sellers who I have taught how to use our tool who have had success. Don't take anything you see on here as a silver bullet for you. Test things out for yourself and see what works best for YOU*

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I’ve spoken to 10 SDRs and AEs over the last month who are struggling with the ups and downs of sales. Here’s the concept I tell them: You need to get really comfortable with the idea of acceptance. It’s not about detaching from the outcome, it’s about detaching your self worth from the outcome. It’s okay to be okay with where you’re at in life (or sales) and not beat yourself up. This can help you let go of what you can’t change so you can start taking action against what you can’t actually control. That’s a formula for being able to start down a path of living and thinking a new life for yourself. Lastly, our current state is a sum of our prior choices, habits and actions. If that’s true, then we can start taking action today towards who we want to be in the future. If you’re in sales, start taking personal inventory today: -Where are you at? -Where can you improve based on data? -What daily actions do you need to take to get there? -What are the things you can’t control that you can let go of now?

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Sales leaders, next time you’re struggling to get reps to update fields in your CRM, ask yourself this question… Is it clear to sellers that following the sales process will improve their performance? The typical approach: ↳Remind sellers why they receive a base salary. ↳Share examples in slack to highlight what “good” looks like. ↳Restrict sellers from advancing deals without proper CRM hygiene. These are all solid, but they fail to address the root problem... Seller requirements are not aligned to business requirements. Business requirements: Forecast business health Innovate new products Grow market share Seller requirements: Achieve quota Improve Win Rate Maintain Healthy Pipeline So how can we bridge the gap? Here's 3 ways to demonstrate the value of your sales. performance: 1/ Integrate your CRM with your CMS/LMS. That way, the more fields sellers complete in Salesforce, the better content recommendations they get to assist with their deals. Tools like GTM Buddy make this super easy. 2/ Show reps how to filter past deals to identify buyer patterns. Are you prepping for a Mid-market deal in the healthcare industry with 4 or more stakeholders? Great, we’ve had 7 deals like that over the past year. Show them how to look for similar deals other reps have closed and identify patterns. (You can actually do this in Gong Insights. Learning how to do this was a game changer for me) The added bonus is they can reach out and speak to the reps that worked those deals to find out some of the nuances that may not show up in the opportunity notes. 3/ Call out unnecessary processes. Not every new process will improve seller performance. That’s okay. But, if you’re willing to call that out to sellers and either A) remove it, or B) negotiate with your team, then you’ll earn the trust and respect of your reps. Here’s what good negotiating looks like coming from a VP of Sales: “Look, I know it’s a pain to have to wait a day for RevOps approval just to be able to close a deal you’ve already gotten signed. But, the fact is, if I don’t have a better view of what’s happening with our deals, I look unprepared when I meet with the board. If there are no revisions on at least 80% of the deals submitted for approval next quarter, we can get rid of the approval process all together. I'll work with RevOps to build a report and share it with the team so we can all keep track.” Your sales reps are more than employees, they’re your business partners—show them the value of change, just like you do with your buyers.

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