Sara Pion

I love this post—it's hilarious to see a RevOps person reporting to a sales leader and admitting to skewing data to make their boss look good. I agree that having separate ops people for each group creates dysfunction since everyone interprets data differently. But there's a time and place for everything. It's like saying every SDR team should report to sales—that's too broad. For instance, an inbound SDR team might be better suited under marketing. My take is that larger companies should have a centralized operations team reporting to a third-party group. It doesn't have to be finance; it could be operations or strategy. In small companies, I'm more open to having functional operational support. It's beneficial for a marketing ops person handling processes, reporting, website, ABM, etc., to report directly to marketing leadership. This way, they can establish processes without getting sidetracked by irrelevant projects from a centralized team that has no clue about marketing. You gotta treat this on a case-by-case basis and consider the people involved. If you have a great data-driven finance leader, it might make sense to put operations under them, for example. Every situation is unique, but the general rule of thumb is: small companies should have ops people under their functional leaders wearing multiple hats, while bigger companies should have the operations function report to an independent third party.

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Case studies are a pain in the ass. They're filled with blockers like: - convincing your CSMs to let you talk to their customer - getting a customer to spend time talking to you - booking time and then your POC has to reschedule - getting a transcript of the recording - listening back to your own voice (ugh) to find the good stuff - writing something meaningful with just enough detail but not too much and finally... - publishing that case study - showing your case study to the sales team so they'll use it Some of these blockers are bigger than others but if you've ever gone through the process of creating a case study, you were with me from "pain in the ass". But they're a necessary element for B2B SaaS. Prospects *do* want to know what others have accomplished with your help. Publishing wins from a variety of customers is important for your SEO. And people just... expect them at this point. I gotta tell you, I used to dread case studies but I've been testing out Laudable for my case study production and it's gonna be a game changer, and I don't use that term lightly. In less time then it takes Zoom to process the call recording I can produce an entire case study and a wins slide for my team! Is it perfect? No. Does it get me 90% of the way there? Absolutely. And I dunno about you but if I can do 90% less work in one of the many areas I cover, I'm taking it. Anywho, Ryan Quindlen 🦇 or Angela Ferrante can hook you up with your own demo/trial account to see for yourself. Oh and I'll probably get in trouble for this with Blake Imperl since it's Not On Brand™ but if you want to read about what Ellyn Stastny shared with me about Pvolve's success with Digioh, I'll link it in the comments.

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People that care about UX and productivity for sales people: SDR Managers (god bless you wonderful folks). I do find that most direct managers in Sales aren't polling their employees--especially AE's to find out what's not working, what they are putting up with and not complaining about. There are tons of tools that sales folks are buying on their own dime like Scratchpad, Superhuman, etc. We all care about "giving developers the right tools to stay in flow".. but your revenue team? Sure, leaders need our forecasting tools and enablement systems (maybe)--but ask your team "what sucks about this CRM layout, how does thing work on your mobile device, what things are getting in your way, how much time do you spend clicking around poorly designed tooling interfaces---and what would move the needle for you". As an AE-centric leader, i'm working to put things in place that sure--make folks more productive--but that they don't hate using. What say you? whats sucks in your world? what tools do you buy on your own to deal with your day? or even how should the world work for a day-to-day SDR/AE/Account Manager, etc

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Here’s a simple way to think about where you spend time as a PMM: How do your outputs align with these categories? 1) Growth: Awareness, Acquisition, Activation 2) Engagement: Usage, Retention, Advocacy 3) Monetization: Pricing, Packaging, Cross-Sell, Upsell Depending on where you are in the product lifecycle, your efforts will lean more toward one category than another. Clarifying where your work fits makes it easier to demonstrate your impact. #productmarketing

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Recently, I've been meeting with leaders who are structuring their early-stage CS teams. A recurring theme? Where to place revenue responsibilities and how to maximize growth from existing customers. From my experience, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. The optimal structure hinges on factors like product complexity, customer profile, target market, company stage, and revenue org setup. While you shouldn’t specialize too early, you also don’t want to leave massive growth opportunities on the table. Here's where I would start: ▶ Assess your customer base TAM: What's the total opportunity within current accounts, assuming no new features? What's a realistic 12-month closure target? For significant TAM with a strong land-and-expand model, or PoC motion consider a dedicated expansion role. ▶ Evaluate customer needs: For technical products requiring extensive support, avoid CSM context-switching between implementation and growth. Consider specialized roles for complex scenarios. ▶ Appraise your team's skillset: Recognize that some CSMs prefer non-commercial activities. Look for natural role combinations based on customer needs (e.g., onboarding + CS with AE/AM managing commercials, or specialized onboarding team with growth-focused CSMs). Post-sale structures evolve. What works today may not tomorrow. Regularly reassess to ensure alignment with customer needs and business goals. Key Principle: Regardless of structure, CS should always be growth focused through customer success qualified leads, strategic account planning or outright owning expansion/renewals (we do here at Lightspeed 😉 ). Owning revenue outcomes leads to increased investment in CS. I’m just scratching the surface - if you're thinking about this, I’d love to discuss further or hear different viewpoints. #customersuccess #revenuegrowth #saas

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Happy Holiday's! We all know Q4 is showing some challenges. Lower occupancy, concessions and VERY involved ownership groups. Please remember Rent provides solutions that are not one size fits all. RentSearch. can keep your prospect list warm by precisely targeting actively-searching renters looking for their next place. How? First-party audience data that targets renters actively searching for their next home. Reach out so I can tell you more about how RentSearch can keep your click-through and occupancy rates high & differentiate on the power of first party data. #MultifamilyMarketing #ApartmentMarketing #OnePlatformEndlessPossibilities #Redfin #Rent #Truemarketingpartners

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This is stuff you're not going to see on RepVue or Salesforce State of Sales. We've been gathering data from GTM leaders on the performance of their team. We asked a few questions that we feel like aren't talked about enough. "Rate your sales team's productivity." "Do you mandate activity minimums? "How important are leading indicators vs lagging indicators?" The results are very intriguing. On of the most obvious ones is that team leaders feel their individual contributors are *AVERAGE* at best at being productive with their days. Huge opportunity there for sure. It backs the findings we saw in another study that said productivity software is one of the only spends companies are willing to make in this type of economic environment. When sales gets more and more difficult... you have to get more and more intentional with productivity, strategy and you're going to succeed.

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2 Comments

I got my SDR --> AE promotion when COVID hit in 2020. My job was to sell PR software to Comms professionals. Anyone who's sold in the space knows it's a brutal one. Comms teams get the smallest piece of the marketing budget. And when you threw in the economic uncertainty that came with COVID. That piece of the "budget pie" was almost non-existent. To make matters worse I hadn't developed basic AE skills: - Buyer Qualification - Product Demo Flows - Pipeline Management / Forecasting - Stakeholder Alignment - Legal Negotiations - Signature Processes It was the perfect storm for a dumpster fire of a year: - I lost countless deals - I made no money - I considered finding another career path That April "The Last Dance" dropped on Netflix. One of the episodes did a deep dive on Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman made himself a promise when he left home at 18: - He wouldn't come back until he had made something of himself After hearing his story, I made a similar promise to myself: - I wasn't leaving Austin until I had made something of myself This commitment changed everything. I put my head down. I kept taking my beatings. And after a year in the AE seat, I started to figure things out. Fast forward to 2024 and things look A LOT different: - I joined Miro in 2021 - Closed $4M+ in 3 years - Went to President's Club - Got promoted to Enterprise AE - Eventually joined Unicrn as a Sales Leader The Valley of Despair is a REALLY tough spot to live. It's a place we all find ourselves in sooner or later. The beauty of not giving up though... ...is you eventually come out of it. And when you do. The Success / Fulfillment you experience is that much sweeter. P.S. If you're going through a hard season professionally, grab some time via the booking link on my profile and let's chat 🤝

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5 Comments

No one has ever said "wow that product is so well positioned!" (unless you're a PMM). Buyers don't notice good positioning and messaging. But they do notice this: - When a company has a strong and unique point of view - They know it's clearly for them or not - It's easy to know how they'll use it and the benefit they'll get - The company feels exciting and interesting a new way Summed up these companies just have a strong identity. They know exactly what they are all about and they are quick to remind you. When you don't have this or it's confusing or it just sounds like everyone else... you've got a weakly positioned product or company. Those who do have it... it's not by accident, I promise you they are investing in product marketing. How do you spot a well positioned product / company?

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📣 Big news for social marketers AND customer service teams! 📣 Hootsuite just dropped Social Customer Care — a Salesforce integration that can streamline, simplify, and even automate social messaging across your entire org. ✨DMs get automatically routed to the right team and person. 💡 Support peeps can see message history in context and reply right from Salesforce. 🤖 There’s even chatbot integration to automate replies to FAQs across your social channels. You’ve gotta see it: https://ow.ly/hJBP50TuvRN

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I've gotten to know Marcus Chan over the past year. He's an incredible coach and mentor for GTM success. When we learned he was a favorite follow for many Aviso AI customers, we knew we had collaborate! We're excited to launch a new, complimentary Sales Leadership Bootcamp! Learn how to blow out your quota in your first 90 days! #GTM #sales #revenue #AE #CRO #RevOps #FLM

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Pipeline marketing drives your revenue 🚀 and marketing isn’t just about leads 🤯 Thankfully, I get to work with folks like Lucas and his Corporate Marketing team here at Highspot who know how to use their channels to drive real revenue impact - and I learn from them every day! Today, he's dropping knowledge about strategic marketing to help you get a better understanding of this intricate machine ⚙   Learn more 👇 https://hghspot.co/3zfzltT

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I'm not going to say "Google is dead," but... it ain't what it used to be. We all know it. That's why content leaders need to find better ways to surface relevant content for potential buyers. Leaning on our Sales team as a content distribution channel is one of the things that Vitally.io is getting better at by necessity. Our SDRs use our interactive tools and reports to start conversations. Our AEs use the insights in our guides and articles to beat down objections and position themselves as expert advisors. And it's all been incredibly effective, even if you can't always measure the impact as precisely as you can measure organic search clicks. At the end of the day, content teams exist to make the sales process easier. Everything else is a vanity metric. Thanks again to Nate Turner for the great conversation, and listen to the whole thing at https://lnkd.in/gfcPzu5F

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2 Comments

The value of an SDR team is not just booking meetings. 🤩 It’s creating positive brand impressions with buyers. 🤝 It’s providing critical connective tissue between sales & marketing. 💪 It’s cultivating an internal talent bench. This is what the best-in-class teams do. This is what great leaders strive to create. This is not replicable with AI SDRs. ——— I’m (obviously) a proponent of leveraging AI – the right way. I believe in AI-powered SDRs who incorporate AI into their day-to-day to increase their span of control and pipeline productivity. I believe human buyers want to interact with human sellers. As long as those human sellers truly understand them and have something valuable to offer. Sadly, this approach seems to be getting rarer and rarer. Our goal with Copy.ai is to reverse this trend and pull people and companies toward a different future. Let me know if you want to chat about creating this future for your org. #gtmai #sales #sdr

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Hey Calendly...am I missing something? The integration with HubSpot seems to be missing some important features. Here is what I'm struggling with: ❌ The meeting type cannot be set. ❌ Other than the meeting activity, no date/time data is passed over for last meeting booked. ❌ Calendly only sometimes shows up as a conversion event. ❌ No-Show calls are being marked as Completed. Has anyone else faced these issues? Does anybody know a good workaround?

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📣 Big news for social marketers AND customer service teams! 📣 Hootsuite just dropped Social Customer Care — a Salesforce integration that can streamline, simplify, and even automate social messaging across your entire org. ✨DMs get automatically routed to the right team and person. 💡 Support peeps can see message history in context and reply right from Salesforce. 🤖 There’s even chatbot integration to automate replies to FAQs across your social channels. You’ve gotta see it: https://ow.ly/REAn50Tp70O

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Out: Making people jump through hoops to schedule time with you. ❌ In: Including your Calendly link in multiple places to make booking easy! ✅ I love these tips — they cover a few spots I never even thought to drop a link. If you use Calendly to book meetings with clients, coworkers, or just for coffee chats, this one's for you. #BetterMeetings

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Marketers: we should categorize self-reported attribution as "first recall." The human brain is fallible and memory is malleable. Prospects saw you dozens - hundreds of times and the first time a trusted colleague mentioned your name, it stuck. Or when your rep sent that cold email, your prospect [subconsciously] said "oh yeah I think I know them..." Emir Atli wrote about this today. SRA is another touchpoint to look at but is one of thousands along the journey. How much credence do you give to self-reported attribution?

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📣 Big news for social marketers AND customer service teams! 📣 Hootsuite just dropped Social Customer Care — a Salesforce integration that can streamline, simplify, and even automate social messaging across your entire org. ✨DMs get automatically routed to the right team and person. 💡 Support peeps can see message history in context and reply right from Salesforce. 🤖 There’s even chatbot integration to automate replies to FAQs across your social channels. WHAT A WIN FOR WORKING SMARTER! :) You’ve gotta see it: https://ow.ly/A6kA50TtVoA #hootsuite #Salesforce #customercare #communitymanagement

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