Christian Kletzl’s Post

𝗔𝗜 𝗜𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 – 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 Think AI is just another tool in the sales stack? Think again. AI isn’t here to replace your team - it’s here to transform how they work. Imagine having a teammate that never sleeps, always has the latest insights, and helps you level up at every stage of the sales process. Let's even call this your sales coach. Need to personalize outreach at scale? AI’s got you. Struggling to craft a proposal that hits all the right notes? AI can analyze past wins and client data to tailor it perfectly. And your new teammate can review the proposal for any missing elements or additions to make it stand out. Looking to rock your next pitch? Work with your coach to deliver real-time feedback and role-play scenarios that sharpen your delivery and messaging. Dig deep and explore. And when it’s time to close the deal, your coach ensures your follow-ups and negotiations are strategic and impactful. Another place to leverage strategic collaboration to up your skill set and dominate. This is the game-changing mindset shift that sales leaders need to make for 2025. AI isn’t just a tool—it’s your strategic partner, your sales coach, the silent MVP that turns your team into a revenue powerhouse. The leaders who embrace AI as a collaborative teammate rather than an efficiency assistant will be the ones who blow out the year ahead. Curious to learn how to do this? Let’s start the conversation: https://lnkd.in/eMZkax7b

There's a stretch in sales: You need to care about your prospects deeply and still need to let them go if they should be disqualified Especially for founder-led sales in the early stage, focus is a key factor. Disqualifying early is crucial for that. So there's those two sides you need to juggle and I'm curious to hear from my sales network how best balance them. I mean, when you disqualify them it doesn't say you cannot engage with them anymore, for example here on LinkedIn. But coffee chats with non-ICP will not bring those deals home. Side one - the caring strategic advisor - empathetic & caring about the prospects challenges - building up relationships early instead of pitch-slapping - always in a good & helpful mood Side two - the ruthless focus keeper and deal closer - ruthless in prioritisation - laser sharp in focus - time blocking pro - disqualify early, no hanging on - efficient in research through AI tools - detect deals slipping away early - focus on high-value activities - clear tiering of accounts Curious to hear your thoughts on it! #sales #selling #gtm #focus

The Future of Sales! (This is 2024) And I’m SO excited to celebrate it. Because, here’s the thing. No matter what the world tries to tell us: ↳ The future of sales is bright. But it isn’t just about closing deals. → Nah. It’s about building relationships. So, no matter if you are here to: - Land a client - Close a deal - Build a pipeline The more you focus on relationships, The more your success will grow — exponentially. Because, if I’ve learned anything in my years in sales, it’s this: The future is always changing. But those who adapt, → Those who innovate, Will always find success. So, Here are 5 ways to prepare for the future of sales: 1. Embrace AI and automation. 2. Personalize every interaction. 3. Leverage data insights. 4. Invest in continuous learning 5. Foster a growth mindset Because the future of sales isn’t just about transactions. → It’s about transformation. In the way we connect. The way we engage. In the way we sell. The way we succeed. Reflect on your approach. → Innovate your processes. And watch your sales soar! So, what’s your next step to future-proof your sales strategy? #sales #socialselling #personalbranding #relationships #community

Key is find the right proxy for buying intent. In many cases, it is a combination of vanilla signals like hiring or fund raise combined with unique signals to your business (for eg; have more than 5 people in marketing team, have 1:4 ration in AE:SE)

If you work in sales, there’s a high chance you feel that your job has gotten harder in the past 12-18 months - and you are probably right. Macroeconomic conditions, AI disruption, and global conflicts have all contributed to a challenging market. This has led to complex buying processes, longer sales cycles, and more uncertainty across the board. It's harder to sell when buyers are finding it harder to buy. What can you do? This was the topic of conversation I had with someone I had the pleasure of mentoring last week. I don’t claim to be an expert by any stretch - but here are 5 things I would suggest focusing on: 1) Gaining a true understanding of your customer’s problem - and then position how you can add value that others cannot. Can’t solve their problem? Then respectfully bow out and spend your time finding opportunities where you can. 2) Building better and deeper relationships.  Multithreading has never been more powerful, especially when there are more voices and opinions within the buying process. Get close to IT, finance, legal, and procurement - these are the people who can help get your proposal over the line. 3) Control your own destiny. If your current channels are struggling or lead flow isn’t where it should be, then it’s on your shoulders. If you ensure you have enough pipeline from your own activity, then your dependency on those channels is lower. 4) Be an expert. Know your product inside and out and understand the industry you are serving. I aim to spend a minimum of 2 hours a week reading about the latest trends and innovations within the learning space. You cannot be a trusted advisor if you don’t know what you’re talking about. 5) Radically accept what you can and cannot control. This is the hardest one for most salespeople (and for me too). But there are so many factors that you truly cannot influence - budget cuts, change of stakeholders, project delays, your competition. You will find much greater success (and feel calmer) if you spend your energy on the things that you can influence. Bonus tip: wrap your head around as many AI tools as possible especially where they can drive better productivity - but don't abuse them. A big part of what people buy into is you. Removing the personalized approach runs the risk of losing that! Input/feedback/questions are most welcome. #sales #growth #selling

The market is HOT on signal based outbound. I think that's a mistake. Here’s 5 reasons why Signal Based Selling will only introduce a new era of noisy MQLs that salespeople will learn to ignore: 1. You’re relying on 22-25 year olds working their first jobs to parse through 100s of signals that will determine where to spend their time to create enough pipeline to hit goals 2. High noise to value ratio 3. Inability to understand what signals are actually relevant to YOUR business 4. Inability to transfer signal to recommended action other than “reach out” 5. AI + the volume of people leveraging commoditized signals, will render them useless within years if not months (similar trends with sales engagement 5-7 years ago) If we generalize signal based triggers we’re marching towards a world where buyers won’t even want to visit a website because they know they’ll get a cold call, DM, or more. Here's my take: There are only 1-5 highly valuable triggers that are relevant to your business. Figure out what is most valuable to you. Use YOUR OWN DATA to develop context-based plays based on relevant signals and recommended plays for each combination Then train your entire team on how to leverage those signals consistently. It’s not about the signal that happens, it’s about what the behavior means about your buyers and why your solution can help them. Reaching out to someone SOLELY because they were hired is silly unless you sell software that will help them ramp. That’s the only way to use Signals to build a scaleable GTM strategy

#4 on Todd's list of reasons companies struggle with signals based selling has occupied my mind for years now: "Inability to transfer signal to action other than, 'reach out'". You'll never solve for #4 unless you get two things right... 1) Clear expectations on width and depth you expect from reps. This means defining how many contacts reps should engage at an account and the number/type of activities logged for each contact. 2) Be able to report on whether reps are doing what you expect. Automatically surface accounts where you've received a signal but the rep hasn't met the minimum width/depth. A lot of tools are focused on surfacing signals and intent. MadKudu, RB2B, 6sense (you two play nice), Demandbase...and the list goes on. As far as I know, we're the only ones focused on #4.

What does the future of B2B sales look like in the context of global expansion? I shared my thoughts on how revenue leaders can help their teams adopt a global mindset & utilize AI technologies to drive business success this year with SalesTech Star. https://bit.ly/3u2r6yF  

I am hearing a lot of debate about who should own revenue: CRO CMO COO CSO Now CGO (Growth) CCO (Customer) What we all can agree on is that the title is not the most important thing to be debating, so let's keep doing that. 😉 Seriously though, the title is irrelevant. The idea that someone should be responsible for, laser-focused on, and living and breathing all things revenue is critical. Ten years ago, many organizations were still siloing teams into marketing, sales, account management, and operations. During that time, it made sense. Today, it does not. The customer has so much more power, choice, and more options than ever before, making every touchpoint with your customer critical. From the first time they become aware of you via an ad, call, or email, to the closing and expansion of the deal, they are measuring and critiquing you. That is why we call it a buyer and customer journey, not a destination. So, what can you do to address this challenge? 1️⃣ Look at which of your teams touch or interact with a customer. If they are under different leadership, I would argue that is not ideal but may be warranted. At a minimum, make sure their objectives are the same or clearly aligned. 2️⃣ If you have the ability, consider moving all those teams under one leader who is responsible not just for revenue but for effectively deploying the capital to take your product or service to market (Marketing and GTM), sell to that customer (Sales), and onboard, service, and expand that customer (AM or CS). 3️⃣ CEO Thinking - Have this leader think like a CEO, meaning they should be paying attention to every dollar that is spent, how and where it's spent, and understand its effectiveness (ROI). Having one person looking at the revenue generation portion of your business from this perspective may be game-changing for your growth. Curious to hear your thoughts. Comment below. P.S. AI still can't get text-to-image correct 100% of the time, no matter how well you prompt.

If you the Founder haven’t figured out your pipeline building efforts yet, a “young hungry person” is likely set up for failure. They may work incredibly hard, show some early signals of wins, but as the Founder, you are responsible for creating their path to success. You should show a clear path for them to follow vs a “figure it out along the way” mindset. SDRs and AEs don’t know what you know about the market, your vision, and why people will ultimately buy your product. You’ll start to see how stark of a difference their knowledge of objection handling in your market is as you hear the basics being missed – this is normal and why enablement, training, and front-line management exists in sales. If you have none of that yet, you must be incredibly cautious of who you hire and how you offload such an important part of your future revenue streams. Note: the same applies for AI SDRs — it’s certainly coming, but AI SDRs will require the tuning and nuances you are learning from the RESULTS of your outbound efforts.