Noah Berk

If you go about selling with the ulterior motive to convince people, it tends to show through on some level and create resistance. Why? People don’t like being convinced. Convincing sounds like this: Prospect: “Why should we choose you?” Seller: “We’re used by over 2,000 sales teams including Salesforce. We typically boost sales by 20% within 30 days. We were recently named the top sales training company by Gartner.” Of course you’re going to tell people you’re the best. You’re biased. Letting people convince themselves sounds like this: Prospect: “Why should we choose you?” Seller: “I’m not sure you should. You can choose trainers like A, B, and C. If you don’t mind me asming, why consider a former kindergarten teacher?” Then shut the front door and listen. Let others give you their value proposition instead of you giving them yours. Why? People are more persuaded by what they hear themselves say, rather than what you say. It’s not your job to fill people’s heads with information. Your job is to draw it out. Buyers have the answers. Sellers have the questions.

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[New Episode!] SIK159🎙️ Justin C. has cracked the code on cold email prospecting. Here is what you’ll learn in this new episode: ✔️Email deliverability is becoming more challenging, and it's important to use alternate domains to improve deliverability rates. ✔️Personalization is key in email outreach, but it's important to strike a balance between personalization and scalability. ✔️AI in sales is still evolving and requires a human component to create relevant and effective messaging. ✔️Outsourcing the SDR function to an agency can provide consistency and expertise, especially for startups with limited resources. ✔️To improve outbound campaigns, talk to happy customers, understand their pain points, and reverse engineer successful messaging. ✔️Constantly adapt and stay up-to-date with the changing landscape of sales to remain successful Link here: https://lnkd.in/enty6p3M

Is your cold email *actually* cold? or... is there some history? Here's how I approach old accounts. I look to grab: 1) Context Salesforce notes & Call recording takeaways = gold 2) If anything is new with them News, hiring, earnings reports, etc. 3) Anything new on our end product, case studies, process, etc. & then I stitch them together to rekindle conversation (Lavender makes this REALLY easy) ex. Kyle - when we caught up in Q4, you brought up some use cases (ex. closed lost follow up) that we weren't great for. Since then - we built out our SFDC & Gong integrations. Your team's been on a hiring tear lately. Think it's a good time to catch up?

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Why is CS so neglected? Customers are the easiest prospects And yet we don’t have a process for growth Why is that? When funding was flooding in, the focus in so many companies was all on new business. This funding flowed into SDR hires, sequencing tools, marketing budgets and lead generation programs. As this happened, we saw CAC reach often unsustainable levels and it left little budget for Customer Success. More importantly, it wasn’t a top priority for leadership. The process to identify unhealthy accounts and get them healthy and to retain and grow healthy accounts was often missing. Customer Success still rarely falls under the CRO, as if to say that retaining and growing existing customers isn’t part of the revenue engine. I’m seeing it more and more but we still have a long way to go. We’re in desperate need of a reset. There is no better opportunity than to retain and grow an existing customer and it deserves the same investment, resources, strategy, process, data and tools that new customer acquisition has been getting the last 10-20 years. Why do you think so many companies are still dragging their feet here? 🤔

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Why is CS so neglected? Customers are the easiest prospects And yet we don’t have a process for growth Why is that? When funding was flooding in, the focus in so many companies was all on new business. This funding flowed into SDR hires, sequencing tools, marketing budgets and lead generation programs. As this happened, we saw CAC reach often unsustainable levels and it left little budget for Customer Success. More importantly, it wasn’t a top priority for leadership. The process to identify unhealthy accounts and get them healthy and to retain and grow healthy accounts was often missing. Customer Success still rarely falls under the CRO, as if to say that retaining and growing existing customers isn’t part of the revenue engine. I’m seeing it more and more but we still have a long way to go. We’re in desperate need of a reset. There is no better opportunity than to retain and grow an existing customer and it deserves the same investment, resources, strategy, process, data and tools that new customer acquisition has been getting the last 10-20 years. Why do you think so many companies are still dragging their feet here? 🤔

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If you run a small B2B service business recruiting a new sales rep... Beware of hiring a "closer" unless they can also prospect and develop new business. Skilled closers can succeed in large SaaS companies, for example, that take an assembly-line approach to sales with SDRs, BDRs, etc., who generate leads and schedule appointments for them. But resource-constrained small businesses don't have that luxury. You need a skilled full-cycle rep. Someone who can: → Find new leads → Nurture the relationship → Schedule Discovery meetings → Lead consistently successful Discoveries → Present winning proposals → Oversee the projects → Get you paid. The last thing you want is to hire someone to expand your customer base who isn't equipped to live up to that expectation. It wouldn't be fair to either of you. #SystematicSelling #Sales #SalesTraining

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CS teams NEED to start "managing up" with execs and the board by talking about REVENUE. Yes, you can keep talking about sentiment and feelings, but start with the $. Don't lead with churn- Bottom-line-focused execs don't like that headline, so you need to tell the story better. An informal poll had CS teams owning over 50% of the revenue of many SaaS companies. Lead with this and have it be your first talking point. From there you will be able to get more things done with other departments, as your requests will be revenue-focused Need to get a Customer Success Platform as you scale? Point to revenue and the potential to lose revenue without efficiencies Need to hire more to prevent burnout? Point to Revenue potential with renewals and upsells Talk in the language your execs and board want to hear.

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The CEO of an enterprise company is not looking up "What is the best CRM?" on Google They reach out to their trusted consultants and ask them instead. HubSpot dominated organic search for the last decade, and as a result, dominated SMB. Breaking into Enterprise is not going to happen the same way That is exactly why HubSpot Consultants need to do better. I commend everyone who is creating content around HubSpot's latest beta features. However, that content will not bring net new customers into the HubSpot ecosystem. There is a gap in business process solution architecture content from HubSpot consultants. Content around the problems that these companies face and leaders are losing sleep over Content around possible solutions for these problems that are not simply "Buy HubSpot" Until we can build trust and become advisors to enterprise leaders, we will always be seen as software vendors. And I'm starting with my own content strategy moving forward.

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Turning the table on the buyer seller dynamic is imperative for sales success 💪 Yes 👍 The customer buys the solution with money 💰 BUT 🥊 You as an AE “buy” the belief in the deal closing based on many signals 💡 The rationale the customer provides ✅ Their engagement on calls ✅ The breadth of stakeholder involvement ✅ SO 🥊 Ensure you’re not getting swindled 😉

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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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New sales ops hires have no idea what they are getting into with Salesforce. Here's why: Imagine you’re building a deck. And you are given the keys to a Home Depot. You have access to unlimited equipment and supplies. But you get no instructions on what deck you are building or how to build it. This is what situation most sales ops roles are in with Salesforce. Without training in its full capabilities, admins will be stuck and overwhelmed. This is why I created the Salesforce Accidental Admin Accelerator for sales admins. I recently did a webinar on YouTube that talks about how we are helping SalesOps and sales administrators with Salesforce. You can view it here: https://lnkd.in/g297XegA

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Operational changes as a company grows are inevitable, and desired if you want the growth is to continue, but looking ahead and making the changes proactively is the challenge. Adam Robinson has nailed it. How are you adjusting your business operations to fit the changed (yes changed, not changing) landscape in your industry? #growthhacking #businessstrategy #marketing

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Struggling with churn? Validate the value your customer receives. This is not a static metric/KPI - it needs to be nurtured, revisited, redefined, and reinforced throughout the customer lifecycle ♻ #customersuccess #sales #customervalue #value

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Are your renewals killing your quarter? Here are 10 ways to make sure you have a terrible Q2 10. Don't update them on new features they were asking for 9. Have a complicated renewal process. 8. Having misaligned data in the CRM  7. Mismanage your renewal process by not tracking discounts or giving away free services that weren't budgeted for. 6. Ignore them because usage is high, so "everything is cool" 5. Ignore them because it's auto-renewed 4. Never contact the Champion and just work with the admins 3. Don't have meaningful renewal conversations. 2. Start the renewal process in the same month its due 1. Never articulate the value they are getting from your product How are you going to have better Q2 numbers?

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SDRs or full cycle AEs? I’ve seen full cycle work best for companies that have: Low ACV / SMB / <30 day selling cycles Products with low complexity, built for 1-2 personas  Very early stage companies with low GTM experience No proven outbound motion currently in place My observation is that it’s hard to make SDR work in these situations. What have you seen? #sdr #bdr #leadership

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3 staggering speed-to-lead statistics 📊 1️⃣ If you followup with a lead within 5 minutes, you're 9x more likely to convert them. 2️⃣ 30-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. 3️⃣ Reps who contact leads within an hour are 7x more likely to have meaningful conversation with decision-makers than those who wait longer than an hour. We're living in the age of immediacy. You cannot afford to snooze. (Source: link in comments) Having built and iterated the process for ourselves, extensively, we build workflows for our clients that drives responsiveness by 5x. StackOptimise

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The SDR-AE Relationship is key for both sides. I see a handful of AEs that don't pay enough attention to their SDR when they should be. For the SDR, a strong relationship with their AE means: • Alignment on opportunity qualification • Guidance on effective messaging, time management, and where to focus prospecting efforts • Exposure to deal flow and effective discovery For the AE, a strong relationship with their SDR means: • Opportunity to hone leadership skills and help the SDR grow • Of course, you can learn from your SDR on strong prospecting techniques and ways to self-source your own pipeline • The better the relationship, the more meetings that will be set, which in turn turn into qualified opportunities and eventually, revenue. I was lucky to have a great AE when I started as an SDR, who let me sit in on calls and was strong in his communication with me. I'm trying to create a similar positive experience for my SDR right now, providing light coaching and making sure I do what I can to put him in a position to be successful. AEs/SDRs - What have you experienced from strong alignment here? P.S. Colin Sweeney - Did Chuck complete the DocuSign yet? 😂

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Attention SDRs and Sales Reps🎙️ If you are not getting enough coaching, use Chat GPT to supplement the lack of support - P.S sorry you aren’t getting support 😥 Paste a transcript of your recorded call or role-play you did with a co-worker into ChatGPT (check with legal if you can do this) Ask ChatGPT to: • Analyze your call based on your call framework or script • Identify areas for improvement by asking Chat GPT (or whatever tool you may use) questions • Suggest alternative phrases to communicate value better Prompts you could use: "What did I do well on this call?” - Start off feeling good "What did I not do well?” "How could I have dug into the pain more? Please provide questions I could have asked?” “Can you give me 3 ways I could have handled the objections?” "Suggest alternative ways I could have gone for the close?” “Did I miss anything in the call that could have helped me go for the close?” A.I. will not replace you; the Reps who learn how to use it to help them improve will. If you are a sales or enablement leader and want to learn more about how you could leverage A.I. to help improve your team. Come to the Allego Sales Success Summit, where Sam Richter CSP, CPAE, will discuss how to use AI to help improve your sales team. https://lnkd.in/eKg3w7w2

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Launch week was awesome! Thank you so much for downloading the platform, for the amazing comments, for giving great early feedback, and for simply checking out Vertical Insights! You are amazing! We've received some amazing early feedback. One user said, "Vertical Insights is really changing how we look at building our ICP and GTM motions." Hearing this is fantastic. It underscores the importance of building your ICP foundation on sub-verticals to create a truly qualified pipeline, speeding up sales cycles and reducing churn. We do all that heavy lifting for you! Check out the link in the comments to give it a try! #qualifiedpipeline, #reducechurn https://lnkd.in/gr2WdhK5

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