Jimmy Metiva

To all the presales managers out there... you are distracting your team if you are randomly pinging them for deal updates. Do this instead! 💪 ✅ Schedule recurring deal reviews with your sales engineers, typically on a weekly basis. ✅ Keep them simple; you will have a lot of deals to review in a short amount of time. ✅ At a minimum, include these 5 items in your deal review checklist. ----- ✅ PRO TIP: Run your deal reviews directly out of your presales management solution (for example, Homerun Presales). When everyone is working from one central location for all-things-presales, you (1) eliminate the need for 'side tools' used for reviews and status updates, and (2) you eliminate all the admin burden and manual data entry by your SEs to provide ongoing updates. ----- If you want to see how to run effective deal reviews with your presales team… come get a demo of Homerun Presales: https://lnkd.in/gYKA6UvE #presales #salesengineering #technicalsales #salesengineer #cro #sales

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You make a cold call... Prospect says "I'm not interested" at the top of the call. Now you have two options: - 1. You can either treat this as an 'objection' - where you take the words literally & say something along the lines of... "You don't even know what it's about yet - so can I just quickly explain?" Which will likely get their back up even more... Or 2. You treat it for what it is - most likely a knee-jerk reaction to an unsolicited call, where it serves to get rid of you. The prospect's amygdala (reptilian brain) has kicked in. It's a classic fight or flight response to protect them from a perceived threat - in this case that you'll either take up too much of their time or talk them into something they don't want. So we need a response that deals with this reality, something like... "Of course - I know I've caught you off guard a bit this morning. Before we hang up mind me asking, is this just the worst possible time, was my intro that bad, or do you simply hate cold calls?" Now sit back & let them respond. 9/10 you'll get something closer to the truth - because you've labelled the situation & given them a few options. You've also made yourself human through honesty & vulnerability, which people almost always respond positively to. So the next time you hear any of the following... "I'm in a meeting." "Send me an email." "I'm good thanks." "We already have a supplier." "Call me in 6 months." "Where did you get this number?!" "I'm a bit busy right now." Etc. Know what you're dealing with - namely that these are not 'objections' but usually fall into: smokescreens, rebuffs, questions or statements. Want more like this? Cover all bases to 12 of the most common cold call 'objections' with 50 responses by clicking on the link below... For £30 never become tongue tied again. https://lnkd.in/ey3uSjmb #sales #coldcall

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What are your thoughts on seeing their deals mapped out in a deal velocity scorecard? This is part of the performance dashboard we're building for MidFunnel. The idea is that sellers can see how their deals are faring. Managers can quickly get a pulse on deal progress. The velocity is calculated based on the responsiveness of communication. Next we're considering adding qualitative insights on prospect eagerness as well. #sales #sales-tech

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Being a TOP 1% sales rep is hard. First you have to: A) learn how to do so many fundamental things the right way then B) practice executing what you’ve learned then C) unlearn how you were initially taught to speak to buyers then D) talk to buyers in a different way you were taught while still keeping those same sales fundamentals in mind Because buyers don’t want to feel like they’re being sold to. Sellers don’t want to be free consultants. Eventually a prospect needs to buy. There’s a middle ground that comes with good sales training, practice and experience. My man Will is well on his way to getting this right.

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Most sales leaders focus on their top performers. But your best reps will crush quota whether you help them or not. Here's the uncomfortable truth about scaling revenue... Your top 10% will succeed despite you. They'll figure out how to sell your product and close deals even if you give them zero support, no collateral, and an undefined ICP. But you can't build a scalable revenue engine on top 10% talent alone. It's just math. Even with a rigorous interview process and strong recruiting brand, our 12-month retention rate at Levelset was around 55%. And that was GOOD. The key to scaling isn't finding more unicorns. It's raising the floor for everyone else. That means writing down exactly what success looks like. Not just hoping good people will "figure it out." I learned this the hard way. For the first 4 years (or so), we closed deals almost in spite of ourselves. No real sales playbook. No defined process. Just talented people working hard. When we finally documented our exact process - from first touch to close - our ramp time plummeted and consistency shot up. The uncomfortable truth? Most founders spend way more time recruiting than preparing to train and support their hires. Your playbook doesn't need to be fancy. Start with one document: "How to Run a Demo." Make it painfully detailed. Your top reps will hate it. Your new reps will love you for it.

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PE investors / operators: have "hire additional sales capacity" on your VCP or annual plan? HIRING new reps is only half the battle. For the ROI math to math, gotta then make 'em productive. As quickly as possible. But when it comes to making reps productive quickly, B2B companies face two big challenges: →The average tenure of a B2B sales rep is less than two years, YET... → Reps hit their peak performance two to three years in. Translation: Most reps leave before they’ve reached max productivity. Eek. In many cases, weak sales onboarding is to blame. But taking a more intentional approach to sales onboarding has a bevy of obvious benefits: • Reducing sales turnover • Shortening time-to-revenue • Higher odds of achieving your rev targets Hit on this in the book in Winning Move #32, but check out the vid below for a deeper dive on the P's and Q's of sales onboarding ▶️ * * * * * Found this helpful? Plenty more where that came from. Check out the Winning Moves Platform: the ambitious PE leader's toolkit for accelerating value creation. ↳ A digital arsenal of resources, how-to's, and tools to help private equity leaders make value-generating Winning Moves with confidence. Link in the comments below. ⤵️

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With the entire Qualified Platform, NextGen sourced $7.5M in pipeline and $690K in revenue in eight months. With Piper the AI SDR, NextGen eliminated missed chat requests for their inbound SDR team. 💪 The Challenge NextGen Healthcare has been a longtime customer of Qualified, using the full platform across AI Conversations, AI Meetings, AI Offers, and AI Signals to increase inbound conversion across their site. The challenge was scale. NextGen’s SDR team was strapped for bandwidth, fielding inbound from both the website and other channels. One of the areas for improvement was with missed chats–NextGen’s SDR team had missed 1400 inbound chat requests on the site in 12 months, which netted out to an additional $60K in potential revenue left on the table. 💰 The Solution Piper was added as a fallback option to the chat experience on NextGen’s site if no SDR was available to connect with a visitor. Now, Piper can jump in and answer any questions or book meetings if their human SDRs aren’t able to field the inbound chat request. This eliminated missed inbound chat requests for NextGen, and they’ve sourced $7.5M in pipeline and $690K in revenue with the entire Qualified platform since January 2024. 🫰 The Results After hiring Piper to scale inbound chat and fill in coverage gaps for their SDR team, NextGen is seeing incredible results: 💬 1400 → 0 missed inbound chat requests with Piper, representing an additional $60K in potential revenue 📈 $7.5M sourced pipeline with the entire platform in last eight months 💰 $690K sourced revenue with the entire platform in last eight months Read the full case study here: https://bit.ly/4fu1D3J

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The best salespeople pass along key deal data to onboarding teams by doing this...🎥 The handoff from Sales to Onboarding is crucial. A poor handoff can lead to churn. Efficient teams have their CRM configured to make it easy for Sales to capture key data and pass it downstream. Watch the full webinar, "Nailing Customer Lifecycle Transitions: Part 2" with Jeff Kushmerek, to learn more strategies to successfully move customers from sales, to onboarding, to long-term success. ➡ https://bit.ly/3Wv1k1i

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The biggest difference I’ve noticed from TOP sales reps compare to everyone else is TOP 1%ers are able to handle emotional disappointments, bounce back from losses and mentally prepare themselves for the next opportunity to compete. Right away. That time from setback to get back is minimal and the level of enthusiasm doesn’t waver. Regardless of how yesterday ended, today is the 1st day of the best Quarter of your career. #TOP #sales #mindset

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❄️ January Sales Checklist for Success: ✔️ Review and refine your 2025 sales goals. ✔️ Identify key industries for growth. ✔️ Partner with Lease A Sales Rep to fill your pipeline with quality leads. ✨ Let us help you achieve your goals at LeaseASalesRep.com. #SalesChecklist #LeaseASalesRep #SalesSuccess #B2BSalesExperts #GuaranteedResults #SalesPipeline

Most SDRs and AEs we talk to think they don’t hit quota because of the other... but it’s actually because they don’t do one thing well. The AE/SDR pairings that do this almost always hit quota! It’s Monthly/Quarterly planning… (wait for it)... TOGETHER. AEs - What are your SDRs' goals? SDRs - What are your AEs' goals? If you can’t answer those questions you’re doing it wrong. Here’s how your planning should look: Quarterly: 1. Review and set goals - Review last quarter's performance. - Set new goals and KPIs for the next quarter (ACV, Pipeline, Opps, Appts, etc.). 2. Strategic Planning - Discuss big plans and upcoming campaigns. - Identify target markets, key accounts, and any focus shifts. 3. Feedback and Improvements - Share insights and feedback from both sides. - Agree on areas for improvement and coaching (AE’s play a big role here and help your SDR level up). Monthly: 1. Pipeline Review - Evaluate current pipeline, identify bottlenecks, and plan to move deals forward. - Focus on the status of key accounts and prospects. 2. Performance Metrics - Review KPIs for both sides. - Address any big deviations from targets and course correct 3. Training and Development - Find any training needs or skill gaps. - Plan upcoming training sessions and share best practices. Weekly: 1. Lead Status Updates - Review the status of appointments set. - Identify any stalled accounts and align on next steps. 2. Prioritization and Focus - Review top-priority accounts for the week. - Align on the focus areas and initiatives. 3. Feedback Loop - SDRs share feedback on target accounts and trends. - AEs provide feedback on appts. Daily: 1. Goals and Priorities - Quick alignment on key tasks and priorities - Ensure everyone is clear on their immediate focus areas 2. Status Check - Discuss the status of any urgent accounts. - Address any immediate issues or roadblocks. 3. Quick Wins and Celebrations - Share wins or successes. - Motivate each other and share recognition. Be a partnership! It can feel like a lot, but it should only take an hour or two each week. The payoff will be worth it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.s. If you want help improving your AE or SDR motions by creating and closing more pipeline, fill out this form. We will see if we can help!  https://lnkd.in/gFy-dpyQ

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AI SDRs like Piper aren’t a one size fits all solution–every team has unique motions that require different strategies for support. Demandbase is a great example of where Piper makes sense to help augment your human SDR team and provide support they desperately need in order to focus on discovery calls without missing pipeline on the website. They’d already seen success with Qualified, so they decided to double-down and implement Piper the AI SDR across their site, offloading a significant amount of front line work from their human rep’s plates. Piper was able to: ✅ Proactively engage target accounts on the website ✅ Eliminate wait times for buyers to get answers to FAQs ✅ Hand off VIP accounts to human reps for more nuanced conversations The results? In the first 2 months of implementing Piper:  ✨ 2x increase in pipeline ✨ 3X conversion to meetings compared to human SDRs ✨ 37% increase in meetings with Tier 1 target accounts  ✨ 100 hours saved per month of SDR time ✨ $80,000 cost savings in headcount These stories are why we’re so excited about Piper the AI SDR. The future of inbound pipeline generation is automated and results like this demonstrate the power of quick, efficient, and conversational buyer engagement around the clock. 

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Well-researched cold calls are still THE #1 way to build pipeline in 2025. The problem? The majority of reps are unskilled, get shut down in the first 60 seconds, then complain that "cold calling doesn't work." Here's how to build a ton of pipeline in 2025 through the phones: 👇 Don't sell your solution—sell yourself STOP talking about your solution. The prospect doesn't give a sh*t. When cold calling, you have one job: ⛔️ Not to sell the meeting ⛔️ Not to sell your solution ✅ Sell yourself through credibility In sales, skepticism is our #1 objection. It's the biggest hurdle we have to overcome on a cold call. The #1 way to reduce skepticism is by showing the prospect that you speak with their peers. Show them that a conversation with you won't be a complete waste of time. Make them feel it would be irresponsible not to hear you out. ⛔️ Bad way to open: "I'm calling you because we sell a contact center solution to a lot of other companies like A, B, and C. I wanted to see if it makes sense to talk about how we might be able to help you..." CLICK. That intro does NOTHING to show the prospect that you know their world. Or that you understand their problems. You don't even get a chance to sell a meeting with an intro like that. ✅ Here's a much better way to open: "I'm calling because I recently made a purchase on the site and a survey popped up. In our experience with companies like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's—only about 10% of customers actually fill out those surveys. They want to reduce cost to serve and inbound call volume, but those surveys don't give them the entire story behind the problems customers aren't able to solve themselves. How does this compare to your focuses at ABC COMPANY?" This intro builds massive credibility because it so specifically articulates the prospect's status quo. That builds credibility. That earns you time. ~~~ Make this shift in your cold call approach and you'll see a massive spike in conversion rates. Want more? Nick Cegelski, Armand Farrokh, and I are breaking down this approach today at 1pm PT. Sign up here: https://hubs.li/Q02_Z8dR0 Tag another rep who might find this helpful.

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"𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻." This wise comment from a customer got me thinking this week about the role critical thinking plays in enterprise selling.  Most definitions of critical thinking describe it as a discipline.  But is it a discipline woven into the cadence of most enterprise sales operations?  Not in my experience. This customer is using Prevu to implement a weekly 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦: when every seller is expected to step back assess deal progress, risk, strategy and tactics against objective criteria.  Few companies are doing this, and that makes it a competitive advantage!  

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🪦 R.I.P SDRs? 🪦 When I open my Linkedin every second post is debating whether SDRs will be still around in the future or if this function is no longer needed due to automation and AI. Here is my take on this: - Some teams(especially SMB focused) might realise they don't need to segment sales roles into pipeline generating and closing roles, they will be going back to full cycle sales roles - Lot of SaaS teams restructured recently, this also means SDR teams got leaner, on the other hand due to AI and new tools they can be a lot more productive, making these teams more efficient - I also see a new trend where some SDRs are shifted to a "Sales Development Engineer" role, where this function knows all the in-and-out about scaling and automating pipeline generation with the help of AI and automating workflows - New GTM playbooks will focus more on "warmer" leads, especially visitor and intent data Few weeks ago, I was debating the same topic at a roundtable discussion at SaaStr Europa with various revenue leaders and I could feel excitement about the advancement of technology and AI, but there was a strong agreement that at the end of the day people love to buy from other humans. You can read more about this topic and how leading SaaS teams are changing to a playbook that can be successful in this changing environment. What do you think will we still have SDRs in 3 years time?

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Startups are asking for their CSMs to be very technical, and it's burning $$$ and employees out. Would you rather have your CSMs be able to code, or have the ability to have C-level conversations? The 2 often do not co-exist. Having a CSM that is technically adept may be impressive, but it's important to remember tha customer success is about relationship building first and foremost. Therefore, having the ability to have meaningful conversations with C-level executives should take precedence over coding skills. Create a strong foundation of trust and credibility with your customers by engaging in strategic conversations around their unique needs. Find out what their key objectives are and how your company can help them achieve those goals. A CSM should be able to understand the customer's business, help them navigate through any potential challenges, and develop strategic recommendations that move the needle.  With that being said, there are a lot more technical product out there. Devops, cloud infrastructure, API only, etc. Your CSMs will need to be able to understand the VALUE that these products are providing to the customer. Not just getting them up and running, but helping them understand how they can use it more effectively to benefit their business.  Having an engineering background may also allow for better customer interactions, but I have found that it is a scale, and the more someone leans towards heavy development skills, the LESS they will be able to connect with the customer at a business level. The very technical CSM is often IMPOSSIBLE to find. And if you find 1 unicorn, you will spend months looking for another 1. While this is happening, your existing team is drowning to keep up with a huge book of business.  The ideal CSM should be able to provide strategic advice and guidance on how customers can best leverage your product for maximum value. They should also have an understanding of different technologies so that they can help those customers who are more technically savvy and need assistance with more complex projects. At the enterprise level, I prefer a strategic CSM paired with either a Solution Architect, and sometimes a Customer Success Engineer that has the development background and can make the tweaks and configuration needs that a customer has to enable the strategic decisions that the CSM is helping with. I am recording a podcast with Lizzy Rosen about this - drop any questions that you have below. What are your thoughts on this? Besides that, my eyes are closed?

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Where's the benchmark in the sales profession? Nope... Lower... Even lower... Yup, that bad. It is no wonder leaders believe they can improve / displace with AI I know many truly excellent sellers, who routinely enable businesses to solve complex problems cost-effectively and quickly... but these consultative servants are a dying breed... the bar is et pretty low already and I can only see the AI arms race further lower standards of customer experience / satisfaction in b2b sales Average is the ne good Making fuckwit the new average A lot of people are just breathing in and out Remaining alive in sales until their role is dead due to their own lack of responsibility

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Sales Friends- How many times in a sales conversation do you qualify your prospect's level of interest? ReplayzIQ has unearthed that top sales reps will qualify their prospect's level of interest 3-5 times in a 45 minute Discovery or Demo call. What does 'qualifying their interest' mean exactly? It means taking a temperature check of your prospect throughout the call to see if they genuinely appear to be seeing value and whether they are identifying with the pain you are solving. Are they leaning in or out? Are they hot or cold on your solution's ability to solve their unique painpoints? Why is this important? None of us are mind readers. So why not just ask how your prospect is feeling about what you've unearthed so far? This gives you the ability to address what is on their mind right there and then. A lot of the time your prospect won't volunteer this info unless you ask. AND unless you ask in the right way. What can this sound like? "Based on what we've discussed so far, it sounds like our solution could immensely help you with ________ (insert the pain you identified here). What do you think?" "So is this feeling like a fit for you?" "How does this stack up with how you are doing it today?" "Is there anything you were hoping our solution would do that you haven't seen so far?" ReplayzIQ uses AI to analyze hundreds of sales calls per hour. We've trained ReplayzIQ to unearth the patterns that lead to success. This one skill consistently shows up as a differentiator of top-performing sales reps. What other qualification questions do you use? Weave in 3-5 of these gems in your next sales convos and you will see the difference. Crush it today my friends! 🙌 #sales

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How did ZoomInfo Copilot help Account Manager Dave Howell close a $195,000 deal? 🤔 From surfacing insights about customer sentiment and product interest to identifying a C-level decision-maker who helped seal the deal, Copilot empowered Dave with everything he needed to win his client's business. Watch the full story below. ⬇️ #ZoomInfoCopilot

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