Bryan Lowry

Amen to this. Senior leaders need to get involved in the details and understand the structural and operational issues in their organizations that lead to customer churn. You hold the power to improve the quality of your product and the value of your service - you're customer facing Sales and CSM teams do not.

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The AEs and SDRs from 5 years ago are the CROs and VPs today. This may sound somewhat self-serving, but here it goes. It’s been cool to see the goodwill I created with those AEs and SDRs over the years turn into meaningful opportunities, pipeline, and revenue for Copy.ai. This has never been the primary intent of my presence or content here. But I will say, it’s a nice benefit. Build trust, provide value, be kind, build your network. It’s worth it for many reasons. #sales #sdr #gtmai

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To all SDRs or anyone entering B2B sales, read this post to avoid falling into common traps. 1. The most successful AEs I have met were the best SDRs. 2. SDRs who didn’t excel in the role and are now AEs are still struggling to generate their own pipeline. 3. AEs who skipped the SDR role, often due to an MBA or strong interview skills, fear switching jobs and roles without inbound leads. They’ve never faced the grind of building a pipeline from scratch, filled with rejections. 4. AEs who have never been an SDR majorly rely on their SDRs or Inbound leads from marketing to help them build pipeline and if any Quarter they don't get inbound or enough meetings from SDRs they sh** in their pants. 5. When these AEs become managers, they often question their team—"Where are the numbers?" or "Why isn’t there a pipeline?"—instead of guiding them on building it. Lacking experience in pipeline generation, they fail to lead by example and eventually lose the respect of their team. Learn the art and science of being an SDR and excel at this job at any cost, you will never have to look back or depend on anyone for pipeline EVER. Prospecting and Generating Pipelines is fundamental to Sales whether you are an SDR, AE, Sr Manager, or VP if you don't know how to do OUTBOUND you will continuously live a sales life of fear and anxiety. So SDRs ask yourselves do you want to be such AE and Managers in the future who depend on others to determine their performance and faith or would you like to own your job? #sales #prospecting #outbound #pipeline #sdr #ae #b2b #saas

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Need to transform your SDR team’s performance? How to help your sales team achieve results that will earn you trust and budget. First, audit your content arsenal. Are your SDRs armed with the right tools? Invest time in creating or curating great collateral that addresses your Ideal Customer Profile’s (ICP) pain points and your solutions. Convert the best-performing material into templates. If budget allows, invest in intent tracking tools like ZoomInfo. Provide your SDRs with real-time intelligence on potential leads. This could involve identifying companies visiting key pages of your site or using tools that detect general intent based on topics. Now, launch micro-campaigns. Develop industry-specific value propositions and targeted landing pages. Your SDRs need ammunition that speaks directly to each vertical. Always measure & optimize. Track response rates, meeting conversions, and pipeline velocity. Use these insights to refine your approach. Don’t fear failure – it’s the only way to hit the target. Make small changes based on what works and what doesn’t. What’s working for your SDR enablement? While it can be an overwhelming project, it’s crucial for establishing the foundation for solid growth. #B2BMarketing #SalesEnablement #CMO #Leadership

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Introducing WebSight Buyer ID — our newest GTM signal that takes the guesswork out of prospecting. 🔑 Every day, high-value decision-makers visit your website — but who are they? Without the right tools, these opportunities slip away unnoticed. That's where WebSight Buyer ID comes in. This new signal identifies decision-makers or previously engaged leads visiting high-intent web pages, delivering real-time alerts so you can act fast. Gone are the days of generic outreach. Now, you can focus on the right people at the right time, with tailored messaging that drives engagement and builds trust. Ready to learn more? Head to the blog: bit.ly/3Bia4Ab

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I was asked what is the fasted way to win new business for sales - get warm introductions in your target accounts. Here are 7 steps that I think will help you get radically more pipeline fast:🔥📈 Inboxes are overflowing, cold outreach is losing its punch. Warm introductions are the key to breaking through the noise and accelerating your sales pipeline. 1. Define Target Accounts 🎯 Zero in on accounts that align with your ideal customer profile. Know their challenges, and understand how your solution uniquely solves them. Focus on a subset you’re confident about – don’t let analysis paralysis slow you down. Key: Don’t get stuck on the first step; just go for it! 2. Identify Connectors in Your Network 🕸️ Expand your network (or automate this with platforms like https://lnkd.in/e-XsFVmR) to match up with contacts who have trusted relationships with key players in your target accounts. Look for people with deep industry and solution experience- they’ll help boost your credibility.  3. Engage with Value First 💬 When requesting an intro, lead with value. Show why the intro matters to their connection and how it benefits them. Remember, your Trusted Advisor isn’t your sales rep – they’re a facilitator of value for their network. Offer insights, unique perspectives, and collaborate in a knowledge exchange. This will set you apart as more than “just another sales rep.” 4. Personalize Your Outreach to the New Contact 🧑‍💼 After a warm into, skip the canned pitch. Reference your mutual connection, then tailor your message to your target accounts needs. Tap into your advisor’s inside knowledge on what truly matters, from active projects to key priorities. This approach makes you relevant, aware, and genuinely interesting. 5. Nurture the Relationship, Not Just the Opportunity 🤝 Warm intros open doors, but it’s the relationships that close deals. Focus on building trust, actively listening, and providing value. Even if there’s no immediate sale. 6. Don’t Forget Your Sales Process 🚀 Whether it’s Solution Selling, MEDDICC, or MEDDPICC, stick to your process to stay on track. Use your advisor’s insights to set you apart, but also to qualify out quickly – if it’s not a fit, pivot to protect your credibility and the trust of your connection. 7. Reward Your Trusted Advisor 🏆 Recognize your advisor’s role in your success! A thoughtful gesture, creative reward, or a few percentage points on the deal can make a significant impact. It shows appreciation, strengthens the partnership, and sets the stage for future collaboration. Warm introductions are your ticket to stronger connections, faster cycles, and higher close rates. Are you tapping into them? 🔑 And if you want to make this easy, check out https://lnkd.in/e-XsFVmR – the first platform designed to automate and scale your ability to find and leverage warm introductions into all of your target accounts. 🔗 #SalesTips #Sales #SDR #SalesPipeline #WarmIntroductions #ForceEquals

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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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I did an informal poll on CSM vs Sales commission splits. I was pleasantly shocked to see that over 95% of companies do not have Sales take a commission on renewals unless it’s a particularly challenging one; the AE is there to help with it as a “bounty renewal”. in this case, the AE gets a % but is not taken from the CSM. Other interesting data points: "Commission on upsells and renewal made up 30% of the total compensation package. However, the exact commission % was determined by dividing the 30% by $$$ into the total ARR managed by the CSM." What metrics should this be based on? Most followed this model to Typically, companies that are earlier in their CS maturity will base this off a few leading indicators (adoption milestones, EBRs, etc.), and then move to comping on lagging indicators (retention, expansion, NRR, etc.) once their leading indicator activities have been proven. The following are examples of metrics you can use, not an exhaustive list: Leading: QBRs and/or EBRs (attained vs scheduled) Product adoption milestones (product dependent) Lagging: Net Revenue Retention (NRR) - this is likely the most common Retention Expansion Advocacy (hard to make this scale across large teams and mixed portfolios - this is better as a SPIFF or annual metric to Bonus on) From there, you can determine the weight of each metric on the bonus. I'll give an example using a bonus that is achieved by a renewal retention goal and an NRR goal. Criteria for 100% Bonus Attainment: 90% Renewal Retention (50% weight) 125% Net Revenue Retention (50% weight) "This keeps it pretty simple with two priorities. Retain and Expand Revenue. The Retention goal being assessed separately ensures CSMs don't have significant churn masked by massive upsells. In this example, if a CSM had 85% Retention and 115% NRR, they'd end up at 93.22% to goal for their overall commission/variable comp."

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I did an informal poll on CSM vs Sales commission splits. I was pleasantly shocked to see that over 95% of companies do not have Sales take a commission on renewals unless it’s a particularly challenging one; the AE is there to help with it as a “bounty renewal”. in this case, the AE gets a % but is not taken from the CSM. Other interesting data points: "Commission on upsells and renewal made up 30% of the total compensation package. However, the exact commission % was determined by dividing the 30% by $$$ into the total ARR managed by the CSM." What metrics should this be based on? Most followed this model to Typically, companies that are earlier in their CS maturity will base this off a few leading indicators (adoption milestones, EBRs, etc.), and then move to comping on lagging indicators (retention, expansion, NRR, etc.) once their leading indicator activities have been proven. The following are examples of metrics you can use, not an exhaustive list: Leading: QBRs and/or EBRs (attained vs scheduled) Product adoption milestones (product dependent) Lagging: Net Revenue Retention (NRR) - this is likely the most common Retention Expansion Advocacy (hard to make this scale across large teams and mixed portfolios - this is better as a SPIFF or annual metric to Bonus on) From there, you can determine the weight of each metric on the bonus. I'll give an example using a bonus that is achieved by a renewal retention goal and an NRR goal. Criteria for 100% Bonus Attainment: 90% Renewal Retention (50% weight) 125% Net Revenue Retention (50% weight) "This keeps it pretty simple with two priorities. Retain and Expand Revenue. The Retention goal being assessed separately ensures CSMs don't have significant churn masked by massive upsells. In this example, if a CSM had 85% Retention and 115% NRR, they'd end up at 93.22% to goal for their overall commission/variable comp."

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Do not read this post if your quota attainment per seller is >70%, Average Deal Sizes have grown >2x in the last year and if you don't need more Sales Pipeline. For those of you that do, I'm proud to announce a revolutionary way for your GTM teams to drive productivity with DatabookGPT. But, don't listen to me, listen to our customers: “As we pilot the new DatabookGPT, we find it’s driving down the creation of our initial account plans from seven weeks to seven minutes,” said Chris Smith, Chief Strategy Officer at Grant Thornton. “It's a game changer." "Every AE at Databricks lives by our value of 'customer obsessed.' Understanding the value the Data Intelligence Platform delivers for every customer is essential. DatabookGPT was built on Databricks and supports our sellers by giving them that account intelligence," said Ron Gabrisko, Chief Revenue Officer at Databricks. "Through our teams' use of Databook, we saw our average deal size increase by 54.8% in FY24", said Kirsty Mundy, WW Field Enablement Microsoft, Industry Solutions Delivery Learn more at www.databook.com. It's Generally Available now for companies looking to grow their deal sizes, shorten their sales cycles, and grow pipeline. #accountintelligence #enterprisesales #strategicrelationshipmanagement

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Should CRO’s even exist? Not if they’re going to be: - Super expensive glorified head of sales - With no marketing or CS experience - Compensated like an account executive  - No focus on ICP or aligning the entire GTM motion - No coordination with peers in cross-functions - No P&L fluency or ability to read a P&L  - Only focused on new business with no understanding of recurring impact - No knowledge of the bowtie or systems designed to deliver ongoing customer value - Have a short term view and only care about the quarter CROs should absolutely exist if they: - Can come from Marketing, CS, or RevOps not just Sales - Have foundational understanding and respect for other functions - Are compensated like all other executives - Are focused on driving tight alignment across the GTM motion - Are focused on collaborating across Sales, Marketing, CS leveraging data generated from RevOps - Are focused on a customer journey that begins when the prospect lands on the website and continues through at least 3 annual renewals - Have a deep knowledge of the bowtie  - Have built expertise as revenue architects - Have a long term view that balances short term urgency with long term enterprise value Revenue generation is a team sport. Recurring revenue is driven by recurring impact. If you’re leading the revenue function, you have to understand that and you have to be an expert at driving tight alignment across the customer journey to deliver that impact. This is the way.

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It’s never been more difficult to be in sales. To be successful, you need high-value outbound messaging that distinguishes you as the right solution for your prospect. But let's face it — not all reps have the time or access to real-time data to truly understand each prospect's needs...  It's time to meet SAM, the AI-powered sales assistant from Similarweb. Only with SAM do you get: 💡Prospect-tailored insights based on buyer intent, sales signals, and your prospects’ use case 📬Hyper-personalized, ready-to-use outbound messaging that spotlights your company as the right solution 🗓️Instantly generated insights accessible through Gmail and Google Calendar, making sales reps ready for any meeting  You can learn more about SAM’s capabilities here → https://bit.ly/3QOi5BB

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SDRs, stop talking about what you sell on LinkedIn. Start talking about HOW you sell. That's how you build a brand.

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Tired of losing hard-earned deals? Solve for Revenue Leak. In Clari’s 2024 Revenue Leak Report, RevOps leaders said leak happens at every stage of the funnel. - Creating: Poor and slow upsell pipeline tracking - Converting: Unsure where pipeline is dropping off - Closing: Slipped deals Don’t let Revenue Leak drag down another quarter – or another year. Download the Revenue Leak Report for more: https://lnkd.in/g9gnGrdz  

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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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There’s zero silver bullet in outbound sales in 2024. I promise. No single product, Sales leader, Data cleaning tool, Messaging iteration, Consultant (myself included), Customer, Cold call script, Advisor, Agency... Blah blah blah That’s going to solve all your outbound problems. But you CAN find leverage in each of these. Shoot for 2-5% across a few. Some might move the needle 20%, some might not move it at all. Find the right ones and double down.

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Top 5 key metrics I recommend CROs use for inside sales professionals: 1. Speed of response 2. Efficiency of progression through the process 3. Number of calls per day 4. Number of positive outcomes 5. Demo sets As a CRO leader, these are five metrics that I live by. 

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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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What will work for future SDRs? The same thing past SDR greats focused on. Deep account research Deep contact research Unique + bespoke value props Building real relationships The fundamentals exist for a reason. Focus on those and you'll go very far. Obsess over silver bullets, shortcuts, and "scaling" everything... and you'll be stuck on the treadmill. #gtmai #sdr #sales

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