Daniel Kaplan

What we were promised: a unified ops function for all GTM teams. 😎 What we got: a new name for sales ops. 😔 The labels aren’t really the issue here. It’s the fact that alignment across functional ops teams still seems elusive in many companies. These are some common objections to creating a unified RevOps function: 😰 Functional leaders are worried about their ops teams becoming less responsive 😰 MOPS and CS Ops worry about getting swallowed up by Sales Ops and losing autonomy  😰 Marketing and CS worry their needs won’t be prioritized if RevOps reports to a sales leader These concerns are legitimate and need to be addressed. But they don’t change one simple reality: a lack of alignment among operational teams is usually just a mirror of the lack of alignment among the GTM functions. And these silos harm business performance. Instead of focusing on the challenges, let’s look at what a business can GAIN when ops teams are strongly aligned or unified: 🗺️ A holistic view across the entire revenue process ⚖️ Initiatives prioritized by business impact rather than executive fiat 🥰  A more unified and seamless customer experience 💰 More efficient tech spend with fewer redundant tools 🤝 All revenue teams rowing in the same direction 🤗 Pooled ops resources and mutual support 💪 A stronger ops function that can manage performance rather than just close tickets These teams DO exist, and this week on RevOps FM, I spoke with Julia Kim, who leads one of them at Electric. Julia leads a very mature RevOps function that supports marketing, sales, CS, and partnerships. Not only does this org structure work—her team is a driving force behind the business, which wasn’t at all the case when ops teams were embedded in their functions. In this episode, Julia shares: • The scope and structure of her team • How they plan and prioritize • How they balance running the business as usual with innovation and strategy • How RevOps can have different objectives at different stages of maturity • How she finds efficiencies across the tech stack • And much more Episode link in the comments 👇 —--- P.S. a unified function is one way to achieve alignment, but I don’t suggest it’s the only way. At my company, for example, my team supports marketing and BDR Ops and reports into marketing, while all other ops teams are centralized. This still works very well because a) The marketing leader also reports to the COO, ensuring consistent priorities b) Marketing ops still works closely with other ops teams, has regular cadences, shared OKRs, etc. So the key factors here are a centralized reporting structure and close collaboration. P.P.S. I feel like I've seen the meme I used before somewhere. If you created it first please raise your hand and I'll gladly give credit 😊

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These key B2B stats in Forrester's new "Fuel growth with customer-centric B2B marketing alignment" eBook jumped out at me. For complex B2B deals it seems the buyer's journey is evolving and when teams operate in silos, the disjointed buying experience can have a major negative impact on win rates and revenue. Stats and takeaways - More than half of B2B buying interactions are self-directed. Due to this, Forrester recommends rethinking metrics by using KPIs like "Speed of information" that will track the amount of time it takes a buyer to access the self-service resources they need to make a purchase decision. - For complex deals, the average buying cycle includes three considered vendors, four separate departments, and eight buying group members. Completing buyer journey maps for large complex deals and socializing the findings will bring clarity to the complexity of your buyer's journey. - 83% of B2B buyers have expressed dissatisfaction with the winning provider in one or more areas of the purchasing process. - The sequence of steps that buyers follow before they purchase varies and is rarely linear, meaning that marketing's planned stream of tactics and workflows will rarely line up with the buyer's process. - B2B companies that create value for buyers and customers grow revenue 2.5 times faster than companies that do not. - Influence B2B buyers with value-based content by focusing on four value dimensions: Economic value, functional value, experiential value, and symbolic value. #B2B #GrowthMarketing #Pipeline

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I'm doing yet another product hunt launch: https://lnkd.in/esHrd4hX CalendarHunter helps you discover hidden meeting scheduling links like Calendly. CalendarHunter can help you find leads on Linkedin, Twitter, and Reddit. The tool is still early stage so any feedback is welcome. #ProductHunt #GrowthHacking

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There’s a dramatic divide in how GTM teams are setting up signal-driven outbound. Some teams are thrilled with a 2% conversion rate, and others expect 20%. Here’s why: It comes down to whether your motion is for SMBs or MM / ENT. Companies selling to SMBs have a massive TAM. Using Bluebirds, we found ~500k accounts in the US with less than 200 employees. With smaller ACVs and this large of a TAM, SMB motions need to rely on automation to make the economics work. Here are the benchmarks at an account level: - 0.3% meeting rate with just email sequences, no signals - 1% meeting rate with email sequences that are signal-driven (job change, job postings, fundraising, etc.) - 3% to 5% meeting rate with email, call, connection requests and signals It’s difficult to scale beyond these benchmarks without smaller territories and higher-touch rep involvement, which breaks the unit economics. Luckily this works really well if you can automatically touch thousands of accounts per week using tools like Smartleads, Bluebirds, Clay, dozens of inboxes, Orum / Nooks, etc. On the flip side, companies selling to MM / ENT have a much tighter TAM of ~50k accounts. After tiering, reps might be responsible for 100-200 accounts and need to drive $30k+ ACVs. Three VP of Sales running this GTM motion said they expect their reps to convert at a 15-30% meeting book rate, within 2 weeks of working an account. These teams still want signals to improve productivity and know where to focus, but don’t wan’t extreme outbound automation. Their tech stack looks more traditional, using Outreach instead of Smartleads, a moderate number of inboxes, and something like Bluebirds for signals. One approach isn’t better than the other, it just depends on your GTM motion. Feels like this nuance has been glossed over in the signal-driven outbound conversation on LinkedIn.

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Where do your sellers practice? If your answer is “on our customers,” then it's not really practice. Your reps need a safe place to practice and prepare for the unexpected without high stakes tied to the outcome. Roleplay is the most effective form of sales practice, providing benefits like: + Realistic skill application through sales simulation + Enhanced retention of information + Boosting confidence through low-stakes practice + Immediate, on-demand feedback That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce what might be the most important development in sales practice to date: RolePlayAI. RolePlayAI is a sales simulator that gives sellers that “on the ground” experience managers want via real-time conversations with AI — all without the repercussions of putting unprepared reps in front of real customers. Find all the juicy details here: https://bit.ly/4bTK4bk #ai #roleplay #salescoaching

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Check out this week’s best-curated posts on B2B Sales, Marketing and RevOps👇 David Bentham: Here are 3 ways to improve your connect rate. →https://lnkd.in/g6fF2pDM Stuart Taylor: Make sales demos easy. →https://lnkd.in/gXDjKyum Collin Cadmus: Shifting focus away from new customer growth is the worst decision. →https://lnkd.in/g877cRNe Eddie Reynolds: Who should RevOps report to? →https://lnkd.in/g47nwB8G Nils Thiemann: Systemic mindset in RevOps. →https://lnkd.in/gjhQfTZ7 Arnaud Belinga 🧊🔨: Your LinkedIn profile boosts your cold email replies. →https://lnkd.in/gsc49YNz — Find the most valuable insights and perspectives from the world of LinkedIn here at Best of LinkedIn. #bestoflinkedin #marketing #b2bsales #sales #b2b

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Did you know 86% of B2B companies invest in an outbound-led GTM motion? Did you also know that 57% of companies failed to build sufficient pipeline in 2023? Somewhere along the way, the motions we have relied on are no longer producing at the rates they used to. What gives? Join Nina Butler, Matt Millen, and others on June 18th to learn how to reinvent your outbound strategies to better meet buyers where they are today. New research will be unveiled outlining the current state of outbound, and how to thrive in this new era of sales. RSVP for GTM Partners’ Virtual Leadership Summit here:  https://lnkd.in/eTdfRchY

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Is manual dialling stopping you from scaling your sales pipeline? 😓 Not anymore! JustCall X Apollo.io have joined hands to help you — find leads, auto-dial, close deals in a matter of seconds. Here’s how this integration helps your sales team: SDRs & BDRs: 🤖 Auto dial qualified leads: Find perfect leads with Apollo, then dial them instantly with JustCall. 📝 Log calls & details automatically: Find time for what matters - selling! ✍🏻 Personalize your pitch: Use Apollo's rich data to tailor your pitches and connect with leads on a deeper level. 📅 Never miss a follow-up: Automate workflows to ensure timely follow-ups. Sales Ops & Rev Ops: 🔀 Unify your data: JustCall & Apollo sync seamlessly with your CRM, creating a single source of truth. 📊 Create smarter reports: Get a clear picture of your entire sales funnel with consolidated data from all platforms. 📺 Marketing and sales: Leverage data insights from Apollo.io & Sales Dialer analytics to personalize marketing campaigns and target high-quality leads. ⏳ Find time for strategic work: With automated workflows and minimal setup time, you get more time to focus. Managers & Business Owners: 🚀 Boost team efficiency: Streamline workflows to empower your reps to sell smarter, not harder. 👀 Get real-time visibility into sales: Track individual & team performance with clear, consolidated data. 🧑‍🏫 Easier coaching: Use call recordings & AI insights to give personalized feedback and improve your team's performance. ⛹🏻‍♂️ Reduce workload on your team: Let generate AI call summaries and free your to team for what they do best — selling. 🌱 Scale your pipeline with confidence: Be sharp in optimization, know what’s working and what’s not. If this excites you and you’re ready to crush your quota, click this link to get started: https://lnkd.in/g_pM7fAU

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Going live in one hour. https://lnkd.in/gnptPsMb

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Is your company's GTM 🚀 achieving escape velocity or crashing to earth every quarter? Customer value isn't created within your departments, it's created by the holistic customer experience across the GTM team. Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success alignment and teamwork can take your company to new places. Sadly, too many companies fail to see the alignment light. I explore how the three areas need each other for excellence in the video! 💜 Your Accounts!

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Hiring your company's first AE? Look for Renaissance reps. Conor Dragomanovich is a two-time founding AE who rose through the ranks at Productboard to become their VP of Commercial Sales. Now he's on OpenAI's GTM team. Here's his advice for hiring an AE who can grow with your company: "There's plenty of folks who are very tactical and really good at building things, but that's all they really want to do. Find that salesperson who's a bit of a micro-operator and has a bias towards action." 👉 How do they think about problem-solving? 👉 Are they demonstrating an active mind? 👉 To what extent can they create process where there is none? These questions can help you narrow down your candidates to that unicorn rep to build your initial sales processes. Check out this week's episode of #GrowandTell, where Alex and Conor discuss building and scaling your founding sales team and deep dive into the GTM programs at Productboard and OpenAI. Watch/listen here 👉 https://lnkd.in/e5eED7DK

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Your GTM is broken. We have more knowledge, tools, and AI than ever... So why did 56% of companies miss revenue goals last year? ↳ Misaligned Teams - 60% of companies say sales, marketing, and CS are out of sync leading to wasted hours. ↳ Siloed Tech Stacks - 11,038+ GTM techs on the market - The average enterprise has 23 tools in their GTM tech stack, often not integrated ↳ Lack of Trust - 71% say internal go-to-market clarity is the biggest blocker to business growth than competition or market conditions. Your GTM is Better Together... Decisions about GTM technology, interoperability, team roles, and strategies cannot be made in silos any longer. → GTM Teams are Better Together - GTM-aligned teams are 67% more efficient at closing deals → GTM Tech is Better Together - 82% of tech buyers want software that integrates with existing solutions. They rank ease of integration higher than the cost or security. Source: G2 2023 Buyer Behavior Report → GTM Trust Happens when Teams and Tech work better together. Teams that work better together are 50% more productive (source: Stanford) and drive 21% more profitability (source: Gallup) Join us for Better Together... Learn more and request an invite from the 🔗  in comments #BetterTogether G2 Clari TechnologyAdvice Totango + Catalyst Software ZoomInfo ON24 Vidyard Demandbase MadKudu

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CTAs are critical to your cold email ✅ Without a clear next step, your prospect has no idea what you want them to do. 🎯 Here are some CTAs that can spark connections and conversations: ⬇⬇⬇ 💠 Is this a priority right now? (💜 Will Allred Allred) 💠 Does it make sense to connect on this? (Leslie Venetz) 💠 Are 51% of your cold emails landing in spam? (Josh Braun) 💠 Open to seeing how it works? (Armand Farrokh) 💠 Have you seen this? 💠 Want to see how other companies achieved [similar goal]? 💠 Have you ever tried this method before? 💠 Have you considered this?(Josh Braun) 💠 Here’s a video with more info. 💠 Would it be useful for you to have the ability to "x"? 💠 Feel free to say no if you don’t see a fit, but does this sound mildly interesting? (Josh Braun) Connect authentically, and watch your conversations light up! Share your best CTAs in the comments below 👇 #sales #salestips #emails #coldemails #coldemailtips #ctas #sdr #sdrlife #saleslife #outboundsales #emailtips

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The path to $10MM ARR is about finding your repeatable, scalable sales motion. The formula is simple, but not easy. It looks like this: Effort + Enthusiasm + Messaging + Lead Quality = Results When you are scaling a sales team, your job is to manage the inputs. Those are the things on the left side of this equation. If you can reduce the variability of the inputs, you will have more consistent results. Put another way. Consistent inputs leads to consistent outputs. Let's break it down... 1. Effort is the driver for your sales performance. You cannot scale without consistent effort. Effort includes the velocity of sales activity (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.). Effort also includes the way that you execute your sales activity. This is your sales process and sales playbook. You can improve the quality of your effort with learning and development. 2. Enthusiasm is an amplifier for your effort. You have to act like you want to earn the business. A little enthusiasm goes a long way in closing more business. I've found that you can't teach enthusiasm. You must hire for it. 3. Messaging is how you get prospects to believe what you believe. Your messaging is your value prop. It's how you approach your ICP. It's the way that you convince customers that their current version of the world is no longer acceptable and they must make a chance. The best messaging illustrates the consequences of inaction. 4. Lead quality drives your conversion rate You have to stay focused on your ICP. The more variable your lead quality, the more inconsistent your sales results. The best effort, enthusiasm, and messaging are helpless if you are focused on the wrong accounts. This is the formula for predictable, repeatable, scalable sales. Manage the consistency of your inputs and you will have consistent outputs. What about you? What's your formula for repeatable results?

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I'm all for protecting consumers but the 19 different global privacy regulations are unnecessarily crushing B2B GTM. I've seen these regs bring entire revenue teams to a grinding halt. I've witnessed some bitter battles between business leaders and legal leaders dismantle entire GTM playbooks. It doesn't need to be this way. Revenue teams AND legal AND data subjects can ALL get what they need. It boils down to knowing EACH privacy regulation, having a specific plan to source and transfer data and having a vendor partnered with you who can do it above board without bullshitting you or legal. To help, we've created a framework. The framework is gonna show you 3 things: 1️⃣ Region by region, country by country what does each privacy regulation require? Public sourcing, passive opt-out or explicit opt-in? 2️⃣ If you're evaluating data vendors to use in those regions, what should each of those vendors be doing to compliantly source & transfer data to you? 3️⃣ It's going to arm you with the knowledge you need to present a bullet proof case to legal to get the approval you need to execute outbound plays in these countries. If you want the framework, click the link in comments...DM LeadGenius or Zeb Couch 🤜🤛 to chat about how we can help. 🥳

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“What's life like as a PMM?” Me: “Ever tried to jump rope with 9 poodles?” "YEAH. IT'S LIKE THAT." ** Takes a deep breath ** Sales wants this. Product wants that. Let's not even start on what eng is saying... But then, with a little finesse, lots of strategy, and a TON of patience, you start to bring everyone together 🙌 Suddenly, you're not just wrangling poodles. You're orchestrating a beautiful dance. Where every stakeholder is in sync. (Well mostly 😉) Product marketers are the strategic wranglers: → Making sure product is building what the market actually wants → Keeping engineering in the loop on customer needs → Ensuring sales has the perfect pitch It's not always easy. But when it all comes together? Pure. Poodle. Magic ✨ Errrr. I meant positioning. Or should that have said Grrrr? 🐶😂 ANYWAYS… Here’s to all you PMMs. Making stakeholder wranglin’ look effortless. P.S. Tag a product marketer who makes it look easy 👇

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Are your BDR outbound efforts falling flat? Marketing and sales teams waste time and resources on generic, one-size-fits-all outreach that fails to resonate with busy B2B buyers. These buyers are craving personalized experiences that speak directly to their unique challenges and goals. But what if you could create an integrated campaign that surrounds your target accounts with consistent, personalized messaging? By incorporating links to personalized landing pages into your BDR sequences and email campaigns, you can drive higher engagement and accelerate the buying process. And when your BDRs follow up to discuss the tailored content, you create a seamless, high-impact experience that cuts through the noise. This coordinated approach harnesses the power of both inbound and outbound personalization to deliver relevant and consistent messaging to prospects at your target accounts. Ready to refresh your ABM program with some new tactics that are working right now? We've got you covered 👇 https://bit.ly/3R8S4wT

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Have you seen the new HubSpot #AI beta product drops? 👀 They include: - AI-Powered Chatbots - Building Workflows with AI-Assistance 🔑 Get access to #HubSpot's AI product betas by checking out Darren Howerton's quick video!

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