Confessions of a Seller Podcast

Too Many Tools, No Pipeline — The AI GTM System That Wins

• Confessions of a Seller • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Most teams don’t have a GTM strategy problem. They have a system problem.

Too many tools.
Too much data.
Nothing connected.

That’s why pipeline feels harder every year.

This episode breaks down the chaos of the current GTM stack — fragmented tools, disconnected workflows, and teams overloaded with information but lacking execution.

And more importantly, what’s replacing it.

From unified AI systems, to how high-performing teams actually operate today, to how outbound and inbound are evolving into one motion — this is the shift already happening.

You’ll see how modern teams are connecting their stack, aligning sales and marketing, and using AI to turn signals into pipeline.

No more guesswork. Just execution at scale.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• Why the current GTM stack is broken
• How fragmentation kills execution and pipeline
• What high-performing teams do differently with AI
• How to connect tools into one system
• How outbound and inbound are merging into one motion
• How to deal with AI overload and use it effectively
• How sales and marketing should actually work together
• How Alta is solving GTM fragmentation and execution

Thanks to the partners supporting Confessions of a Seller.

🔗 Jason AI SDR by Reply
They’ve built one of the strongest multichannel outbound platforms in the market — taking teams from research to meeting booked in one system, enabling modern Allbound execution.

Exclusive Promotion for you. Apply the following codes at checkout, and you'll get an exclusive discount:

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🔗 Alta
They’re building one of the most advanced AI GTM platforms in the market — giving revenue teams a full system of action across inbound, outbound, and growth, eliminating fragmentation and turning signals into execution.

Alta homepage
https://www.altahq.com/?utm_campaign=Influencers&utm_source=cos&utm_medium=podcast

SPEAKER_01

AI won't solve your sales problems, but today you will learn how to implement AI within your motion and how you will be able to be a top performer if you stay with us within this episode. So I'm super happy that we are going to talk about a beautiful topic and a hype there is around AI. So, Kevin, thank you very much for joining me again in this Confessions of a Seller episode. Let's kick it off.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, sure. I think it's a really hot topic for many go-to-market teams out there at the moment. Um, many of them are lost. Um, they don't know what they should automate, how they automate uh the things. And I think we will bring some light to those people who are listening today, I hopeful. Absolutely. And uh dig deeper.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And before we forget, something that we always have to say is say thanks to our main partner and sponsor, in this case, Reply, um, that is trusting us and working alongside with us within the whole Confessions of a Seller podcast. If you want to check them out, they are the best in town, all in one sales engagement tool. All the comments and uh details in the description of this video. So let's jump straight forward. You mentioned something that is really interesting, and this is something that I'm seeing in every single project that I work on, and even when I was working as an employee, that it's kind of a mixed feeling within I'm lost or I'm not sure about how to implement AI. Is there any hype versus fake reality? How do you see this happening within the go-to-market teams?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think because many of the go-to-market teams, right, they they have certain processes automated, but they're not connected with each other. All right. That means there's a lot of loss of data between the different tools they are using instead of automating uh workflows, what they automate is really just tasks. Okay. I I think that's a really, really important topic. I know I I I have the issues as well in in on my daily business, right? You Okay, tell me an example about that. Want to have an outreach campaign. Okay. Go to an outreach uh to uh to a data uh provider, you extract all the the the data points like phone numbers, email addresses, you then up um connect it to your outreach tool. Okay. Um where of course mainly the data um is maybe not correct. Correct. So you send out your your your campaign through the outreach tool, then you you wait.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right? You you you see, of course, open rate, etc. Um, but what you, for example, don't see is let's say you send uh three emails to a specific company, and then suddenly this company actually requests a demo on another source or in your website, but that's not connected.

SPEAKER_01

That's what we're saying. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

So all the the circle, it should be a roundup circle. Yeah. Let's say your SDR reach out to this company, but then it becomes an inbound lead. Correct. But who should be compensated for it? Is the SDR or the marketing?

SPEAKER_01

Even the buying process and the buying cycle for the for the buyer, for the prospect in this case, is something that they are feeling like, hey, these guys are reaching me out through one channel, this guy, Kevin, on the other channel, this guy, Alan, is reaching me out because I downloaded a PDF. They are talking about different things. So this is where the fragmentation starts, right? 100%. So what we are seeing, and this is a perfect example, and I think that everyone that is listening right now will feel that or is feeling that because as a sellers, we are we're going through that, right? Like, okay, we have one enrichment tool, one data tool, one CRM, one analytics tool, one ads tool, and that's chaos. Not only for the sales team. Imagine, like many go-to-market teams out there are using up to between 15 and 20 different tools. That's crazy. So, one question there. Do you think that go-to-market teams right now are using too many tools?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I think so. Uh, it should be more consolidated. Okay. It really also depends, right? Because some of some companies maybe they do have like a good workflow between these tools happening. That I think if you can consolidate it and have it in a like a round circle, yeah, it would make more sense, right?

SPEAKER_01

I love that because you mentioned twice or three times the word workflow. Yeah. And this is where we are seeing the go-to-market evolution and the AI go-to-market evolution. There is um a clear wave happening and the wave that happened in the last five years. So, what we can put, if we need to put some names into it, we have wave number one over the last three, four, five years, where AI and automation started, where we can see that there is just automating tasks, but not workflows, as you are saying. This example of I need one data tool, I need an enrichment enrichment tool, and then all the other plus 10 tools, but they are not connecting between each other. And that will create chaos at the end of the day. And that is what we are seeing today as a problem, the fragmentation problem. So, my question for both of us, and I want to understand your point of view as well, is how can we solve this? What is the fragmentation problem that we are talking about and where the market is going? Yeah. So I think important point here is that the different tools has to, first of all, communicate with each other, right?

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So they have to, and if you have one single tool which has a unique workflow, automatically this this communication is seamless and um makes it for the whole process much easier. Okay. Um, you mentioned automating tasks, right? Um many companies say, okay, uh, write me uh a good email for this outreach campaign. Correct. And then they think they use AI, but it's just an the automation of a task. Exactly. It's not the automation.

SPEAKER_01

But it's not completing the full workflow or system, right? Correct. Well, uh what are your opinion about it, Ellen? I I do believe um that companies are using a lot of tools right now, not because they are just doing that because that's the trend, yeah, but because this is how the wave started. Like you need one tool to solve one problem, and each tool was solving one problem, but they are completely disconnected. So the framework or the strategy that we are seeing within the projects that we are working with, is like if your sales team, your marketing team, or your RevOps team or sales engineering team, or someone that is making sure that the tools are connected, are spending more than 20 or 30% of their time integrating those tools, then kill them or try to find an all in one or a solution that will match them all.

SPEAKER_00

Look, one of the first questions, if, for example, when when I promote a tool for a company on my LinkedIn profile, one of the main questions which comes up, does it integrate with exactly? Does it integrate with HubSpot? Does it integrate with sales for it? Even when you're selling it. Yeah, exactly. You know, like and uh yeah, most tools integrate with something, but they are not communicating uh uh seamlessly. That's the best word that you you you could ever use.

SPEAKER_01

So one thing is hey, yes, we have the API, or yes, you can integrate with Slack and send a message. Yeah But what is the main difference between just integration and communication in this case? What's that main difference? And if we put it into an example, it's it's just like a data transfer.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So uh for people who listen, it's like with integration, it's one data transfer from your data provider sent the contact details to your CRM system so your team then can call them or send an email. That's awesome. But what we want is that the the data provider uh uh, for example, you communicate communicate it's back, right? So, like I said before, is you your sales team sends three emails out to um this prospect, then the analytic team uh knows that this SDR sent out three emails, this triggered potentially an inbound lead back to the system. Then you with this data points, you can say, okay, so the effort the SDR is doing, maybe because a lot of sales uh a lot of um SDR managers think, ah, but he just sends out a couple of emails, but he doesn't make meetings. But maybe this meetings actually uh this email is actually created uh the trigger to get an inbound lead. Exactly. So I think a lot of sales teams don't see the benefits of the SDR teams uh doing their job, but actually they they they they uh create certain awareness for the for the company.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And you're making me think here. So if we need to put this into a step-by-step, let's say, or or something that is super relatable, uh, that I think that we both felt the pain every single day and we are still feeling it, is that when we are talking about systems and evolution and AI, means that we are thinking of uh integrated motion of actions, right? And your example, correct me if I'm wrong, it's hey, if you start outbound, but then for any given reason, that prospect or that list of prospects are not converting in the first couple of touches. Yeah. But those prospects execute an action, then meaning whatever social context it is that could be uh triggering uh or downloading a PDF, uh white paper, uh uh commenting on a competitor post or something similar, either hiring or having any trigger that you might use as an outbound, that will trigger internally, if you have the connected system with the AI, an inbound notification that will be uh directly created as a task in your CRM that will execute another action. So all the action points are connected.

SPEAKER_00

All the intents which are happening around this account need to flow back to the account. Amazing. Commenting on LinkedIn, outreach from the sales team, correct, new job posting, whatever the intent it is. Exactly. So everything needs to not just go out, it needs to flow back to the account where you then get an understanding in the analytic, absolutely where it's at the moment for a lot of um go-to-market teams, it's a chaos. It's a chaos. It's like a like a spaghetti plate. It's a clear, it's a chaos. It's a chaos.

SPEAKER_01

And then we never know who to blame. Either is the seller that it's not understanding how sales works, is sales ops that it's not giving me the right tools or systems to work with. So in order to recap um for the audience, we have a solution that right now it's a challenge, that is the first wave, if we want to call it some way, that is integrating AI into our workflow. Yeah. But that happened just as uh individual uh independent things from all the other processes. So automating tasks. That brings us to the fragmentation problem, right? That it's all these different tools working separately, but giving us more headaches than solutions. Yeah. So right now we are jumping into this wave where there is a hype about AI. There are a lot of potential solutions and companies willing to integrate AI as a system. Yeah. Is there any tool or any solution that you've been testing or we've been testing together that you can say, hey, this is where this company is going and how they are solving this problem? Yeah. I think Alta is a great example here. Uh-huh. Okay. Can you elaborate a little bit what they're doing?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So it's it, everything we mentioned, right, from the intent data from all the different sources, they have it integrated in their own flow. In their own flow, in their own environment, right? It means if there is a like of a post, if there's job posts, exactly what we what we mentioned before, they capture all those different intent data as well as the outreach options, um, events which are happened, maybe they've met someone at a at an event. Everything that's happening. Exactly. At a cocktail party they uh lounged uh with different sales leaders. So they know exactly how many touch points they had with an individual, which then they could use, of course, um, for their outreach strategy.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so they are solving this fragmentation problem, connecting everything that they are doing, basically, that it's inbound, outbound, trigger, social context, everything as one system. Yeah. So how does help the sellers, the sales ops teams, the sell revop, the revops teams? Um, and that's I think that's a question that that I always ask myself. And clients, when I work with them, they are saying to me, Alan, our sales team is doing ABC tasks, but they are not connecting or not working with the marketing team. Yeah. And they're not working with the go-to-market team. So how can we integrate this into a flow where every action, every step impacts or drives a new action point, right? Yeah, I think that Alta is doing basically this.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Imagine they generate like I think a seven-figure pipeline using this specific workflow. It's changing the game. It's it's changing the game. And like I said before, it's with there were before there were no up, no possibilities to be able to track all this data points. But now with AI, it is because AI understands the different data points and can it can connect it to one single trigger. And the single triggers, then maybe sales need to reach out, or um, let's say they give it even uh certain um recommendations, right? Maybe this the maybe we should uh put some um sponsored AB uh some ABM marketing um specifically targeting this company, right? To really leverage the the information the company has um has generated over the last weeks or months to to penetrate the company a little bit more to get them to the point where they do the demo request.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely, absolutely. Everything is connected at the end of the day. 100%. This is how the wave two or the second uh potential solution of how fragmented chaos will be eliminated from the scene. That it's less tools, this is where the go-to-market evolution or the AI go-to-market scene is going through. It's less tools, more integrated systems, more easy to connect within information and going out, but going in information, and that will drive different action points internally as well.

SPEAKER_00

And one point we didn't highlight is how time consuming it is for a salesperson, right? Imagine like you you take the from the data provider, upload it there, put it in your cadence, sending out the emails, check the data if it's correct in in your CRM system, if an email is not um correct, if it bounced back, the thing is.

SPEAKER_01

And the sellers, they don't even know a lot of, they don't even have, we don't even have most of the time the skills, the technical skills to jump into this data stuff, yeah. And and reading the data and working with the tools. And that leads me to a question that is as a next idea or next topic within this AI go to market. It's um what are the things that you're seeing? Uh, and and we can discuss about it, what are the things that you're seeing top, high, top performing teams are doing within this AI hype?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And how they is if there is any framework or strategy that you know in order to make sure that this will impact the revenue or their pipeline.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I think you mentioned a really important point. Uh impact the revenue. So means taking out all the tools which are not bringing in revenue or like not impacting the revenue directly. Perfect. So um reducing the Can you repeat that?

SPEAKER_01

That's important. It's a key point. Yeah. So what would be the your in your mind, what's the action to do or to make as a go-to-market team or sales team regarding all those 10, 15 tools that they are using right now?

SPEAKER_00

Analyze the tool. If they do not impact directly your revenue, try to cut them. Try to cut them or consolidate them to a tool which covers it, but communicate it directly, it which communicates with with each other, right? Absolutely. It's really important. Impacting the revenue directly. It's it's the key, key, key point here, right? And what I see as well from many, many startups out there, um, especially the younger ones who, you know, are not sitting currently on 15 different subscription models, yeah, which are uh signed up for the last next three years. They say, hey, why waste of money? Yeah, why should I pay thousands of euros, dollars for multiple tools if I can have one which has a smooth workflow and um uh make make the life of our salespeople much easier?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. There is a hype, I think, even on LinkedIn and and in every social media channel, about these companies launching new features that are not related to their main core of the nature of why they started. And I think that this is the clear example of why tools are moving towards use me and just me, because we will solve all your integration problems or your system problems. So, how do you see this evolution? Uh, but just more of a personal perspective. Do you think that this would be like a bubble, like a real estate bubble in the go-to-market space? Or how do you see this AI uh go-to-market space moving forward?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think those companies who, you know, add another feature in just to satisfy another company because they know, oh, but your competitor is doing this. And I think it's can be a quite a big pain for those companies because they they drive away from the uh their main core, let's say the core and the vision they had just to satisfy. So it's like, I don't know, building a uh a toilet and adding different features like you want to have a shower over your toilet, you want to have like uh uh whatever uh added to this different, like added different features to it. And I think it has will be not uh uh uh beneficial for those companies because just satisfying customers without even really evaluating does it actually make sense? Yeah, I don't see it uh in a positive way too.

SPEAKER_01

So basically adding features just by the sake of adding features is not a good idea. No, no, no. Because we're seeing this hype, right? Yeah, we're seeing companies saying, hey, we just launched this enrichment part, or we just launched this whatever it is. And we're like, okay, we have the hype, we have the FOMO. Uh they are putting it into a beautiful scarcity way. So you want like, hey, this will solve all my problems. Yeah. And by the way, this is something that happens, I would say, 99% of my of my clients. And let me tell you a story short.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And please interrupt me and add into it. But basically, when I was leading a team at Revolute, this was exactly one of the challenges that we were facing. We were scaling fast. I remember that I was one uh employee number between three to four thousand, yeah, around that number. And when I stopped working uh with them and move into the next chapter, uh the company had around 10K employees. So we were growing really fast. And imagine with that velocity and speed of growing, what we were seeing is that team one, team three, team nine, we had no integration or communication between each other, not even in the systems. So what happened is that then Kevin LLC or Kevin company, we are reaching out to you 20 times by 20 different people because we have no idea what's happening. And the worst thing is that you were fine, you were looking for a solution like ours, yeah, but because of how, in that specific case, how disconnected the system were, you felt frustrated. And those three things that we were telling before that Altam might solve and could solve, that it's hey, the buyer is buying in a different way. They want relevance, they want clear information. If you have systems that are not connecting within each other, you are not going to solve that. Yeah. The second thing is they want speed. And if you are not speed enough, uh, or as we were talking in other episodes about the speed to lead, then we are not solving them and they can go to a competitor.

SPEAKER_00

Another point, it's you know, with the outreach, what you what you just mentioned. Imagine you just said three different salespeople in great teams reach out to this crazy same individual. Um Imagine how you felt. Yeah, exactly. You get three emails uh a week from three different people inside of the of the organization, and then marketing is uh as well sending marketing communications, marketing communications. It's crazy. Then he receives information from LinkedIn. I think everyone who ever got like messages from this crazy persistent sales guy pissed off. At one point you say to them, man, I'm not going to buy. Just chill, you know? Exactly. And it's a bad association to your to your to your company, absolutely your bad reputation because you are too aggressive. Maybe it works in in in in in other markets. In the US, it's a it's a way how they sell, of course. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

More aggressive. But being aggressive and having integrated systems is not the same thing. I mean, having integrated system, if you are aggressive, can solve you or can address a lot of problems in the future, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and that's well, relevancy, right? Exactly. Because if you send them uh invite to a webinar about whatever, which is not at all relevant for them, they think like, okay, but what did they even do their research?

SPEAKER_01

It's crazy. Um it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Sales is um it's the nature of what we are seeing in the go to market, is going through towards this integrated and connected system. Everything needs to be breaking one point, driving another action point.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And as we were saying, and it's always important to highlight that Alta is a partner of us and a tool that we are always using and constantly. Putting into action, they are going through this path. They notice that the fragmentation is real, that teams and go-to-market teams are suffering of these disconnected solutions, as well as the sellers, and they are solving this.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Right? Yeah, and uh as well, like with the they they help us a lot with the relevancy. Because, you know, if there's a news article article that the company opens a new office in a certain territory. Social context. Social context. If you want to find that manually, of course you can do it, but it is much faster, much more effective. Absolutely. If you have like this account information, okay, open new office. That means they hire around 3,000 people. Okay, what do the 3,000 people need? They need specific licenses, correct? Maybe a better workflow in place, bam, you can contact them directly. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

No, we are aligned here, and I think that the companies need to shift the way they are thinking, go to market. Yeah. My question here, and remember, we have the cards, but we will jump into that later on. My question here is moving a little bit away from AI, still understanding why AI is important and go to market, but also within the sales perspective, how do you how do you think the sellers and you and myself as seller, how do you think we feel and they feel when all the companies talking about use AI, uh implement AI, but not giving somehow the resources or or or or path towards that?

SPEAKER_00

I think, of course, they feel overwhelmed. Imagine, like and first of all, they feel overwhelmed because let's say the different AI tools out there contact the different salespeople, say uh VP of sales, CROs in the company. Then you have a sales enablement team who as well get contacted. You have like um maybe directors who get contacted, yeah, and all those different solutions out there because it's like there's so many now. Right. There's so many solutions out there. So I think they are overwhelmed. They don't know which solution is the best for their use case. And I think it's good that, you know, like with in podcasts like like ours, yeah, that we bring a bit of light into the topic. Peace of mind. A peace of mind where they can say, oh, interesting. I didn't never saw it from that perspective. But maybe it's true. That's exactly the use case what we have currently, status quo, in our organization. And maybe it would make sense to have a look at a solution like Alta because we highlight them convinced that it's a good solution. Absolutely. So overwhelms is, I think, the the word which which is the right word.

SPEAKER_01

At the end of the day, what we want, and and man, I want you to challenge me here. You are an enterprise seller. I was a seller and I am a seller. I was my seller my whole life, but I'm still selling on my own. What we want is revenue or hitting our goals. If you're an S ER, you want to hit your quota. If you're an AE, you want to hit your quota. Same for sales managers, pushing the seller, saying, Hey, we need to do more, we need to um achieve these numbers and so on. So I think that at some point we are more overloaded of information of how AI or what AI can do for us than their actual actions that we are taking. Uh, and what as a seller, what I want is like, hey, RevOps, whatever you use, I don't care. Just give me the right information or tools so I can marketing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Give me the right leads. Marketing, I need more leads. I need more leads.

SPEAKER_01

But tell me about this. Yeah, that's wait here. Wait here. Tell me about this because this is a clear fight. If we go and call it a fight, because there are some fights internally. It's like, no, I blame marketing. Marketing blames sales. Always, always. Tell me a story about that.

SPEAKER_00

I have a lot of stories. Yeah, like I think it's uh in every organization, it's like that. Marketing says, hey, um, sales is um uh doing their own stuff, they they don't communicate directly with marketing. Uh then sales said, hey, marketing doesn't send us enough leads. Yeah, we need more leads. Uh uh pipeline is not generated by marketing, marketing that's not enough. But the biggest problem is instead of you know thinking about all the i solutions out there, of course, it's it's an it's an important part, but just talk to each other. Exactly. Right? Um internal communication.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly, internal communication. So what I realized why is that so complicated? And it's one of the key factors, sorry to interrupt, of why between teams, again, connected systems, but here about human beings, right? Like, why it's so difficult to send the teams or jump into if you're going to the office to the marketing guy and say, hey, this is BS. Yeah. Or you are doing BS, or I'm not selling it the right way.

SPEAKER_00

Like, oh, not even not even just marketing. Like, of course, it's it's important, you know, like having a direct communication. What is we are the salespeople are the front of the front army of information marketing can use to um target then specific companies where you want to have a meeting with. Correct. Right? But another part which a lot of salespeople do not take into consideration, and I we did it actually this week, was talking to the customer success manager or the to the to your account manager to see which pain points those companies you closed actually have at the current stage. Right? For example, in our in my business where I'm uh I work now in online brand protection, okay, where we protect brands from scam or counterfeits or um any kind of social media personage.

SPEAKER_01

Everyone is coming, everyone.

SPEAKER_00

And what we did is we spoke to a specific team which is responsible for their vertical consumer electronics. Okay. So we had a meeting with them and say, hey, tell us what is currently happening um in the consumer electronics industry. And they said, like, look, what we see, for example, for a lot of companies like Dyson or Bitcoin Marshall, that they're TikTok ads published which promote counterfeit products, and then you click on the ads and you will be redirected to another website where you could where they actually sell like fake Dyson hairdryer, right? Coming from whatever coming from different countries, coming from social media and then leading to a to a website, right? And we were like, oh wow, that's because that's a good idea to then use that as an outreach use case to then implement in our in our sequence. And the SCR directly said, okay, I make a three-step sequence using TikTok ads as a trigger uh for the consumer electronics companies. Yeah. As we understood, many consumer electronic companies have this issue because our vertical experts told us that. And then try to.

SPEAKER_01

But basically, what you're saying here is that the main thing that is bringing a problem or challenge between the different teams, marketing and sales, that is communication, can be used in your favor if we just communicate, because this is the clear example. Like, hey, go talk to these different industries, understand the criteria or what are the patterns that they're going through. Yeah, let's get back with marketing. Let's let's brain on what are the topics that we can use to define an outreach campaign, and boom, we have a clear action point.

SPEAKER_00

Another example I can give you like there was now the biggest toy fair uh in the world in Nuremberg happening. Direct communication again with our marketing team. Okay, could you make a case study before that uh toy fair is happening? You we use the case study at the toy fair to convince more companies in the toy industry using our solution, right? Amazing that's direct communication. And and and it's it's simple. You don't need AI for that.

SPEAKER_01

That brings that brings again the relevance topic, right? So at the end of the day, sales besides AI, besides go-to-market, besides all the tech strategies that we have, it's about one thing. It's saying what the potential customer wants to hear at the right time, yeah, with the right context. And that's exactly what they want. I remember once um I was working in a project and they were telling me, hey, Alan, you know what? We are seeing uh clear disconnection within the marketing and the sales team.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And they were asking me this question that I want to share with you, uh, because I already gave my answer to them. That is, should the SDRs be part of the marketing team or part of the sales team? Yeah. How should do you how how do what do you think about this topic? Like really should SDRs be marketing, be sales, and how they should operate?

SPEAKER_00

Ah, it's I think it's always a hot topic, right? We had a similar issue because marketing is running events. Uh we we were we were organizing a roundtable with marketing, and then I asked if I our SDRs could potentially s schedule the meetings for or uh inviting people to the round to the round table event. But then they said, Yeah, but then sales wants to be uh have the want to have the credit for the for for the interview.

SPEAKER_01

As an SDR, you want those five meetings towards your quote.

SPEAKER_00

But as well, the meeting the the event is organized by marketing, so you know, where should they belong to? I think at the end doesn't matter as long they really make generate revenue. Yeah. Um if they have to split it somehow, I I don't have a clear answer to that, to be to be honest, but I would love to hear your point of view.

SPEAKER_01

I, as a pro seller that I am, yeah, and if you're actively mainly in outbound, because inbound could be treated as a different topic, but and I'm pretty radical there, like inbound and outbound shouldn't weigh the same in the quota of a rep because inbound and outbound, different skills, different mindset, different prospecting methodologies, different strategies, different everything. So if you are a rep and you're doing inbound, and if you are a rep and you want to do or jump into outbound, have into consideration that you will suffer a little at the beginning. It's painful. Inbound, someone reaching out to you, hey, I might be interested in what you do. You tell me about it, and you discover and disqualify or qualify. Yeah. Outbound, you have no idea who I am. I need to convince you. Completely different. But going back to the question, I do believe that the sales team should be under the sales team. I'm a pro seller. Yeah. But I was against this idea of um, let's communicate more when I in my early days. Because I thought, like, hey, marketing, you do your job and bring me with the best qualified leads. And then I understood with the time that there's no such thing as someone ready to buy from you jumping into a call and saying, Kevin, I love you. Here is my wallet. Yeah. Just give me the contract. That won't happen ever. Not even with the more or the most convinced prospect. So in a nutshell, sales should be under sales, or SDR should be under sales, but there must be a clear criteria of what it's the main responsibility for each role. Agree. Agree. That that that's the topic. In fact, but yeah, go ahead and give me your your point of view there.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, I think I think I have nothing against that inbound belongs to marketing because most of the inbound leads are driven by marketing. Uh-huh. Again, we go back to the circle. The motion. Um, to the motion. Maybe maybe the outbound sales team sent as well a couple of emails in combination with the marketing emails, um, which drove the potential buyer to your website to request an inbound lead. But uh, if you don't track it, you have no data, you cannot uh just know where it came from, right? Correct. But I have the same feeling um because sales, specifically, specifically the SDR team, they need sales leaders who understand how the outreach works. I like that. They need to have the expertise, they need to have an SDR manager who, in my opinion, a vision alignment, let's say, and skill alignment because it's a little bit different. What do you think about SDR leader who never did an SDR job? Sorry to completely jump to another topic, but uh it came in my mind. I will ask it again. What do you think about an SCR leader who never did the SDR job, actually?

SPEAKER_01

That ever happened? Like, is there is is there SDR managers there or leaders that came from different things and they are put directly into the SDR manager role?

SPEAKER_00

Well, if if SDR falls under marketing, I don't think that there are many. I don't know. Yeah, maybe the SDR leader was just reports to marketing, but I I had one in a startup I was working. He never did the job. So how do you want to teach your team? Of course, you can re-learn from books, but it's not the same if you picked up your phone by yourself and got hundreds of rejections.

SPEAKER_01

If you ask me the question again, I have the answer for you. Please go ahead. Do me a favor.

SPEAKER_00

Asking the question again. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

I have a one straightforward answer for you.

SPEAKER_00

So do you think an SCR leader Do you think if an SCR leader never did an SCR job before is a good SCR leader?

SPEAKER_01

No, you should fire him automatically. Yeah. 100%. Or first make him be the SDR. And let me be radical here. This is like expecting a CRO to be a CRO without having any experience in revenue or in sales. Yeah. In a different scale, right? Like, and this is this is something that happens in every single company. That it's should we promote to manager the top performer individual contributor or someone that has the skills as a leader? This is another completely different topic that we can for sure, and we will talk in other episodes as well in terms of skills. Really interesting one. But let me ask you this, and and and again, I want a 10-second super uh sharpen answer here. It's like, why in every company the top performer SER or the top performer AE is promoted to sales manager directly? Why they are promoted directly? Or if I should rephrase the question. Yeah, rephrase it, please. Instead of why they are promoted directly, is the top performer the one that should be promoted or not?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think so. Because I saw it many times that top performers are top performers, but they are shit managers.

SPEAKER_01

Um give me an example of actions or behaviors because or personalities.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I think there there can be, for example, top performers out there who I have I met many of them as well during my journey, who are really good in, you know, taking about their their territory, their target, focusing about their own objective, but they don't they're not really a fantastic team players.

SPEAKER_01

They are like shark or lone wolves.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Lonely wolves doing their thing and uh running it. Um and you need a completely different skill set managing people. For example, I was an uh individual contributor and then I became like a uh uh head of sales. Okay, and uh I had to manage 10 people. And it's you you are more like a psychologist than a sales saucing, exactly. Right? The person uh is sick or the person um broke up with his girlfriend.

SPEAKER_01

He cannot it's not only about sales anymore, it's about everything in order for you to perform.

SPEAKER_00

And you you you and then you need to you need to um filter all the shit which comes from the top, um, which then you don't distribute to your sales team. And the other way around. Other way around as well. You are a facilitator, that's how I see it. I mean you have to be really good with people. Yeah. And uh, for example, I don't I love that, I have to say that. To to to manage people. I love that. Yeah, yeah. I I don't like it at all.

SPEAKER_01

But but but that's good that you know, and and this is a clear example of we can be top performers at one thing. That doesn't mean that during the latter, I can automatically be the top performer at the other thing. Because in the on the other way around, my colleague, the other AE or the other SEI, would say, Hey, you know what, Alan? You don't you don't you don't have to do that. Yeah, you are not good enough for that. Let's keep you here. You are killing it, you are making a lot more money. And to be honest, individual contributors, and this is a key takeaway, most likely, and as a manager in in Revolute, for example, some guys at my team, they were making way more money than myself, just on commissions. And they were happy about it. And they were telling me, I don't want to be a boss, I don't want to be a manager, I know the shit that you're that you're eating every day. Yeah. And it was like, my lemma, my logo, my my uh slogan, not logo, my slogan was I was managing 15 people direct reports, and it's like, guys, every BS or shit or problem or challenge that you have, just put it on me. Yeah. My job here is to give you the resources, the training, and enable you as much as possible for you to perform. And I will take care and deal with all the other shit until I get the burnout, no worries. Yeah, right. But and I love to do that, uh, as well as as I love selling. But yeah, I agree with you that completely different roles, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, it's completely different. Like it's it's you need a different skill set, and you cannot, uh, you definitely cannot it's it's a lot of people see this as the natural path, right? You you think you're an STR, you're an account executive, maybe senior enterprise, and then becoming like a director, and then going up the ladder. Yeah. VP and then whatever. But they don't see like what other ways you could go internally, right? Uh you can move horizontal right now.

SPEAKER_01

And and with AI, all this stuff right now, you can jump into AI individual contributors for some topics or go to market with other topics. But to give a closure here and jump into another chapter and topic, the key takeaway that I can share or or the strategy, and this is something that I always taught to my teams and in every coaching that I'm uh giving. Learned the skills of the next role in your current role. Yes. That's the best advice that I had from a former boss that I had. And I didn't understand that at the first time. It's like, why? I'm doing as an SDR. Then when I became an AE, I will be an AE.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Like, listen to me. Your ramp up process will be shorter. Yeah. You will be a team player, you will develop skills of management and team analysis and so on, and you will be better. And this is exactly what I'm sharing as well. Like, develop the skills of your next role in your current role. So if you're an SDR, think as an SDR and as an AE. If you're an AE and you want to become a manager, start working with your team players, with your colleagues, start helping, start managing.

SPEAKER_00

Take roles and responsibilities.

SPEAKER_01

See exactly how this feels, right? Definitely, definitely. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, so what else should we do? I think let's jump to the cards. Okay, so next chapter cards. Uh, this uh do you want to explain the game?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I um how it works. So we prepared some cards here. Um, beautiful confession of a seller um uh cards where we have um different categories and uh uh questions on it where usually we answer with yes or no, and then uh why.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so it's like a ping-pong rapid fire questions. Exactly. Okay, awesome. So should we start? Yeah, skills for you, Alan. Top reps are born or built? They are built. Why? Um I'm the the perfect example of that, and that's why I say that they are built. Besides, I think that you should have a specific personality and traits. But I've seen introvert people being top performers in their own way. There's no one unique magic formula. But if you want to be a top performer, and and we always talk about this uh behind cameras, you need more discipline than talent. Discipline beats talent every single time. So you can learn how to run a or make a discovery call, you can you can learn negotiation skills, you can learn techniques, you can learn how to drive revenue, you can learn outbound, you can learn how to become better. So for sure, if you have that talent uh coming with you, that will be easier, but you can learn how to become a top performer 100%. Good one. Should I? Yeah, uh Okay. Sales category. So Kevin, reps fail because of lack of systems or lack of skills in a company.

SPEAKER_00

Lack of skills. Okay, why? Because as you just mentioned, right, um there are skill sets which you need to uh learn as a salesperson. And you know, there were no systems before. Um when we when the people had the yellow books looking for a phone number and call. But you need skills to how you call, how you up handle objection, you need a skill set how to navigate the the prospect or the buyer through those different steps. Correct. And I think if and like you said, with discipline you can learn the skill set. So if there are no skills uh for a salesperson, but uh there's a workflow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's useless. Useless. So in a nutshell, even if you have a lot of systems and workflows and you don't have the skills, you're done. Yeah. But you need the skills. I love it. I love the answer. Next one. Awesome, let's do it. Sales.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay. Discounting kills positioning.

SPEAKER_01

Yes or not? Yes, 100%. Yes, yes. Hate it so much. I hate discounting, I hate giving discounts. I love uh the revenue so much that I hate the discounts. That doesn't mean that you cannot give discounts. Even at the end of the quarter? Even at the end of the quarter, the last day you can give a 50% if you sign today, right? The thing is, most reps are using discount as a sales strategy. And that's the wrong thing. And managers are allowing that. Like, hey, you can give a 20% and just ask me so I can approve it. So just before I get I get your point of view, and don't forget, it's forbidden in my trainings to give a discount. You need to understand why discount is a must if and only if pricing is the only factor why they are not buying your solution. Most likely it's not. And that's when we are good at discovery, right? So there are a lot of strategies, but long story short, to rapid-fire the question here and my answer, it's yes, we'll uh kill your positioning, will kill your trust, will kill your authority, will put you in an inferiority level. Yeah. And it's important for you to become, in order to become a good seller, not to discount. And if you discount, ask something in return. Always. Like if I give you this, you give me something. Either you sign right now, a three-year contract, whatever it is, right now. If not, this goes away.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. That's it? Yeah, nothing to add.

SPEAKER_01

Nothing to add. I think that we agreed on that, right? Yeah. So let's see what do we have here. Sales. Okay. There is a phrase that it's called hiring fast and firing faster. So my question to you is firing fast improves company culture. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Can you develop? I can give you a good example. There was like some people stay in certain roles where they're not made for. That means, for example, you hire a sales guy. The sales guy realize you realize that the sales guy person is not made for this job. There are people who are not made for the roles. Correct. So it doesn't mean that you need to fire them. Maybe that you just uh move them internally to another position. But or firing them. Or firing, yeah. But um uh if you fire them uh fire fast because they will create a negative culture in your team. They will talk everything bad because they are not happy in the role of the biggest.

SPEAKER_01

Like a rotten apple, right? And that will rotten all the rest.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. That's that's that's how it is, right? Okay. Uh so definitely. Absolutely. Uh hire fast, fire fast.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. I agree with you. Let's let's do the last two if you want. Let's do that. All yours, and then we jump into the next chapter.

SPEAKER_00

Pipeline. Okay, nice. Shorter cycles better than uh larger uh deal size.

SPEAKER_01

No, not at all. Uh it depends on the nature of the business, it depends on the solution you are selling, it depends on the type of um prospect that you're going after, your ICP. So I wouldn't say that shorter or faster sales cycles are better than larger deals. What I would say that it that motivationally speaking, or emotionally impacting, if that's a word, they are better in terms of how we feel as a seller because you can feel that you're selling. Okay, in one month, in two months, you're starting closing if you start a new role as an enterprise. I remember when I did the enterprise, and you can validate this to answer in 10 seconds. I started, I had like four months ramp-up process, and then I closed in one and a half year three deals, and it was like, hey, this is never ending, man. You know, like involving complex political things, internal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, so no, it's not one better than the other, but that's my topic.

SPEAKER_00

One point I would love to add there is if you close like the smaller companies you close, most of the time they bring you more headache.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it depends. It depends. Yeah, I I wouldn't subscribe 100% to that because that will depend on how good as a seller you qualify them, you set the expectations. But most likely, the statistic says that the more companies that you have and the smaller they are, potentially the more problems, right? And more headaches. You're right. Last one. Let's go. So, pipeline as well. What do you prefer or what is better? Expansion or upsell? Expansion to new logos or upselling companies that you already have?

SPEAKER_00

As enterprise seller, both. Okay. But if you have you have to big one, uh, I think expansion. Okay. Because it just gives you another adrenaline kick. Okay. You know? So new logos. Yeah, new logos. Imagine you have a nice company and you bring another new logo in. It's just a better feeling. Of course, upselling. If you have multiple products you can actually offer them, that's awesome. Can be as well nice, right? Um so, but yeah, expansion. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

All right. So ending this chapter, and I think that we talk and we walk through a lot of different topics from AI to go to market evolution, talking about sales, marketing, connected systems. What are the the three key takeaways, rephrasing uh as well what we've been talking that you can highlight over the table?

SPEAKER_00

One sentence, which is um don't automate tasks, automate workflows. It's important because um if you automate tasks, it's there's no connection between the different workflows. Independent systems that won't be. Dependent systems doesn't help. That's definitely one highlight I would uh mention.

SPEAKER_01

Uh try Alta if you want. Exactly. Everything in the description to automate this.

SPEAKER_00

So Alta is the solution who helps you work really with this um connecting the dots. Absolutely. Um definitely worth um having a look at them.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Uh what I would add here is that it's important for us to have not only alignment within technology that will impact pipeline and revenue, but always every quarter, every month, based on each company, check how your tools are performing. What are the ones that are giving you headaches? What are the ones that are giving you real impact in pipeline, in sales, in motions, and how they are communicating with each other? That's where marketing and go-to-market and AI sales uh is going. Uh it's happening already, to be honest. Not even the the future, it's happening. So if you are a RevOps, if you are a seller, if you are someone in the go-to-market space, check that. Uh, and lastly, um, thanks again. Yeah, tell me.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, one more point. Uh sure. Go ahead. Not AI related, but everything related. Sales teams communicate with uh with other departments. It's the key, right? It's key. You are one team, and um, if you don't communicate, you all lose, man. You kind of uh support each other.

SPEAKER_01

You all lose. You all lose. And and remember, you we need skills. You as a seller, yeah, don't complain about the quality of why marketing is doing A, B, or C. This is another learning, uh, one-second learning that I got from this manager that told me, hey, develop your skills of the next role in the current role. He told me, if you are going to complain, I'm okay with that. You have the open doors to come here and give me all the shit that you want, yeah, but bring an idea connected to that shit. And it's like, Do you have 10 complaints? Give me 10 complaints, but 10 ideas that can solve that complaint. Maybe they are worthless, yeah, or they are not the ones that we can use. Just think about it. I need you as a proactive. Go to marketing and say, These shits are crap. Yeah. I was thinking about doing this. No, that is not a good idea. No worries, but at least you brought something. So again, I think that we are wrapping this up. Thank you very much for uh well, everyone that is listening and watching us. Important, hit the subscribe button. Um this show was go ahead and and ping them and tease them.

SPEAKER_00

This this show is uh for you guys, so it's really important. If you like it, hit the subscribe button. That means we can continue because if no one likes it, I think just it's just Ellen and me talking.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. This is what we always say like one subscriber or an episode. Yeah, it we are talking to at least one, we're always happy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. If not, we talk to each other. It's also nice, but you know, if we do it for you. Yeah, some people at least are listening, makes more sense. So, yeah, thanks for that. And of course, to our um uh main sponsor, Reply, um, who as well helped us putting this all together. Correct. Um, all the information in the in the comment section. Correct. So if you have any questions, um uh as well, DM uh all uh DM uh Ellen or myself. Um we can uh of course answer all your open questions if you might have any, or put it in the comment section as well.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And remember, guys, we are confessions of a seller. We are here to share real stories from the trenches, no BS, real things that happened to us. Uh, if you have your own story, share it with us for next episodes. We have crazy people joining us uh that you will love. We have a lot of topics that we are going to tackle. And again, more confessions, and hope you enjoyed and see you in the next one.