Weekly Team Meeting - Q&A #1

Q&A, Progressing Your Sales Career, Inbound vs. Outbound, and Success from BTD Readers!

Hello Sales Team!

For you, those in the paid substack, we’re doing a weekly team meeting as with any sales org. For us this will include Wins of the week, company updates, and a collection of the questions received over the week in comments, emails and twitter, as well as questions from the wider internet regarding all things sales, lead generation, and business.

This is to add a little bit more value and personalised content, as well as help us improve weekly to smash targets.

Any further questions you may have will also be answered in the comments section of this post.

Firstly, I've been asked multiple times since the breaking into SaaS sales post for the WallStreetPlayboys CV template, you can find a link to it Here. This is a good template that I’ve personally found success with.

WINS

First win of the week comes from @aestheticdegen on twitter, breaking into the game, and although not featured in the photo, has also been getting jacked AF.

Lil auti (@lildiscordauti on twitter) also breaking into the game and cutting his teeth on DeFi.

Last win is @BowTiedCuckoo who has written a thread on how he managed to land a sales job with no experience or degree. Legend!

Huge all of you! Taking action on what you’re reading and thinking is the only way you’re gonna make it. If you just think of all of this as a theoretical and don’t take action nothing will change!

Company Updates

With the BTD substack growing a bit faster than expected, I’ve scheduled out some extra time each week to make sure there is regular useful content going out on here, and the quality increases. I want to be able to provide tools and information that will help you hit target and make bank.

First a huge shoutout to @BowTiedSponge for having me on his postcast. Was a pleasure chatting with him. Sponge is successful in the E-comm space and extremely intelligent. His podcast Under The Sea can be found on all major streaming platforms including youtube, spotify, and twitch. I’d recommend giving his other episodes a listen as well.

In other BTD news, I’ve got a backlog of content that I plan on releasing, so here are a few things to look out for:

• Structuring Cold Outreach

• Structuring your day in sales

• Transitioning into a new job/new role

• How not to burn out in sales

• How to use the lessons from Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss in your sales approach

• Summary of Predictable Prospecting and how to use the lessons in your sales approach

• 10 Real transcripts from cold calls I and my colleagues have done

• How to progress your sales career and maximise income

These will be coming out weekly, if you have anything you would like to get some info on, drop a comment below, reply to this email, or reach out to dingo@degenisland.asia

The last update is that in the dialgogue when you signed up for this subscription, I promised a few things, Scripts/tools/templates - which I have started to deliver on, more coming this week - and Secondly 1:1 consultations. For the latter, if you have any questions that you would like a longer form discussion about as opposed to the Q&A style below that we will be doing weekly, please reach out to me via email or twitter (Again dingo@degenisland.asia or @BowTiedDingo on twitter) and we will set something up!

Q&A

Now for the main event!

I’ve gotten a few questions over substack, email and twitter over the past week (and a few before that as this is the first Q&A we’re doing) that I’d like to answer here, compiled into one place so everyone can benefit.

On top of these questions I’ve grabbed a few from around the internet in sales communities that I wanted to answer, and please drop your questions in the comments here/reply to the email if you have anything that you are thinking about this week.

Off the back of our social selling post, @BowTiedWasp asks:

“Does it mean anything to have more than 500 contacts in LinkedIn? Beyond social proof, which is the most obvious thing”

Beyond changing the way it shows your number of contacts from an exact number to "500+" I know of no real change. I could theorise that there would be a minimal effect on the way the content algorithm shows you, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly large difference if there is one. Social proof does help though.

@BowTiedFish on the Breaking Into SaaS Sales post

I'm currently involved in sales as a director of client relations for a small managed service provider. Is it possible to laterally transfer to a SaaS AE? I currently sell not only SaaS but IaaS and PaaS so i'm not as narrowly defined. My issue with my current role is that i'm only commission based off the labor I sell. I also get paid a one time payment if I bring a new client onboard through my own marketing.

Yes, I would say it would be a reasonably easy transition in terms of getting the job, You would be able to talk to all the right points. Managing the sales cycle, what prospects you speak to, the products you sell. I don't see any issue getting it, and you're right in thinking that you can find a better base/commission model elsewhere to maximise your income.

Depending on how your current company sets job titles AE might be a step down from Director of Client Relations (Or it might be a lateral move, in which case ignore the following). If you are looking to move I would look for director of sales, Senior AE, Enterprise AE positions. It will be relatively easy from those interviews to get an idea of where in the company you should be looking, if they aren't fit, find the perfect AE role for you.

@BowTiedMountainGoat on the Cold Calling Primer

I'm interested in your opinion on warm intros and referrals. Would you say they are superior to cold calling (in terms of success rate)? Or just too infrequent to be relied upon?

Warm intros / referrals are better. Statistically much higher close rate on them vs. outbound. I don't think there is anyone who could make a convincing argument against that but you've pointed out the main issue. They are few and far between usually.

Even if you and your team are masters of getting referrals, or your marketing is incredible and there is a high number of inbound leads (I will class them in the same category) you're not optimizing your sales if you rely on them fully.

Another thing to take into consideration is what stage the business is in. If you're a start-up with few or no customers, cold outreach can be a brand building tool. If you have no brand recognition in your market, having someone reach out and leave a lasting impression can be worth a lot.

There are arguments of when to rely on only outbound/only inbound depending on resources available, stage of the business, etc. but if both are viable, both is preferable.

On a different note I also found this question on the /r/Sales reddit, and the answers were something I completely agree with:

If you could start your sales career again how would you do it differently?

To give a short summary of a common answer: “I would have quit earlier”

This speaks to me because I’ve done it a few times now, and every time I wish I had done it sooner. Sales management from my experience and it seems from the experience of talking to others/the internet have a habit of pigeon holding people. They decide what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, what your potential is, and they keep you at that level.

On top of this, they need to look out for their entire organisation, so they aren’t always doing what is best for you, but instead what they think is best for the company. Unfortunately this often holds you back.

Every time I have quit or threatened to quit I’ve either been given the promotion that has not been given to me, a pay raise, or I have actually quit and found a higher paying job elsewhere. That is the other thing, you are probably being underpaid.

My honest advice is work at a company for 1-3 years, then move to another. You’ll be able to negotiate a pay raise, you’ll have all expectations reset, and you will sometimes be able to move into a more senior position.

Final Thoughts.

Please send in any further questions for the Q&A, I’ll be answering them here, or if they are on twitter/email, I will answer them directly and include them in next weeks post (Either named or anonymous, as you choose).

Looking forward to more of you winning and hearing feedback on some of the things that are coming up.

Kill the week!

Best,
BTD

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