Devin Reed

Selling into sales? Read this first. Most reps show up with a pitch. Top reps show up with context. Because selling to a CRO isn’t the same as selling to a VP of Sales. And what works for Enablement won’t land with RevOps. Each role has its own metrics, pressures, and priorities. If you don’t speak their language, they tune out fast. → Don’t pitch dashboards to CROs. → Don’t pitch templates to SDR managers. → Don’t talk “visibility” unless you can prove it. If you want to win the meeting, tailor the message. That’s why tools that start with context are becoming more valuable. I got early access to Lusha’s new AI Chat, and it flips how prospecting works. Instead of searching for CROs at 500-person companies, you start with the trends affecting your market. The AI reads the signals, connects the dots, and gives you a list of the people most likely to be impacted - fast and focused. It’s like prospecting, reversed. And it’s built for how top sellers actually think.

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Every sales org has a pipeline: Stage 1. Stage 2. Forecast. Commit. You can recite it in your sleep. But when it comes to renewals? Crickets.... There’s no real-time view of customer risk. No weekly trendline. No forward-looking model that projects retention. Isn't that kinda bonkers? You FORECAST growth, but you DISCOVER churn...usually when it’s too late to fix. The big mistake is presuming retention is a lagging indicator, when it would be more accurate to define it as a neglected one. Think about it...most CS dashboards read like a rearview mirror: - Usage metrics. - Ticket volume. - NPS. Useful? Sure. Predictive? Nah. Because churn doesn’t start when a customer says they’re leaving. It starts months earlier when their exec sponsor stops showing up. If you can spot the risk early, you can unlock more levers: - Re-engage power. - Reset the value narrative. - Escalate to commercial. - Offer roadmap visibility. - Re-map success metrics post-reorg. But none of that works if your team can’t see it coming, which is why you need a churn forecast...just like you do for revenue. Build a churn pipeline. Treat it like sales. Some things to build into this: 1. Define churn stages. Just like deals, risk evolves: - Stage 1 (Early): No exec alignment, lagging adoption, stakeholder turnover. - Stage 2 (Mid): Value not realized, weak champion, limited engagement. - Stage 3 (Late): Renewal live, buyer pushing back, pricing/legal blockers. Assign clear criteria. Surface it in Gainsight, CZ, or Salesforce. Manage it like opportunity stages. 2. Assign prevention plays. Each stage should trigger a play: - Stage 1 = exec outreach + roadmap session. - Stage 2 = commercial review + value plan. - Stage 3 = C-level call + tailored retention offer. Codify this. Don’t let reps improvise. 3. Forecast it weekly. Revenue leaders inspect pipeline weekly. CS should do the same with churn. Ask: - How many accounts moved stages? - What’s projected retention by segment? - What % of at-risk logos have exec visibility? Also, share your churn forecast with the CFO. If the CFO sees new logo pipeline every Monday, but doesn’t see churn risk until Q4? That's no bueno. Start sending a weekly churn report with: - Total ARR at risk. - ARR by churn stage. - Stage progression. - Active recovery plays. - Forecasted retention (with confidence levels). This reduces surprises while also forcing accountability. Why? Because churn is rarely a CS failure, but it's often a product gap, pricing mismatch, or sales promise that aged poorly. When churn is forecasted, it becomes EVERYONE'S problem. Which it is. tl;dr = you don’t “discover” churn. You forecast it. You stage it. You act on it. Just like sales.

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AI is taking salespeople back to the 80s. The last 20-30 years of sales are a blip. As tech took off, salespeople succeeded by using automation to do less work faster. Marketing flooded them with leads. Sales Ops loaded prospecting lists for them. And salespeople just pressed "Send All" in Outreach. On templates marketing wrote up. They used Calendly to book meetings. They had their SDR qualify the deal. They had their SE run discovery and demos. All they did was update Salesforce all day. This worked. Until it didn't. And now everything is "dead" - "Cold calling is dead" - "The MQL is dead" - "The SDR role is dead" And now we have AI. AI will do all this and more for sales. It will do everything this tech stack did, automatically, in seconds, far far better than salespeople could ever do. Salespeople will then sell 10X as much. But buyers won't buy 10X. They will buy the same 1X from 1/10th the salespeople. And who are those salespeople gonna be? The salespeople from the 80s. The people that built a rolodex. That built trust with buyers. That understood the industry. That did amazing discovery. That challenged their buyers to think. That spent time with them face to face. That took accountability for the outcome. And managed the relationship post-sale. Most salespeople today lack these skills. And they will not have a job in 5-10 years. Because they were never really salespeople. They were project managers and order takers. And AI will enable a true salesperson to replace 10 of them. ✌️

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CHAMP is a modern alternative to BANT. It prioritizes urgency, influence, and internal support. It’s best used by SDRs and AEs in outbound motion or mid-funnel qualification. If you sell into orgs with unclear budgets or multiple buyers, CHAMP helps you qualify smarter. It’s especially useful for reps selling solutions, not just features. This applies to AI tools, SaaS platforms, and service offers with more than one stakeholder involved. This cheat sheet breaks it down simply. - One block per letter: Challenges, Authority, Ability to buy, Money, Prioritization. - Sample phrasing to ask better questions without sounding scripted. - A checklist of when CHAMP outperforms BANT. - Pro tips to apply it even on short cold calls. Use it to stop wasting time on leads that aren’t ready to move. And to spot champions before you pitch pricing.

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Peer-to-peer opportunity reviews are like giving your reps X-ray vision. While managers inspect deals through process lenses, peers spot the real gaps. They ask the questions you won't think to ask: - "Wait, you've never talked to procurement?" - "How do you know the budget is real?" - "What happens if your champion leaves?" Because they're living the same buyer conversations daily. Here's the framework that's working across the leaders we work with: 1. Pair reps strategically. Match complementary strengths: - Hunter with relationship builder. - Technical seller with commercial closer. - Veteran with rising performer. 2. Structure the review sessions. 30 minutes with a clearly focused agenda: - Deal overview (5 minutes). - Risk assessment (15 minutes). - Action planning (10 minutes). Just tactical problem-solving. 3. Focus on blind spots rather than validation. The goal isn't to be a cheerleader: - "Your timeline feels optimistic given what you've shared" - "Have you confirmed this with anyone besides your main contact?" - "What's your backup plan if legal pushes back?" 4. Track forecast accuracy improvements. Measure before and after: - Stage progression consistency. - Timeline prediction accuracy. - Close rate by confidence level. The data shows peer reviews catch 40%+ more forecast risks than traditional manager-led sessions. Why? Because reps DEFEND their deals to managers. They PROBLEM-SOLVE with peers. So, what should your managers do? Well...just facilitate these conversations. Don't dominate them. Sometimes the best coaching comes from someone in the next cubicle.

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This is one of the best outbound books I've read. It completely explains why so many teams struggle with it. Here are my biggest takeaways from "Outbounding" by William Miller: 1. Why inbound reps struggle with outbound Inbound reps are trained to handle prospects who've already decided to change - they're essentially order-takers. Outbound requires diagnosing unrecognized problems, creating urgency around the status quo, and guiding prospects through early-stage change psychology. 2. Inbound vs Outbound = Different Buyer Psychology Inbound prospects have decided to change: 50%+ want demos immediately. Outbound prospects don't know they have a problem: less than 10% are demo-ready. You're shifting from product-focused selling to change awareness creation. 3. Change Before Adoption Outbound success follows Lewin's model: - Unfreezing (create problem awareness) - Changing (guide evaluation) - Refreezing (solidify solution) Most reps jump to "buy our product" when prospects are stuck in unfreezing. Focus on why they need to change their current state, not why they should choose you. 4. Two Buyers, Two Messages - ATL (executives): Care about ROI, risk, past failures, future threats - BTL (managers/users): Care about features, functionality, present problems ATLs live in the past and future while BTLs focus on present problems. Use VAT Framework for ATLs: Value + Action + Time urgency. 5. "Validate, Don't Educate" for Execs Replace "Here's what we do" with "If you need to reduce costs, here's what works." Execs buy confidence in outcomes, not product features. 6. Solution Box Theory What prospects think they're buying (Box A - your product) represents maybe 10% of the real value. The game-changer is Box B - their larger strategic initiative worth millions that your solution enables. ATL buyers have a 30% confidence gap in achieving Box B, and that's where urgency and big deals live. Stop selling your product; start selling their success in the bigger initiative. 7. Account Research is a system, not a task Systematic homework across company, executive, and industry dimensions transforms generic outreach into relevant conversations. 8. Toward vs. Away drives urgency Prospects running away from pain buy 2x faster than those moving toward gain, diagnose their motivational direction. -- 📌 The fastest way to scale outbound sales? It's not sending more emails. It's learning from what billion-dollar companies do. These 7 companies generated $6+ billion using systematic outbound (and their playbooks are more valuable than ever). Want to see exactly how they built their sales machines? I spent 100+ hours breaking down their complete strategies into 7 teardowns. Click "Visit my website" at the top of this post to get instant access.

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Enterprise sellers: if you are waiting for SDR/BDRs to open doors, you’ve already missed your number this year. The SDR-led outreach model doesn’t work for your mandate. It never did, not even in boom times. It's being dismantled in favor of leaner/better GTM teams. And you can’t outsource it to AI. You can’t automate or delegate getting to the big leagues. This is not taking anything away from SDRs/BDRs. It is an observation after 26 years in and around the field of enterprise sales. Here’s why this is increasingly the case in today’s market: 1. Sequence-based outreach has poisoned the buyer landscape I routinely speak with customer executives who tell me they receive 400 - 500 unsolicited sales emails per week (some per day). Even if they neglected the entire remit of their executive day jobs they couldn’t READ let alone process and respond to every one - good, bad or irrelevant. You can’t, won’t, will never reach executives with traditional email sequences. 2. Decision-making power has risen to senior executives and boards Since Covid, corporate spending has become an executive-only game. I am now hearing more from sales leaders that boards are getting involved in smaller deals. Relying on your SDR to engage a decision-maker is like relying on archers to knock down castle walls. 3. SDRs/BDRs are not trained in outreach tactics that work The vast majority are only given attrition-based plays that annoy over time, “We help companies like you with problems like ____…. Worth a call?... Did you see my email?... Bumping this to the top of your inbox….” (It’s not their fault, it’s all they’ve been trained and armed to do). 4. SDR/BDRs are not compensated in a way that incentivizes deep account research With huge numbers of calls to produce, they are motivated to REACH, not ENGAGE. Nor are they trained on anything past a few minutes of googling, LinkedIn profile scanning and a quick read of the news. They will never craft a point of view that resonates with today’s level of corporate buyer with that model. You, enterprise sellers, (should) have the runway for these activities as they should have a much lower number of accounts so you can go deep in each. 5. Financial fluency matters and NOBODY is trained on this. Without knowing how to frame your solution’s value in the context of your customer’s financial reality any outbound message will be ignored. I haven’t seen a single tech company invest in financial fluency training for SDRs (very few for ENT roles too) so YOU (ENT reps) need to dig in, learn it on your own and leverage it if you want to have a prayer’s chance of starting conversations that will lead to closable business by the end of Q4. - This Thursday, I’m hosting a live Financial Fluency Webinar to show sellers exactly how to turn financial red flags into green lights at the executive table. {EDIT} Register here: https://lnkd.in/dk4Y7A9q

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