Florin Tatulea

Sales Leader | LinkedIn Top Voice 2023 | GTM Advisor | Focusing on Seed → Series B

I'm a passionate leader that lives and breathes all things sales.

I was lucky enough to be the first sales hire at Loopio and have had the opportunity to be a part of and contribute to the exponential growth that had led us to a sales team of ~50 strong. In my 6.5 years at Loopio we grew revenue by 65x. 

I am now doing it all over again at Common Room

Whether it's been as an SDR, AE, Manager or Director, I'm constantly looking for ways to reinvent myself and my team.

I'm a people-first leader that understands that leading a team is not about me. It's about lifting others up and seeing them succeed. My success is simply a bi-product of my team's success. 

As a sales leader, I'm curious about scaling sales teams, generating pipeline, increasing win rates and lowering ramp times in a remote world.

As an individual, I'm passionate about copywriting, sequence/cadence building, leveraging social selling and the future of sales technology.

Director of Sales

Last month, after 20 months of building at Common Room, I took some time away from being a full time operator. 

It’s been an absolutely EPIC journey. 

In a relatively short timeframe that I’ve been there: 

-We 4x’d ARR 
-4x’d the size of the SDR team
-Sourced 7-Figures in outbound revenue
-20x’d monthly outbound pipeline $ and built the outbound engine from scratch
-Re-architected our internal Common Room instance. This involved “GTM Engineering” the brain behind our outbound program using our AI agents
-Recruited and worked with the best operators I’ve ever had the chance to work with in my career. 
-Opened career paths and had our first rounds of SDR to AE promotions (this is a really important one for me)

The program is now in fantastic hands with Sara Hanegby . 
 
There aren’t enough words to say how grateful I am for everybody on this journey. You know who you are!! 

On the side, I’ve also been running my own 6-figure media company. 

I’ve given my career my all over the last decade and needed to slow down to focus on some other aspects of my life. 

It’s why I’ve been quiet on here the last month as I've stepped away from the tech echo chamber.

But… I am baaaack!!! 

I have some really exciting projects in the works and I’m looking forward to doing some advisory work and helping the start-up ecosystem over the next few months. 

If you are a company < $20M ARR and are thinking about scaling your outbound program I’ve figured out quite a few things over the last 12 years in B2B SaaS: 

1. I've built outbound from scratch at 4 companies and 3 have already been acquired.

2. I’ve designed and scaled sales programs, selling into SMB to large enterprise (Fortune 100 companies). 

3. I’ve cracked the code selling into Sales, Marketing, Rev Ops, Engineering & HR Leadership and have built systems that work across industries.

Im also excited to work with orgs on the content and thought leadership side. If you are selling to GTM leadership, I’ve built a curated audience of ~90,000 across LinkedIn, Substack & X. 

I’m only a DM away. 

It’s the most exciting time EVER to be building. 

LETS GOO!

GTM Leader | LinkedIn Top Voice | Advisor

I just took a look at the new Nooks launch.

Users of Outreach and Salesloft are going to want to take a look after what I saw with the their new AI Sequencer.

I believe they are going to seriously shake up the legacy sequencing space. 

Not a lot of people know this, but I was one of the first 10 customers of Nooks when the company was still just Dan, Rohan & Nikhil and a virtual sales floor.

As a multi-time customer, not even I could have predicted the level of execution that their team was going to put forth.

Apart from building a quality product FAST, Nooks did something (intentional or not) that is going to give them a massive competitive advantage over the next couple of years.

They owned the action/execution layer FIRST, and have now built the Data Foundation layer (Account Research, Signals, etc.) around it.

Most GTM tech orgs in the market today are doing the exact opposite.

They built the data foundations and are now trying to build an execution layer.

Why is this important?

Because the action layer is where the rep lives. If you own the action layer and do it well, it’s VERY sticky.

Reps will kick and scream if you take it away from them. Re-training tens or hundreds of reps on a new system of action is a nightmare for enablement.

Trust me, I’ve lived through the kicking and screaming.

Selling GTM tech, everybody was constantly asking us… “Can you integrate with Nooks? That’s where our reps live.”

Right now there is a full-blown race to see who will own the full “Sales OS”.

Today, Nooks made this race a lot more interesting by launching their new Agent Workspace for Intelligent Outbound.

They just added:

1. Signals (Combining live web intent with your CRM and past calls)
2. Autonomous Account Research Agents (Running in the background 24/7)
3. List Building Capabilities
4. An Omnichannel Sequencer (Executing across Email, Phone, SMS, and Social)

Imagine autonomous agents that monitor web intent in the background, cross-reference it with your CRM, draft hyper-personalized emails, and then drop the warmest leads into a power hour calling block.  Because it's actually an action layer, the feedback loop makes it smarter with each engagement. 

You can argue that they have a real chance at being the MAJOR player in the consolidation of the GTM tech stack.

They also have a massive moat of call data (50% of our own outbound meetings came from cold calls)... which a lot of other data platforms simply do not have.

​​GTM Leaders: what are your thoughts on this space? Let's debate below

(PS - go check out the massive Nooks launch ). 

#NooksPartner

SDR teams are toast. 

In fact...

SDR teams are so screwed that OpenAI and Anthropic are hiring SDR teams aggressively. 

The thing is, outbound is not a game of AI and automation. 

AI is a tool. 

Outbound is a game of: 

Precision

Timing

Deep industry expertise

Human relationships

It's why orgs like Ramp recently shut off their autonomous outbound program. 

It's why the people that make these LLMs realize that humans are still necessary. 

At least for now :)

If you prospect on LinkedIn, you should watch this. 

This is something I’ve always struggled with that I’ve now found a solution for.

If you use sequencing platforms like Outreach, Salesloft and Gong Engage you’ll know that after you do the manual steps of sending connect requests, LinkedIn activity just gets lost to the void.

There is no easy way to systematically filter for:

1. New LinkedIn connections who are actually in your ICP vs general networking contacts

2. Prospects who have accepted your request but you never actually bothered to send a DM to

This has made systematic outreach that’s coordinated more difficult.

This is no longer a problem as I’ve started to use Kondo: Superhuman for LinkedIn DMs. 

I can now:

→ Filter for connections and bulk tag them as prospects

→ Search for specific personas very easily with a fuzzy search that actually works

→ Open a custom of these personas posts on LinkedIn to build more tailored outreach

SOOO much easier. 

They have a great promo running right now if you sign up by the end of the week (Feb 28):

2 months free with this code:  https://lnkd.in/gFETw84Z

You are welcome :) 

#KondoPartner

2026 is the year to double down on cold calling.

Last year, 50% of all of our qualified opps came from cold calling. 

Keep it simple.

First, get yourself a proper data provider for cold calls so you actually get connects. 

FullEnrich has been an absolute CHEAT code for us with their 20-provider waterfall. 

They now also have amazing search functionality directly in the platform so you can build proper lists. 

Then, I break this down into 3 parts (here's an example):

1️⃣ Permission Based Opener

Hey this is {NAME}, I was actually just on the customer tab on your website at
{ACCOUNT}, and had a question. Do you have a sec?

2️⃣ Menu of Pain (most important part)

Noticed you are selling to accounts like {ACCOUNT}. Typically when I talk to SDR leaders at commercial open source companies, they’re focused on one of these three things:

1. Your SDRs see tons of developer engagement but struggle to identify which users are actually ready for a sales conversation.

2. Your team relies on community signals, but it’s hard to surface and action on real buying intent.

3. SDRs waste time digging through GitHub, Slack, forums, and LinkedIn instead of working on the right leads.

3️⃣ Open Ended Question

How are you making sure your SDRs are focusing on in-market leads?

-----

I like the menu of pain, because if done correctly and the messaging is tight, at least one of the 3 challenges is something they are likely thinking about.

This then opens the conversation.

3 days left this week. Let's get it 🫡

#FullEnrichPartner

No alternative text description for this image

How do you feel about this take GTM leaders? 

To me it comes across as a take from somebody who doesn’t fully understand GTM. 

Sure, there are a lot of incredible things AI can do to automate TAM building, lead scoring, account research, funnel optimization etc. 

But GTM is also still one of the professions that is still deeply human. 

I doubt this person has spent a lot of time making cold calls, on demos, meeting clients in person etc. 

If you believe this, you essentially believe that robots will be selling to each other only in the near future. 

No offense to you Jay Sahnan. I respect the opinion and it’s a good discussion 🙏🏻

graphical user interface, text, application

We talk about “GTM Engineering” and “Revenue Orchestration” but how does it apply to outbound? 

Here’s how you tactically execute a strategy at scale using signal data. 

Now we have the ability to capture 100+ signals at a time, transform the data and tell us which leads are the lowest hanging fruit.

That’s a HUGE amount of context for sales reps to have in one place and it means that we can now get HYPER-specific with our messaging and sequences.

Each signal that is important to your organization should have its own purpose, messaging, and sequence built out.

Step 1: Write down all the signals that you currently have access to at your organization. 

There are standard signals everybody can use (I.e. web visits) but also very specific signals to your org (I.e. software outages for an outage tracking product) 

Step 2a: Map out where each signal implies a lead is in the buyer journey

Look at the image below. You can see that a signal and therefore message has to adapt to where somebody is in the BUYER JOURNEY.

Step 2b: Create a lead-scoring system that takes into account which signals (or combination of signals) tend to imply that an individual and account is ready to buy or at least talk to sales. 

This usually happens when they are in the “Solution Aware” and “Product Aware” stage.

Step 2c: Cross reference these leads with your account level- ICP criteria. 

Not all leads that exhibit buying behavior work at accounts that are good fits for your business. (THIS IS CRUCIAL). 

Step 3: Create messaging (i.e. email campaigns, outbound sequences etc.) for each signal.

You can get even more complex here and create messaging or sequences for combinations of signals.

Step 4: Set up alerts and workflows so that if a lead provides a certain signal or hits a certain threshold they get put into the respective “campaign”.

There are many platforms to do this in… Common Room, Clay etc. 

THREE OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER:

1. Top of funnel leads that aren’t ready to talk to sales go in automated sequences that are more focused on education (this can either be done by marketing or SDRs)

2. Mid-to-Bottom of funnel leads are sent to the sales team and are put into the appropriate sequences (emails + call scripts + LinkedIn message templates are already built out by the team). It is up to the SDRs/AEs here to do additional research and tie your product's value to your prospect’s strategic priorities.

3. Consider the size of the account and the number of owners on the buying committee. Start multithreading into the various decision makers/economic buyers who will influence your deal so you establish momentum early.

(h/t FletchPMM  for the great visual)

#sales #outbound

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Obtained a GPA above 3.5 for the entire academic year 2011-2012

Dean`s List

E3 Business Case Competition

Top Ranked Junior Tennis Player - Canada  

Talk Master Certification 

Competed against 20 business schools across the U.S. including Wharton, Stern, Berkeley and Sloan. 
This competition asked students to choose a stock to either long or short, with the only requirement of it having a 30 day SMA of over $200m in market cap. Our team, being the only international presence in the competition,  chose to pitch Iridium (IRDM), a satellite communications company, and have received a final judgement score of 24/30 based on Stock Selection, Presentation, and Q&A. 

Georgetown Stock Pitch Competition

Cold Email Conversion Machine by Florin Tatulea

Prospecting from the Trenches | Florin Tatulea | Substack

Working with Local Food Plus, a not-for-profit aiming to drive a sustainable food model to the benefit of local farmers and retailers in Ontario

There is a very simple but important question that most sales reps miss when they are selling to GTM leaders . 

And I say this from experience as somebody that buys software. 

Put simply: 

“Is your team hitting their number…What % of attainment is your team at?” 

The harsh reality is that unless you are a SVP/EVP/C-Level exec with long term incentives, the average GTM leader doesn’t really care to change much if things are working well. It’s a massive uphill battle to sell to a leader that is crushing. 

Even most VP, Sales are just trying to survive next quarter. 

It’s very difficult to sell somebody the “future” if they are at 110% of quota as a team and in accelerators. 

Saves you a lot of time as a rep. 

Just what I’ve seen over the last decade. 

Thoughts?

Helping SaaS build trusted content with third-party expertise • Co-Founder @ AudienceLed • GTM & Partnerships Operator • Your buyer trusts 👉 People, brands, and places they already transact with. Activate them.

I help SaaS revenue teams integrate third party expertise (the people, brands, and places) that influence their buyer to surround them (instead of spam them)  👉 where buyers already transact and spend their dwindling attention credits 👇

Buyers don’t believe brands as much as they believe the people, companies, & places they already work with and listen to.

That’s why your sales and marketing team need a network of trusted people in your ecosystem.

When you activate that network, you get:
👉Warmer doors opening faster
👉Higher win rates
👉Deals that close sooner
👉Bigger deal sizes

Proof I’ve lived this:
✅Built enablement programs that boosted partner retention by 70%
✅Created a partner motion that matched sales revenue with 1/3 of the headcount
✅Outperformed a full SDR + AE team using ecosystem plays
✅Scaled a business to $1M in less than 12 months → acquired

(And yes - I’m in the room developing relationships with the influential people your buyers already listen to.)

Activate an ecosystem-oriented modern go-to-market system that focuses on QUALITY and CONVERSION by:
1) Following me here for weekly systems sharing
2) Or DM me if you want me to show you how to:
- Map who your buyers already trust
- Layer partners into your GTM to build pipeline with less spend (without building any new systems)

Oh, I'm also writing a book on rewiring your mindset, which incorporates psychological, sociological, and philosophical concepts. Go-to-market with your market at www.audienceled.com

Will Taylor

I don't have an MBA, but since co-founding AudienceLed (my first business) in Feb 2025, we grew to $65k MRR.

Feb last year we closed a good month's start at ~$27k MRR. About 2.3x growth (in MRR).

MRR is nice, then we learned cashflow wasn't 100% (about 60% to start).

Since then, we've improved cashflow to ~80% and are aiming for 100% (thanks to Lauren Makielski).

Now we sit at $65k MRR ($780k annualized) contractually.

I reflected this weekend on what that means. Most businesses don't even make money in their first 6 months, even from seasoned business folk.

Since Feb of last year I have also:
- sold my home
- gotten engaged
- saw my brother get married
- went to Italy for another wedding
- went to Nicaragua for another one
- went to 2 conferences (out of pocket)
- planned a wedding (we'll my fiancé did most of it)
- had an offer accepted on a new home (firming conditions this week! 🤞)
- hired 3 people that were supposed to stay on and become partners but... life happens

... and of course interviewed hundreds of third party experts on behalf of our clients.

I am learning at scale. My brain is flooded with information across GTM and business at large.

AudienceLed is a conduit of knowledge share with, for, and through the ecosystem, funneled into our clients.

... and we have yet to even do our own marketing...

I am FIRED UP.

My grandma, who beat breast cancer twice, reminds me:
- buying/selling a home
- planning a wedding
- running a business
- having kids

... are all the top stresses of life.

Well grandma, I decided to take on 3/4 of those at once 😂

And I am grateful for the pain and effort this requires. 

Focusing on humanizing business and operationalizing relationships is worth it...

... every god damn hour of the day.

And I would not be here without the help of my network. Way too many to thank and show appreciation to... even if you've played a small part so far:

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! 🙏

And a big thank you to our clients, our partners, and of course our legendary team that gets deep into the trenches to deliver and manage the chaos... Rob, Lauren, Sam, Amy, Lydia, Dani, and anyone else who has been with us for the ride.

Happy Monday everyone. Much love.

If I can do it, so can you.

Get after it.

My entire career has been in go-to-market tech. Common Room has completely leveled up our craft. That's why I'm excited to share...

... that I get the honour to share that excellence - with and through people just like you - out to the market.

On Thursday Feb 26 @ 4PM ET we will have our first instalment of the new industry event "GTM Heroes Live" where you'll learn:

Real plays
From real customers
And real practitioners
With real experiences
And the real outcomes

AI is not coming for your job. But it will give you leverage.

I first came across Common Room during my time at Reveal (acquired by Crossbeam) and immediately thought about how data can be properly contextualized.

"This is exactly what partnerships needs to impact revenue..." I thought.

Then I dove in. Got an account. Created content with them. Became an advocate for them. And now we work together at AudienceLed.

Sales leaders and practitioners who are stressed to build pipeline do not need another data tool. They don't need more lines of commoditized information to weed through. They don't need another custom CRM field.

They need a place to take action. 
They need prioritized, contextualized information at the ready.
They need PIPELINE gosh darn it!!!

👉 AI doesn't need new gatekeepers.

The promise from other vendors has been leverage for everyone... but then they've created a "specialist trap."

They force you to confuse complexity with leverage. But complexity is a barrier, especially when it is outside of the system of action. 

Leverage should REMOVE work... not add additional headcount.

Common Room has built GTM AI that gives leverage. Not replacement of people. It solves for stale data, research time, CRM management, and figuring out who to prioritize, what to say, and when to say it.

We are going to show you how.

Right from the people - just like you - in the field.

If this resonates with you and you want content that actually moves the needle, join us this Thursday, February 26 @ 4 PM ET to hear from Saad Khan, Jacki Leahy 🪄... with a special appearance from Heath Barnett 🤙, your peers, and YOU.

Everyone is welcome on stage!

Let's figure this out - together.

Here's the link. Bring your hot topics and questions: https://lnkd.in/gS3_W4tP

The bar is so incredibly low. Treat buyers like humans. Respond in a timely manner, empowered by AI. I am deep into the GTM AI scene with the clients we serve. I'm seeing some things:

I just got back from Common Room's SKO. Holy. Moly. This team is on fire. Some of the brightest minds operating here.

Common Room has exciting updates you'll continue to see from people you trust - their customers, their partners, themselves, and allies in the space.

Everyone can buy data from the 5x5 Coop. Everyone can white label another providers intent data. But not every solution is contextualizing it and making sense of it like Common Room is.

Another team - Spara - is taking AI sales and marketing conversion and doing it the right way. Contextualized information, real time, right when you are asking questions and need more information. The implications are massive... take your signals (from Common Room and/or Sequel.io) and leverage that in real time in systems like Spara.

Sequel.io (not a client) taking event data and passing it to other places (pay attention here!). 

The list goes on.

Your buyers want:
- Real time
- Right time
- Right message
- Right relevancy

Spam cannons will not deliver that.

Enterprise and mid-market companies need to deliver a better EXPERIENCE as any vibe-coded app can give the same spot functionality.

Vibe-coded companies look for easy buttons. That's why they spam you.

The sea of noise only continues to grow... to break out of it you need to get intentional.

You need to focus on humanizing the buyer. 

At AudienceLed we are out here, in the field, executing at scale and plugging into all of these systems. 

Blog content on websites as playbooks from experts.

Round-up reports of complimentary brands (AEO + SEO benefits...)

Stories with customers delivered to accounts based on look-alike data + the right signals.

Ads being relevant because of better targeting (shout out Vector 👻!) + more human content.

Humanizing the buyer's journey requires activating the ecosystem.

Keep watching. I post weekly. Follow along. More content soon 👀

Cold email reply rates? ~5%. Connect rates? Single digits. 70%+ of B2B buyers expect RELEVANT experiences before they engage...

The bar is low.
And yet… most teams are still blasting 'personalized' emails.

Or... even worse...
The system is hidden behind a gatekeeper (usually an expensive one).

Common Room's SKO taught me one important thing:
👉 Third-party data is a commodity and the market was sold a lie that it all needs to be 'engineered' together.

Their focus?

Creating the cockpit for revenue teams to actually execute. Not some siloed data centre that requires APIs or Zaps or a degree in data.

Make it make sense.
Make it easy.

Everyone has access to the same data.

Not everyone can:
- Resolve identity properly
- Contextualize that data
- Route and prioritize people intelligently
- Empower reps *in real time*
- And deliver a human experience at scale

I wrote this week about other solutions doing this well. Now, I'm hosting two top experts - in the field practitioners that the market trusts - on Common Room's new live series.

GTM Heroes Live 🦸‍♀️

A community-driven space to talk about what is actually working. 

From us. 
From the experts. 
From YOU.

First session:
Signals on signals on signals. What’s next?

I’ll be joined by Saad Khan and Jacki Leahy 🪄 to unpack:
- GTM AI done the right way
- Why data alone isn't enough
- And why gatekeeping cannot be the solution (your wallets depend on it)

Thurs. Feb 26 | 1pm PT / 4pm ET
https://lnkd.in/gS3_W4tP

If you care about building real GTM experiences that humanize buyers - not just engineered workflows treating them like a datapoint - join us.

"You're wrong, do this" will never work in an industry trained to click easy-buttons to build pipeline... especially when it no longer works.

Instead, we need to:
- Align with their incentives
- Integrate into their existing workflows + behaviours
- Still give them an easy button (perhaps even easier than before)

The first wave of partnerships failed.

Not because it was wrong. Not because it didn't work... but because it was being gate-kept with jargon and vendor-speak.

(I should know...)

I'm on a mission to change that - to create seamless integration of a buyer-first mentality into GTM motions. Through trust. Through the ecosystem.

Full convo with Olivier Roth and The Swarm 🔆 here: https://lnkd.in/gqD32yUF

Top GTM teams turn partner overlap + signals into ready-to-send emails. NOT showing up to a meeting saying "where are my leads?"...

Pipeline moves faster in the tools you already have.

In my recent piece with Crossbeam, I broke down what actually makes AI useful in B2B sales.

No 28 step workflow with a dissertation of a prompt.
It’s better context.

Here’s the simple system I advise teams to run:
➡️ Pull second-party partner overlap from Crossbeam
➡️ Layer in first-party CRM data + third-party signals like funding
➡️ Let automation move it into the CRM and sequencer
➡️ Use AI to explain why it matters and draft the opener

Not as a Slack alert alone.
Not as a random CRM field.
But inside the rep’s existing workflow.

Sellers need to stay in rhythm.

In this flow, the message references a real partner their prospect already trusts.

Static data → active workflow.

AI is only powerful when it connects dots sellers don’t have time to connect.
Otherwise it’s just an email assistant.

In the article, I also break down:
✅ The 6 biggest mistakes teams make when introducing partner data
✅ How to make signals explainable so managers trust them
✅ The minimal stack I recommend to operationalize this
✅ A simple checklist to pilot ecosystem-powered AI without overwhelming RevOps.

If AI isn’t improving win rates or cycle time, it’s probably missing ecosystem context ;)

Full article here: https://lnkd.in/gu4s8Qd9

Thanks for having me Andrea V. + Crossbeam!

taplio

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