Sprout Social, Inc.

SDR Manager

Marco Santa Maria | Sales & Consulting

I have been a Mentor for several TALENTED and HUNGRY sales professionals, helping them to develop the right mindset to achieve both their personal and professional goals.  My Mentorship is unpaid but intensive, and focus on the areas of skill development, career advice, problem-solving, and mental health management.

Sales Mentor

I coach SDRs who are brand new to the game, and help them understand the expectations getting into the role.  Whether you are a fresh grad, or transitioning careers, let's chat about how to land your first SDR role, then level you up to become a top performer at your company!

SDR Career Advisor & Interview Coach

I work with organizations looking to build and improve their outbound sales development function.  If you are struggling to see the growth you need from your sales development team, or looking to start building out the function domestically or internationally, contact me to schedule a discussion.

Sales Development Leadership Consultant & SDR Coach

TerraCycle

Sales Representative

Varonis

Having been promoted from an Inside Sales Development Team Leader position, I now oversee the Sales & Business Development activities for the entire UK and Ireland.

Inside Sales Development Manager

Having worked my way up from a Sales Development position, I now currently oversee the numerous activities and metrics of a team of 14 Inside Sales Development Reps supporting the West Coast of North America.  My goal is to ensure the quality of their delivery as well as taking on all of the necessary behaviors for them to meet and exceed their business quotas and personal goals.  I pride myself on leading by example and providing new members with the correct tools and support structure to succeed in the position.

Inside Sales Development Team Leader

Varonis is the foremost innovator and solution provider of comprehensive, actionable data governance solutions for unstructured and semi-structured data with over 4500 installations spanning leading firms in financial services, government, healthcare, energy, media, education, manufacturing and technology worldwide. Based on patented technology, Varonis' solutions give organizations total visibility and control over their data, ensuring that only the right users have access to the right data at all times.

Here at Varonis, I help organizations manage and protect their unstructured and semi structured data—the documents, spreadsheets, presentations, media files and other business data in file servers, NAS devices, SharePoint and Exchange.

Territory Sales Development Representative

SThree

Coming from Real Staffing, the Pharmaceutical recruiting division of SThree, I helped to start the new aggressive initiative of supporting recruitment for Bloomberg within the Banking & Finance division.  As a recruiter, I was responsible for identifying top talent in Software & Application Development for employment at Bloomberg.  The various professionals I worked with were specialists in the areas of C++, C# .Net, Java, RoR, Python, etc.

Recruitment Consultant (Huxley) - Financial Software & Application Development

I am a specialist recruiter in our Pharmaceutical Division, specializing in the placement of Bioinformatics professionals.

Real Staffing is an international recruitment company, operating across the UK, mainland Europe and North America.

Recognizing talent, and identifying opportunity, we offer our clients and candidates:
-The best local and international talent for senior positions 
-Exceptional job opportunities for talented professionals 
-A quality service in each and every placement 
-Specialist sector knowledge and market expertise from our global teams of consultants 
-Access to our exclusive networks
-Online recruitment services available at your convenience.

Recruitment Consultant (Real Staffing) - Bioinformatics & Genomics

JPMorgan Chase

Personal Banker holding Series 6, 63, and Life Insurance licenses.

Open, manage, and service personal banking accounts.
Financial advising on retirement and investment goals.
Help clients find opportunities for mortgage and refinance options

Licensed Personal Banker

PARS International

Worked as third-party reprint management firm for top publications including:
The New York Times
The Boston Globe
Washington Post
Newsweek
Etc

Help clients with marketing and investor relations services focused on positive press from various media sources

NewsGroup Sales

At 16 years old, I was the guy calling your house while you were having dinner, asking if you needed a quote on a new roof or new windows.

Today, I lead a team of rockstar SDRs helping to develop and adapt processes that work for them and make them successful.

Hit that 'FOLLOW' button for regular content around sales, humor, and general daily life.

Want to do a coffee chat?  Hit me up!

Marco Santa Maria

Chris Cicconi

Chris Cicconi Inc

Fraction sales, leadership and business development.

Helping founders and early stage sales orgs build repeatable and scalable processes.

Powered by Gap Selling

Founder & Head of Sales

ARC Roasters

We make speciality coffee fun and accessible.

Co-Founder & Chief Caffeination Officer 

Unicrn

Founding Team Member & Jr Partner
Unicrn is a hand-selected collective of the best freelance sales, marketing, revenue operations, and enablement professionals from the world’s fastest growing companies.

Our mission is to quickly and seamlessly connect growing businesses with the right fractional talent to help everyone get farther, faster. Our GTM Pod system matches business needs with proven industry experts who strategize, document, and execute the GTM motion.

Head of Business Development

983 Media Productions, LLC

Working with 983 Media's founder to build partnerships with both potential clients, as well as other vendors, venues etc in an effort to deliver an exceptional eSports experience to all game developers and players.
Taking a leading role in helping 983 launch it's publishing arm - 983 Interactive. 
On air experience:
Host of "The Frontline" The Official Kards Podcast as well as all Official eSports events (a game by 1939 Games)
Gwent Qualifier Caster and Gwent Partner (a game by CD Projekt RED)
Production assistant for the Parallel World Championships

VP of Partnerships

Replicant

Led a team of 7 business development representatives selling an AI powered contact center automation tool to 5 core industries.
Generated over $48M in pipeline so far this fiscal year.
Promoted 2 BDRs to AE roles

Director of Business Development

Visier Inc.

Implemented a "Pipeline Acceleration Plan" to dig out of a pipeline deficit to meet the $59m OKR for the year, 3 months early.
This included growing the team from 6 to 12 BDRs and 2 BDR leads while implementing improved onboarding & framework to help them see success quickly.
The team set a record for the most pipeline generated in the 10+ year history of the company in July.

Senior Manager, Business Development

HRWize

Within this role, I not only handled the full sales cycle, but also hired, trained, developed and lead the full cycle sales team. HRWize is an HRIS system focus on small and medium size businesses of any industry, mainly within Canada, but with no limit to partner globally.

Sales Manager

Aerotek

While continuing to partner with my clients to deliver the highest quality of talent and service, I also manage our Professional Services division in Montreal. This entails both building out strategy and managing, coaching and developing our team of 10 account managers and recruiters to assure that we provide access to the quality candidates you need to support your business.

Continued to grow the divison to over $13M in revenue

Practice Lead - Professional Services

I became the first Account Executive for Aerotek's Professional Services Division in Canada. 
My role entailed business development and management of the fulfillment team for the Professional Services division. 
Lead a team of up to 6 individuals (recruiters & account managers) and grew the division from scratch to over $8M in revenue.
Archived 5 "President's Clubs" and multiple "Million Dollar Clubs".
Won the Director's Award in 2017

Account Executive - Professional Services

I specialized in technical staffing through Aerotek CE® (contract engineering), a division of Aerotek.

Technical Recruiter

Aerotek® Inc. is a leading provider of technical, professional and industrial recruiting and staffing services. We are part of Allegis Group® Inc., the second largest staffing company in the United States.

Sourcing Specialist

Sports Experts

I was responsible for training employees on the technical aspects of products, supervise them, open and close the store and register.

Keyholder

Paying it Forward 👉 One Day at a Time

Salesperson 💸 --> Coach ✍️ --> Leader 🙋‍♂️
Sometimes a content creator 🎥 - always a goofball 【ツ】

I love building things, but not physical things.

I have a passion for building teams, networks, processes, procedures and revenue but most importantly people. 

This had led me to helping founders pivot from founder led sales to a sustainable and scalable sales engine.

Hit me up if you want to talk sales, fractional leadership, 👟or ☕️.
--------------------
I was once given an opportunity that has allowed me to build my wonderful career.
I want to make sure others have the same chance.
#payitforward

Content Creator

Host of "The War Room: The Kards Pre-Game Show" by 983 Media (a game by 1939 games)
Host for all Kards Official eSports events, including the World Championship Series
Host of "The Frontline" The Official Kards Podcast by 983 Media
Gwent Qualifier Caster and Gwent Partner (a game by CD Projekt RED)

Chris 🦄 Cicconi

I lost 150lbs this year! 

What a ride it has been.

Except I didn't, but AI can make the pounds melt away in 30 seconds or less.

LinkedIn is already filled with enough smoke and mirrors
The "8 figure playbooks" (only $99!)
The made up close rates (seriously, I close at 108%)
The engagement bait "Comment 'clown shoes' to unlock my sales secrets"

Now that we can fake physical reality too....It's getting harder to separate reality from fiction. 

Social media is already a mental health minefield, and it will only get worse when AI can fake fitness, success, and bank accounts. 

Critical thinking isn't just a soft skill anymore, it's a survival skill. 

So don't believe everything you read (or see) on here 🙃

Building Sales @ KnowledgeNow | Still Fixing GTM. Still Roasting Bad Takes.

Imagine getting outed for liking your own post...

By a cold email where they mention you liked "Chris Cicconi's post"

Folks, the bar is so low you can walk over it without even noticing....

I should respond that "Chris Cicconi is an absolute 🤡 " and you probably shouldn't quote him in your cold email.

“Exposure” doesn’t pay the bills.

I’ve watched too many creators on this platform get burned.

Left unpaid by brands.
Lowballed on rates.
Content used without permission.

So when Thibaut Souyris told me he was building something to fix it, The Sales Creator Collective, I didn’t just trust him to represent me…

I joined him.

I’m officially part of the team as a Creator Agent. 

The job is simple, represent an amazing roster of creators to help them land deals for brands they love and get paid what they deserve.

LinkedIn creators are shaping industries, it’s time they were treated like professionals, not “influencers with opinions.”

If you’re a creator who wants to grow your brand partnerships (and actually get paid for them), my DMs are open.

Warning: Boomer take incoming 

I'm happy I started my sales career with minimal technology.

I had Salesforce and old school LinkedIn and that was about it...

Why? 
I had to enter my own notes into Salesforce (and Siebel before that 🤮 )
I had to dial by hand - punching all 10 numbers in with my fat fingers
I had to learn how to write a proper email
I had to learn how to ask prospects and clients for their cell phone numbers

And I could go on and on, but I truly believe that it has allowed me to learn the fundamentals and appreciate all the new tech.

I can power dial, find mobile numbers with the click of a button and have something automate my CRM notes 🤣 

...I still write my emails by hand because AI ain't it. 

What process or technology dates you as a professional?

In honour of US Thanksgiving, I have a hot take.

Stuffing is the superior side.

It doesn't need to be cooked in the turkey.
It can even be with a base of boxed Stove Top.
Spruce it up and it can't be beat.

Gravy makes it better.
Putting olives in it ruins it.

And you will not be able to convince me otherwise.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends.
We need more excuses to eat stuffing.

Thanks for proving my point LinkedIn.

I posted on Friday about how I lost 150lbs this year complete with a before and after selfie.

Except that I didn't, the selfie was AI and all I wanted to highlight was how good AI has become.

And my comments were filled with wonderful people supporting this massive life changing event. 

Not sure if it speaks more to AI being credible or people only reading the hook of LinkedIn posts, but my point was still proven.

Don't believe everything you see, read or hear.

Thanks for proving my point

I mentioned inheriting a CRM graveyard at KnowledgeNow.
So naturally… I went looking for ghosts 👻

Aka closed lost deals
The lowest of low hanging fruit

The problem? B2B data decays around 22.5% a year
(yes, I Googled that so I could sound smart 🤓)

So I pulled 117 closed-lost deals & their contacts from Hubspot and ran the list through FullEnrich
🚪 29 had left their roles
👋 Found new roles for 21 of them (new companies are good news!)
✅ 88 were still valid targets

Then the fun part.

I sent personalized messages to each one, highlighting why we had a deal running in the first place. 

From the list of 109, I booked 14 meetings and reopened 3 deals in under two weeks.

All from “dead” deals.
I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

Brand partnership • Building Sales @ KnowledgeNow | Still Fixing GTM. Still Roasting Bad Takes.

I ran a little experiment yesterday.

I took a very popular LinkedIn creators "Viral AI" prompt fed it the required information and asked it to spit me out a viral LinkedIn post.

I didn't touch it, didn't edit it, just let it work it's "magic" and the results were....well a bit pile of 💩 

Felt gross posting it. 
Sounded gross reading it.

Was just overall a bad experience.

But a nice reminder that all these magical viral solutions are just a bunch of snake oil.

I'm not gonna name name's RE: who the creator is and for the most part, it's because it does't actually matter.

Everybody preaching viral content are all full of 💩 

Be yourself. It's the best "silver bullet" you can have on LinkedIn.

Sh!t's simple.

Human's just like to overcomplicate things.

Yes, this is both about sales and not about sales.

I've lost a good amount of weight this year and people have asked
"How did you do it"
Simple --> Calories Out>Calories In.
Hard Part --> Cookies are delicious

The same applies to money, want more savings?
Simple --> Money In > Money Out 
Hard Part --> Getting more money and life being expensive AF

Want to do well at sales?
Simple --> Don't be a 🤡 
Hard part --> The primal desire to say things like "I hope this email finds you well" and "Just following up on this" 

In all seriousness, we want to complicate things with crazy supplements, something called the Smith Manuever (it's a 🇨🇦 money thing and I don't even know that I understand it)  or creating a 47 step automated outbound sequence. 

And we don't even have the basics down yet.

We all want to feel special, or that we're further ahead than we are.
Take a step back, check your ego and focus on the fundamentals.

If we’re not going to stop personalizing...
Can we at least stop doing it half-assed?

I keep getting cold emails that start with:
📩 “Hey Chris, I saw your comment on [random post]...”

Cool. You saw me comment.
But then you spent the rest of the email talking about you.

Instead of pulling a lead list from a post, why not try something actually relevant?

👉 “Chris, I see you're building out sales at KnowledgeNow. I work with small sales teams who tend to struggle with juggling pipe gen and closing, curious if you're living that?"
OR keep in general, but relevant
 👉 “I work with small sales teams who struggle to juggle pipe gen and deal flow…”

One approach is an excuse to talk about yourself. 
The other is an attempt to talk to me.

Let's do more of the second.

Google. I have to know, why is it every time I change windows, you rearrange where everybody is in my Meet? 

I'm trying to have a productive sales meeting, not watch the Brady Bunch. 

Sincerely,
-Some guy who's too cheap to pay for Zoom. 

PS: At least you're not Teams.

Most people don’t fail at sales because they suck.
They fail because they keep guessing.

They don’t know which problem they actually solve.
They don’t know who really feels that pain.
And they don’t know how to talk about it without sounding like a brochure.

That’s not a sales problem.
That’s a clarity problem.

When you know the real problem you fix, everything clicks:
👉 Your ICP stops being “everyone.”
👉 Your messaging starts landing.
👉 Your pipeline stops looking like a junk drawer.

I’ve seen founders throw away months of runway trying to “hire” their way out of a broken process.

It never works.
The playbook isn’t magic.
It’s just clarity, written down and repeated until it scales.

Can we stop "vibing" with AI please?

Why can't we just, do the thing? 

Actually, Vibe Coding is pretty cool, because I am zero technical.

But Vibe Selling? 
Can't we just sell?

Nothing AI has spit out, thus far, has been worthy of being put in front of another human being in a sales environment. 

Vibe Selling. Vibe Marketing. Vibe Investing. Vibe Product Management (yes I've actually seen this). Vibe Snacking (to be fair, THIS is my forte). 

It's become a buzzword worse than companies slapping "AI" on their product just for stock price bump. 

Yes, AI has plenty of uses in the sales world and in the world in general, but can we stop labeling it "just because"?

The worst part about starting a new role?  
Not the onboarding, the new tech, or learning the product.
It’s inheriting a CRM that looks like a digital graveyard 🪦
(yes I’m aware I’m a week late for spooky season)

When I joined KnowledgeNow, my first task was taking a peek inside Hubspot. 
Out of 918 contacts, 819 of them had no phone number.
That is a downright spooky 89% data gap.

I plugged that into KnowledgeNow’s data provider.
The result? 491 numbers. 
That’s 59.9% coverage and before checking for accuracy.

But I don’t like playing guessing games with my quota. 

So I turned to FullEnrich (yup - perks of a brand partnership). Their “waterfall enrichment" pulls from 20 different providers to get better coverage.
The result? 869 contacts with phone numbers. 
From an 89% data gap to a 95% fill rate. 

It makes you wonder, how many BDRs are being told they have a “pipeline problem” when they really have a data problem.
You can have the best pitch on the planet, but it’s useless if you can’t deliver it. 

Try FullEnrich for free - link in the comments!

FullEnrichCarousel

Reps who ask the tough questions close more deals, faster. 

The sad part? The questions aren't even that tough.

I was on a call this week with a client we were presenting a proposal to for an additional project.

Everything seemed to line up budget, scope etc

They're good clients, we've worked with them for years, so the presenter leaves it off with:
🗣️ "So let us know once you talk to your boss to get approval and we'll be ready to go"

Me, having PTSD from being ghosted forever and always jumps in
🔊  "Could we set up a time to follow up next week once you talk to your boss?"

The response? 
🤑 "Why don't we just go ahead and schedule the kick off call and if something goes sideways, we'll regroup"

We wait from waiting to hear back to scheduling the kickoff call. 

No, not every deal will close that easily, but you better believe next time I'm just going to ask to schedule the kick off call proactively 🤣

The #1 thing I've learned working as a creator agent with Thibaut Souyris?
(ok I know it's only been a week)
Everybody is undervaluing LinkedIn creators.

Even the creators themselves.

I see folks regularly generating 10s of thousands of impressions...
(not sure what kind of black magic they're using)

Yet they're open to taking any amount of money from a brand to post for them. 
And don't get me wrong, some money is better than no money. 

But you have to keep your brand in mind. 
If you're taking every offer you get, you're also making sponsored posts all the time and that can quickly turn off your audience.

I don't like posting a sponsored post more than once a week at most and I want to make sure I'm getting the most out of that post.

Just something to think about if you're considering brand partnerships.

And my DMs are always open if you're not sure what you should be charging! Always happy to help.

taplio

The Battle

Marco Santa Maria

Chris 🦄 Cicconi

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreChris 🦄 Cicconi's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Marco Santa Maria

Chris 🦄 Cicconi

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Chris 🦄 Cicconi's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreChris 🦄 Cicconi's LinkedIn Performance