Olivier Tytgat 🪖

Co-Founder & Head of Sales

CEO @ Outbound Catalyst | generate pipeline consistently with our revenue systems

👋 I'm Ollie, and here's my journey in a nutshell: 

- Helped over 25+ tech companies get their first 10-50 clients through smart revenue systems
- Trained over 250 people from diverse backgrounds on becoming the best cold callers ever
- Hosting a podcast where we decode B2B Revenue Systems: https://open.spotify.com/show/5LMwgSpPBRfffF4OyQsXC5?si=7bb99931399e40aa

🚀 On a mission to helping another 25+ tech companies increase their pipeline and net new revenue (building out Outbound Catalyst to be the 🥇 GTM agency in the EU).

🧠 Sharing my learnings from generating 100 million plus in pipeline and growing a growth/GTM agency in my newsletter -> https://bit.ly/newsletter-linkedin-website-profile 🧠

What you'll get by following me:

🚀 Actionable tips to grow smart outbound/revenue systems

🔥 Transparent & actionable advice, no fluff

💼 Exclusive updates on Outbound Catalyst's growth 

I’ll be posting growth tips and tactics - so hit that “Follow” button!

DM "GTM Scan" & see if you qualify for a free GTM Audit (value: €5K)

Peace, pipeline & revenue ✌️

Ollie

Founding Member

As a Founding Member of the Sales Hacker community, I exchanged ideas on how to provide value for the community. 

Sales Hacker is a community where B2B Sales Professionals share their experiences, best practices and exchange interesting ideas and other content.

Olivier 🔎 Tytgat

Most "GTM engineers" aren't engineers at all.

Spencer Tahil and I had a heated conversation about this last year (lol) on his podcast.

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

What most people call "GTM engineering" is what VAs in the Philippines were doing for €5/hour four years ago.

Building lists using PhantomBuster and Icypeas and Prospeo.io.
Cleaning data manually.
Copy-pasting what others share on LinkedIn.

Clay just made it easier. But easier doesn't equal engineering.

An engineer (the real definition):
"A person who designs, builds, AND maintains machines, structures, or systems."

That requires:
- 5-7 years of study (at minimum)
- Deep understanding of architecture
- Ability to design, execute, and maintain
- Systems thinking, not task execution

What I see instead:
→ Bootcamp graduates with 6 months experience
→ Asking for €5K/month salaries
→ Can't explain their QA process
→ Have never done a sales job
→ Expect agencies to guide them while charging premium rates

The market is confused because buyers don't know what they're hiring for.

And suppliers don't know what they're actually delivering.

This creates a cycle:
Bad hire → Underperformance → "GTM doesn't work" → Next bad hire

The truth? There are maybe 100 people globally who can truly:

- Design end-to-end GTM systems
- Build AND maintain them
- Understand growth architecture
- Execute with deep industry expertise
- Do this across multiple domains

Everyone else? They're specialists learning in public.

Which is fine, if expectations are aligned.

But calling yourself an engineer when you're building lists in Clay?

That's like calling yourself a mechanic because you can change your oil.

We need better education on both sides of the table.

Olivier 🧪 Tytgat

I engineer effective growth for B2B SaaS companies without the bloat | DM “GTM Scan” & I’ll give you 3 ways to increase your revenue in the next 90 days.

Founder: "We need $50K for paid ads to get our first 1,000 users"

Marie Martens from Tally: "We got 1,000 users in 6 months with $0 spend"

Here's the cold outbound system they used to get their first customers👇

(No budget. No audience. No customers. Just execution.)

Most early-stage founders think you need:
- Paid ads budget
- Existing audience
- VC funding
- Marketing team

Marie did the opposite:
She spent 6 months sending cold DMs. Manual. One by one.

The System:
1/ Ultra-Targeted List Building
↳ Found people who uploaded form builders on Product Hunt
↳ Looked for founders, product people, technical backgrounds
↳ No Clay. No automation. Just a spreadsheet.

2/ The Pitch
↳ "Hey, we're building this. I thought you might be interested because of [specific reason]"
↳ Shared a link to the MVP (just the form builder, no login, no landing page)
↳ Asked for feedback, not a sale

3/ The Results
↳ 1 in 5 replied (20% response rate on cold outreach)
↳ Early users joined their Slack (now 3,000 members)
↳ Super short feedback loops = rapid product improvement
↳ 1,000 users in 6 months, then doubled in one day on Product Hunt

The lesson? Manual outreach at tiny scale beats paid ads when you have:

No budget
No brand
But a product people actually want

Founders forget: You don't need to scale before you validate.

What's stopping you from sending 50 manual DMs today?

Full episode with Marie drops on Wednesday. 

(link in comments to get notified first)

Olivier Tytgat 🧪

Helping 50+ B2B SaaS companies engineer effective growth without the bloat | DM ‘Roadmap’ → 3 ways to grow revenue this quarter

$100M in pipeline. 30+ companies. 100+ SDRs trained. Here's what actually moves the needle.

Yesterday I shared why I'm going all-in on content in 2026. Today, let me show you what we've actually built.

Since founding Outbound Catalyst, we've helped B2B sales teams move from unpredictable prospecting to systematic pipeline generation.

The results:
→ $100M+ in pipeline generated across 30+ companies
→ 100+ SDRs trained on systematic prospecting
→ $5M in software sold, $1M+ in services (last 3 years)
→ 50+ salespeople got at least 1 full day back per week

What's different about our approach?
→ We don't sell you on volume. We build pipeline engines that work whether you're actively prospecting or not.

Not "send 10,000 emails and hope."

But "send 4,000 highly-targeted emails with signal-based triggers and generate double the meetings."

The companies winning in 2026 have figured out one thing:
→ Predictable revenue isn't a motivation problem. It's a systems problem.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be breaking down the exact frameworks we use:
📜 The 10 Commandments of Modern Prospecting
📜 5-step list building that actually converts
📜 The only 3 campaign types you'll ever need
📜 How to turn your phone into a competitive advantage

Looking forward to sharing what actually works.

What's your biggest outbound challenge right now?

I almost skipped this post. 

After taking a break over the holidays, I questioned whether another "outbound in 2026" talk would just add to the noise.

But then Dylan Mendes reached out.

He's doing something interesting: bringing together senior sales leaders from traditional industries with the approaches that are working in tech.

And honestly? That gap is where the real opportunity lives.

On Wednesday, I'm speaking at his event about what it actually takes to run successful outbound this year.

Not for tech companies who've been doing this for years.

For leaders at traditional businesses who are just now asking:
"How do we build outbound systems that scale without losing what makes us human?"

Here's what I've learned working with both:

Traditional businesses have advantages tech companies don't:
- Deeper customer relationships
- Longer sales cycles that allow for actual personalization
- Less tolerance for "spray and pray" (which is actually good)

But they're missing:
- Systems that enable reps instead of burdening them
- Smart automation that amplifies expertise (not replaces it)
- AI applications that actually move the needle

Tomorrow's session covers:
→ Building go-to-market systems that increase output
→ Enabling teams through automation and AI
→ Creating processes that benefit reps AND hit company goals

Wednesday, 6pm Brussels time.

If you're leading a sales team and wondering how to make outbound work in 2026, this is for you.

Link in comments.

(And if you're not joining for me, at least join for the other speakers 😄: shoutout Philippe Corbisier de Cobreville, Haris Odobasic, Pascal Persyn)

What's your take: are traditional businesses actually better positioned for authentic outbound than tech companies?

I'm about to show you something I probably shouldn't.


I just ran our new GTM Playbook Selector on Aircall (yes, the $200M ARR sales engagement platform/VOIP system).

The analysis that came back was so shocking, I had to pause before posting this.

But this is exactly the problem most B2B SaaS companies have, and they don't even know it.

Let me show you what I found. 

Aircall is doing ~$200M ARR. 

So I thought: "Let's see what this system says about their GTM."

What the system pulled... 

Repvue reviews from their sales team:

"Frequent changes in leadership"

"My direct leadership is not inspiring"

"Hard to build pipeline consistently"

"A lot of turnover on CRO's team"

"Brand new team, September 2025"

"No room for growth, not listening to employees"


Then it analyzed their trajectory:

- Raised $100M+

- Grew to 500+ employees

- Laid off 100+ people in 2022-2023

- Built infrastructure for "growth at all costs" — now needs "efficiency optimization"

The diagnosis: Their GTM motion is misaligned.

The tool flagged that they're probably:
❌ Not tracking intent signals properly
❌ Running multiple disjointed tools (not a unified system)
❌ Reps aren't cold calling (pipeline gaps everywhere)
❌ Leadership turnover is killing execution consistency

Look — I'm not here to roast Aircall.

Building at that scale is f***ing hard. I can't imagine managing hundreds of reps through hypergrowth, then a correction, then a rebuild.

But this is exactly why I built this system.

Because most companies are:

❌ Using the wrong GTM motion for their current stage

❌ Copying what worked 2 years ago (but doesn't work now)

❌ Not seeing the signals that their system is breaking

The system generated 9 pages of analysis for Aircall.

It included:

✅ What's misaligned in their current GTM

✅ Which channels they should double down on

✅ Where they're likely burning budget

✅ A prioritized roadmap to fix it

And it took less than 3 minutes.

So here's my offer:

I'll run this for YOUR company. For free.

Just:

🧲 Comment "ROADMAP" below

🤝 Send me a connection request

✍ Fill out the 2-minute form I'll send you

It will generate your custom GTM roadmap and send it to you automatically. 


P.S. This was my first official N8N workflow. Took days to build (mainly to get it running right). Still has some formatting bugs... But it works. And the insights are 🔥.

Most revenue leaders are solving the wrong problem. 

They're hiring closers when they need pipeline architects.

I'm Olivier, Founder of Outbound Catalyst.

I'm turning 30 this year, which made me realize I've spent almost a decade in B2B sales.

When I started, I had to figure out prospecting from scratch. 

Like most reps, I was stuck in the brutal feast/famine cycle:
→ Prospect hard for 1 week
→ Stuck in meetings for 2-3 weeks
→ Empty calendar next month
→ Panic and repeat

Six months in, something clicked. I automated my entire prospecting engine. 

10-15 meetings per week, on autopilot.

Most people thought I was just good at sales. The truth? I was good at building systems.

Here's what I discovered:

As I moved into revenue leadership, companies kept hiring me to "fix revenue." 

But the problem was never closing, it was predictable pipeline.

The companies winning in 2026 aren't working harder ➝ they're working more systematically.

They've built pipeline engines that run whether they're actively prospecting or not.

That's why I founded Outbound Catalyst.

Our results:
🎯 $100M+ in pipeline generated for 30+ companies
🧠 100+ SDRs trained on systematic follow-up through the phone
⚙️ 50+ salespeople got at least 1 full day back per week

What I'm building in 2026:

A programmatic revenue OS 
↳ plug-and-play systems that generate predictable pipeline across different revenue stages.

Not custom playbooks that break when you scale. 

Systematic frameworks that work whether you're a 5-person team or a 50-person team.

What you'll see from me:
⚙️ Pipeline Engineering:
➝ How to build engines that generate meetings while you're closing
➝ Signal-based prospecting for focused markets
➝ The validation process before any automation

⚙️ Systematic Execution:
➝ Campaign architectures that scale with your team
➝ RevOps + Outbound integration
➝ Data strategies beyond basic enrichment

🔥 Contrarian Takes:
→ Why most "best practices" break at scale
→ Why AI amplifies problems instead of fixing them
→ Why response quality beats response quantity

My core belief:

If you can't make it work manually, you can't scale it with technology.

Looking forward to connecting with:
- Revenue leaders building systematic engines
- Sales teams tired of unpredictable pipeline
- Anyone who believes revenue should be engineered, not hoped for

What's the biggest gap in your pipeline system right now?

p.s. tomorrow I'm releasing something special, stay tuned!

In 2 hours, I'm presenting "Outbound 2026" 🎤

And I'm going to break the 10 Commandments that separate successful outbound from spam.

These aren't LinkedIn theories. They're battle-tested across hundreds of campaigns that actually generated pipeline.

Here's a preview of what's NOT working anymore:
🚫 Most teams still optimize for volume. 
10,000 emails per month. 
47 sequence variations. 
Every shiny automation tool.

Result? 0.8% reply rates.

The companies crushing outbound in 2026 follow different rules:

📜 Commandment #1: Quality Over Quantity

One client cut their list by 90% and doubled meetings. 
→ Ten perfect leads > 1,000 spray-and-pray prospects.

📜 Commandment #2: Personalization is Non-Negotiable

Not [First Name] tokens. Real research. 
→ Personalized relevance per prospect = 2% to 11% reply rates.

📜 Commandment #3: Multi-Channel by Design

Email alone = 2-3%. 
→ Email + LinkedIn + Phone = 8-10%. 

One channel is hope. 
→ Multiple channels is strategy.

But here's the commandment most people violate:
📜 You cannot scale what doesn't work manually.

Test 50-100 prospects first. Fix what breaks. Then scale proven assumptions, not hopeful ones.

I'll be covering all 10 commandments in today's presentation at Scaling Sales in 2026 from We Are Sales (link in comments), including the tactical frameworks for building the best lead lists you'll ever build.

If you're running outbound and tired of mediocre results, drop a "🔥" below and I'll share the full breakdown afterward.

What's the #1 outbound myth you want me to bust today?

Your lead gen agency got you positive replies, now what?

One of the things we hear often from colleagues in the space is that their clients complain they aren't converting replies into meetings.

Now we didn't have to figure this out, because we lived it.

Ever since 2019 we've been applying what we call "warm calling."

The system is simple: do your smart automations to get a reply, once you get a reply, pick up the phone as fast as you can.

Here's exactly how we do it.

1️⃣ Tier 1: Positive Replies
↳ Call within 5 minutes
↳ Pre-qualify on the spot & Book the meeting

2️⃣ Tier 2: Gray Zone Replies
Anything that's not a clear "yes" or "unsubscribe"
↳ Call within 24 hours
↳ Outcome: meeting, nurture, or disqualify

3️⃣ Tier 3: No Response
↳ Add tier 1 & 2 leads to backlog call list
↳ Re-engage every 3-6 months
Call during downtime or when behind on pipeline

4️⃣ Tier 4: Unsubscribe/Do Not Contact
↳ Automations unsubscribe them & add them to the blocklist

These people aren't surprised you're calling. They've already engaged with your email. Most are actually open to a short conversation.

And to no surprise, you'll see 20-40% more meetings booked within days.

The reply isn't the win. The meeting is.

Are you following up on replies with calls, or letting conversations die in your inbox?

p.s. right? (lol)

Your fancy tech stack isn't the problem.

You can send 50,000 emails a month.

You can automate every touchpoint.

You can waterfall through 10 enrichment tools.

And still have zero predictable revenue.

Because knowing how to use tools ≠ knowing how to engineer growth.

Here's what actual growth engineering looks like:
One of our customers - 8 years in, fully bootstrapped, fastest-growing in their space - scaled from 0 to €5M ARR profitably. 

Their sales team? Grew from 3 to 5 people, the last 2 years.

Their strategy wasn't complicated. It was consistent.

Here's how it went down:
€0 → €1M ARR: Pure cold calling → Found first 100 customers & validated ICP

€1M → €2M ARR: Added paid ads on top → Built "inbound" flow while keeping outbound

€2M → €5M ARR: Layered in automated outbound (where we came in) → Email campaigns + warm calling + ads running simultaneously 

The System:
• Automated email campaigns qualify and warm up the market (in sync with ads). 
• SDRs call engaged prospects + hand-raisers within minutes → 30% convert to meetings
• Strategic outbound calling on priority accounts layered throughout

The Results:
Our part-time SDR books 30-50 meetings/month. Consistently.

€5M ARR with efficient cashflow. No burn.

The difference?

They didn't stop at learning tools. They engineered a repeatable system where each channel validates and feeds the others.

→ Cold calling proved message-market fit.
→ Paid ads scaled awareness.
→ Automated outbound created consistent pipeline.
→ Strategic calling captured high-value accounts.

Growth tactics are easy to learn.

Revenue engineering takes systems thinking.

What's your current bottleneck: tactics or systems?

Sales & Marketing Executive

First things first: All joy in the world comes from wanting others to be happy; all suffering in the world comes from wanting oneself to be happy.

Secondly: I am a CRO who still picks up the phone and cold calls - even with > 25 team members. Because it is fun and rewarding. 

In the first 10 years of my BtoB Sales career, I helped several startups in Europe to grow from < 500k ARR to > 10 Mio. ARR within < 5 years as AE, VP of Sales, CSO and CRO, with one Exit so far. More to come.

I went from full-cycle AE to CSO within 6 years - without having a clue about sales the first 2 years.

When I started in BtoB back in 2014, I really sucked at it. I did not reach my targets - not even close.

What did I do wrongly?

👉🏻 ...travelled 8 hours to a 1-hour meeting without prior discovery
👉🏻 ...never picked up the phone. Did everything via Email
👉🏻 ...asked on average 2 questions per meeting
👉🏻 ...did not know any Sales methodologies
👉🏻 ...had no clue how the sales process looked like
👉🏻 ...never booked a follow-up meeting right away
👉🏻 ...thousand of other mistakes 

I was lucky my company brought in two trainers, Max and Mike who helped me tremendously. I was able to completely change the way I sold - but not without heavily resisting that change at first.

I did not believe in discovery calls or asking too many questions - and had done sales too long without.

But I managed to change. And it was the best transformation I could have wished for.

In year no. 3, I reached 158% of my sales target (1.58 Mio. ARR) with a 2-month holiday during summer.

Since then, I have learned a lot more and realized that learning is the most important activity in our profession.

Patrick Trümpi

Hiring a job hopper can have a big advantage. 

Because I strongly believe:

If I had not worked for four different companies, I would not be half as good as I am now. 

Let's say someone started as an SDR. 

They cold call, they follow a script, and eventually, they nail it (or not).

Let's say the company is not doing well, so there is no promotion after 1.5 years.

They move on.

New company, same role. 

Sounds easy from the surface.

Just reuse the already learned script.

Except… it doesn’t work as well as before.

And suddenly, they’re forced to think deeper:

Why did that old script work? 
Was it the problem statement? The phrasing? The timing?

This is when they level up.

They stop being a “script user” and start becoming a “script designer”

At least mentally.

They learn how to translate a message from one company to another.

They also learn new things in their new environment they can think about and adapt.
 
How positioning, tone, and value props need to be changed to the new audience.

And also what does NOT need to be changed. 

They learn which sales approaches work almost everywhere. Are repeated by different teams. 

They can learn from the best in different companies, which is huge.

If that happens 3-4 times in an early career, it can definitely be worth a lot.

People start to think one level higher.

That is the underrated edge of job hoppers.

They have seen multiple environments, products, and buyer types.

They don’t just execute. They understand. At least better than before.

They learned not only how to sell, but how sales works.

Sales reps: 

When you talk to your manager, make sure NOT to say one of these three sentences.

1️⃣ "The prospect is really interested"

What your manager understands: 

You didn't discuss the impact or delve into a challenge in a way that truly demonstrates your understanding of the case. You have to imply interest from the way the prospect talked. With happy ears, prospects always sound interested. 

👉🏻 Don't use the word "interested". Say whether there is a good use case with a significant impact, or a business initiative you can support. 

2️⃣ "The prospect does not answer my follow-up emails"

What your manager understands:

You did not book the next meeting in the last call, and now you have to run after the prospect with follow-up emails.

👉🏻 Follow-ups are for low-performing sales reps. Book that damn meeting right in the call. Don't leave without a calendar invitation. Ever.

3️⃣ "The prospect was talking a lot. I got so much information"

What the manager understands: 

That is going to be a lousy champion. You probably have to look for a better champion. 

👉🏻 People who talk a lot rarely are doers, and also within their own company, likely not perceived as such. Don't spend too much time with them because you won't get anything done. Ask for other people who want to be involved in the case you are discussing. That will also be a good test of whether they actually help you.

I help SaaS sales leaders coach their teams on autopilot.

Some Sales organisations have their SDRs do discovery calls, instead of the AEs. 

I find that model really interesting and feasible, but there might be a few things to consider: 

The discovery is the most difficult part of the sales process. 

Most sales reps struggle with it. 

If you have your SDRs do the hardest part, you have to seriously think about: 

👉🏻 Paying them the same amount as AEs.

👉🏻 Top notch discovery training.

👉🏻 Still measure AEs discovery ability. Discovery is usually not just a meeting, but something that should be done throughout the process.

What I love about SDRs doing discovery?

👉🏻 It makes the job MUCH more interesting and long-term. 

👉🏻 It elevates the job to the same level as AEs. SDRs are no longer below AEs in their career.

👉🏻 They start to learn discovery very early in the career, because it takes the longest to be good at. 


And do me one favour if the above is how you approach things: 

DON'T have your SDRs do a full blown SPICED qualification. 

That is absolutely ridiculous.

Doing a SPICED qualification with outbound generated leads is just so far from reality.

These things need to be developed over time and not found in the first meeting.

Have them find a use case, and evaluate the priority of that use case. 

That is it.

The "I am not interested" objection is probably one of the hardest to takle. 

When I asked our AI Sales Tutor, I got the following answer: 

The "not interested" objection is a classic in cold calls, and how you respond depends on when it comes up.

**1. If it comes right after you ask for 30 seconds (very early in the call):**

You need to respond quickly, honestly, and with a touch of self-awareness. 

Try this (speaking at a fast pace):

"That’s okay. Before you hang up, I know it’s not your job to help salespeople. Is it that you’re happy with what you have, that you’ve got more important things on your plate, or you just hate getting cold calls as much as I hate making them?”

This approach is light, non-confrontational, and has the highest chance of continuing the conversation, even if the overall success rate for such early objections is generally low.

**2. If it comes during the cold call, after you've delivered your challenge-focused pitch:**

If you've already explained a relevant challenge, and they still say "I'm not interested," you can mirror their statement with a downward, curious tone:

"Not interested?"

This will often prompt them to give you more information or context, allowing you to understand the real reason for their disinterest and potentially address it.

**Important Note:** 

If you're hearing "not interested" frequently after your pitch, it's a strong indicator that your pitch itself needs improvement. 

A product-focused pitch often triggers disinterest, while a well-crafted, challenge-focused pitch tends to spark recognition and engagement.

Would you like to refine your challenge-focused pitch, or discuss other common cold call objections?

--

I think that answer is more balanced than most sales coaches would give. 

What do you think?

How to detect a sales leader who has only surface knowledge?

They tell their reps to use open vs. close ended questions. 

Because that is one of the first tactics trained in many sales trainings.

One of my reps had a fun encounter with a sales leader on a cold call the other day.

Sales Leader (at the end of the call): "You should have asked an open question like "what are your challenges" at the beginning.

My rep: "Ok, so what are your challenges?"

Sales Leader: "I cannot tell you yet. I started a few months ago"

My rep: "If I asked you an open question like that, the problem often is that people tell me about challenges I cannot solve. That is a waste of time for both of us"

And he is right.

There is no point hearing from a sales leader that they struggle hiring sales reps when your tool solves forecasting.

But it does not stop there. 

Let's assume we ask a bit more specific: 

"When it comes to forecasting, what are some issues you currently encounter?"

Problem with that? 

👉🏻 You have not earned the trust to ask such a question yet. 
👉🏻 They still have to think quite a lot (cognitive load too high) and likely come up with "all good there at the moment"

How do you solve that?

By asking a close question:

"When I talk to sales leaders, they often have two main challenges when it comes to forecasting: Reps put deals on commit that lack critical qualification such as understanding the decision and paper process or they do not even have a mutual action plan in place and secondly that sales leaders often just spend time reminding the reps of these basics. Are you familiar with any of these two?"

You show that understand their challenge better than they do.

That builds trust. 

And you take their cognitive load by giving them options. 

So much better. 

And by the way: 

Many sales leaders now say the client only says "no" or "yes".

Based on my experience, that is definitely not the case. They almost always give more context. 

But in case they only say "no", ask this: 

"Does that mean that your reps almost always hit 100% of their forecast?"

And in case they said "yes", ask this:

"Can you elaborate?"

Next time your sales leader tells you to use open ended questions, ask them: 

When is the best time to ask open questions?

Their answer should not be "always"

It is way more nuanced.

New Year. Welcome back everyone! 

I see a lot of posts about setting goals. I am not a huge fan. 

I once put this massive goal in front of me: 

Want to be retired by the age of 40. 

Nowadays it bothers me more than it helps to think about that.

Goals often are too far away and have no impact on the now.

But: There is one huge benefit of goal setting: 

Increase self-awareness. 

If you already put some goals down, here is what I would do: 

Let’s assume you said you "want to earn $100’000 in 2026" 

(money goals are probably the worst).

Then ask yourself: 

Why do you want that? 

The answer you come up: 

I want to buy a 20k watch. 

Ok, good so far. 

Now, ask yourself again, why you want that watch? 

And here, it becomes increasingly difficult because you have to be honest with yourself. 

Try not to judge yourself for whatever answer you come up. 

Possible options: 

"I really love that one watch." 
"My friends have all such watches." 
etc. 

Ok, well done.

But you are not done yet. 

It becomes much harder now. 

You have to further increase the level of honestly with yourself. 

Why do you actually love watches? 

Think about it. 

You will get deep down to your motivations.

You can find out if buying a watch will actually make you any happier. 

And it might, but very rarely.

If you do it for your friends, for being accepted or for some other fragile reason, as soon as you have that watch, you will want something more. Or your friends get an upgrade and you feel worthless again. 

Do that exercise to actually learn about yourself from the goals you set.

Here is what I like much more than setting some yearly goals:

Build a system (yes, got it from the book Atomic habits). 

A system basically consists of really really small daily habits. 

(which technically you can call goals as well). 

My current ones are: 

👉🏻 Write journal (this post comes from my journal and own thoughts)
👉🏻 Write one LinkedIn post. 
👉🏻 Run for 30 min. 
👉🏻 Read 30 min. 
👉🏻 Talk 30 min to ChatGPT (from which I will produce more content). 
👉🏻 Max 30 min of LinkedIn and Substack a day (my only social media). 

The rest of my time is dedicated to my family and work.

I once wrote a full list of things a perfect day would contain. 

I pick some of those that fit my current life style and try to follow. 

I do not manage to get everything done every day. 

And that is fine too. 

But this system will make me much happier than a goal I set in the distant past.

Last year, a very seasoned CEO of an 8 figure ARR business reached out to me and asked: 

Can you help me hire an Account Manager? 

So we put together an Ideal Rep profile and a job description. 

We defined the hiring process and put together a case study. 

Then we posted it on LinkedIn with two posts. 

We head a steady supply of candidates. 

The CEO did the first interview. 

I participated in the assessment, the seond one, in order to test for the sales skills we needed. 

After a few weeks, we had two good candidates and made a decision. 

And after a few months, the new AM already signed >400k in new revenue. 

--

Many founders and sales leaders who have little hiring experience find themselves hiring for high-stakes sales jobs. 

They have hardly an idea what questions to ask, but even less so what kind of answers to expect. 

What are "good" answers and what are answers that show something you do not want in the company?

This is really really hard to evaluate if you have not hired a decent number of reps. 

Therefore my tip: 

Involve a sales expert in at least one of the calls, ideally the assessment. 

It will save you TONS of money and frustration. 

And in case you start from scratch, you can find my hiring process and all necessary information with the Notion link in the comments. 

Good luck!

A few weeks ago, my product team approached me with a very difficult question: 

"How many of our most advanced deals use Salesforce, Hubspot and all those other tools you keep mentioning?"

They had to decide, based on data, which integrations to prioritise.

If I had been asked that question a few months ago, I would have shivered.

Because I had a "Tools in use" field in Hubspot, but relied on sales reps to fill that in. 

And that never works. 

Reps (including me) just never do it. 

Additionally, a field that allows reps to pick those technologies from a list is also usually a very bad option. Because there are an almost infinite number of tools and you can hardly keep an up to date "pick from list" field. 

I am sure you know that pain. 

So what did I do?

I introduced Kickscale as our recording tool. 

Made sure Kickscale automatically fills the tools the clients mention into a "multi-text" field (see below 👇🏻 - Kickscale makes that SO easy)

Then, I simply asked Hubspot's AI Assistant (Breeze) to give me an overview of all the tools in deals that are beyond the "Power Agreement" sales stage. 

And I got the result you see in the picture below 👇🏻

A perfect overview of which tools are in use with how many of our advanced deals, including all the deal names.

Just sent that screenshot to our product team. 

It has never been easier to give reliable data to other teams. 

We also automatically fill several other fields: 

👉🏻 Detailed deal source (the one in the example was a referral from Julius Dany from REP - Revenue Excellence Partners. Thanks JD!)

👉🏻 Pain

👉🏻 Use Case/ Pain Priority

👉🏻 Impact of not solving the Problem

Reps don't have to do anything. 

All on autopilot.

This is what AI is really good for.

One other spot you should NOT use genuine open questions:

At the beginning of an eMail. 

It literally screams: 

I would like to have some information from you. 

That is the OPPOSITE of the famous reciprocity principle in psychology. 

The principle says: 

Give first, then ask. 

So basically: Don't do it the other way around, especially in cold outreach. 

You have literally zero trust of the person you write an email to.

Do you really think they are going to answer an open question?

Psychology says: Likely not. 

Except if you posted value on LinkedIn before.

Or liked and commented some of the receivers posts. 

But not otherwise. 

Even the data shows you should only ask one question. 

And that is the CTA:

"Interested?"

"Want to learn more?"

Does that sound interesting?"

That is it. 

I also posted another Substack article on this:

https://lnkd.in/ep2N7zQv


PS: Sorry, I accidently posted the an article on substack this week I already posted in the past. Was not my intention. Sorry especially to those who pay for my content - and thanks so much for the support!

taplio

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