Taskbase

late Co-Founder leading Marketing and Sales

Chief Revenue Officer & Co-Founder

SalesPlaybook

Advisory Board & Investor

REP - Revenue Excellence Partners

Advisory Board

VoiceLine

Advisor & Investor

Flowla 🌊

Advisor

Twain

Unique

Investor

Chief Sales Officer

Europe's B2B Tech Sales Podcast

Co-Host

LARI

Exit to Main Capital Partners and Aunetic

Chief Sales Officer & Co-Owner (Acquired)

Starmind

VP of Sales, Americas

Sales Director, Germany

Enterprise Account Executive, DACH

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.

Two weeks ago, we started to pay employees for posting on LinkedIn.

If they get 20k views on their posts within 28 days, they will get 350$.

If they get 100k views on their posts within 90 days, they will get 550$.

The feedback and short-term effects were incredible:

We had > 30% of the company post at least once and generated > 80k views in total. (Without my posts).

Sebastian and Daniela reached the 20k already.

I payed 700$ for now.

What we got out:

- We had people in the sales process mention our online presence.
- People learn best by teaching others. Everybody learns. Fast.
- People have been posting stuff that brings them closer together.
- Many now understand technical details or how learning works better (thanks Kristian & Jessica).
- We also better understand what others do in their job (→ perspective taking)

Did we generate any leads?

No.

At least not yet. 

But if you measure marketing initiatives only against that, you are stuck in the old world of marketing.

One other point:

When I launched the initiative, there was a group of idealists who said this:

"If you need to pay your employees to post, your product probably sucks. They should do that on their own."

I respectfully disagree with that premise.

Even if you have a good product, it does not mean your employees will write any posts. They will still say:

- "I am not paid for it, so I won‘t do it."
- "I still don‘t find the motivation."
- "I cannot put myself out there."

Or one of the 100 other reasons not to be posting.

We know quite well that monetary incentives work.

And it did in this case. So far. 

For now, I can only recommend you give it a go.

Many Influencers also don‘t just post about your product because they like it.

You have to pay them too.

Patrick Trümpi

If you follow me and read my posts from time to time, here are a few things I want you to know about me: 

1/ I believe every human being is giving their best.

2/ I believe everything we chase is because we want love, belonging or connection with other human beings (yes, also your watch or car). 

3/ Many people have a really rough start into their lives and will never be able to achieve what others have. 

4/ The two values that matter the most to me are “Growth” and “Connection”

Growth:
👉🏻 Self-awareness
👉🏻 Openness to learn
👉🏻 Curiosity

Connection:
👉🏻 Compassion
👉🏻 Empathy 
👉🏻 Relationships are the key to a fulfilling life

5/ I am not always living up to those values. That feels shit but I am learning that this is part of the journey.

6/ Becoming more self-aware over time has been the biggest benefit I got overall from reading, meditating and thinking a lot.

7/ I am not proud with how I was in my teenage years and early twenties. I used to be quite aggressive and unsocial. Sometimes when I drink, part of that comes out still. For instance as aggressive comments here on LinkedIn.

8/ To the point above, in case someone writes comments in a more aggressive manner, I tend to answer the same way. I am not proud of that either.

9/ The main reason I started posting on LinkedIn is that others can learn from it. Tactical knowledge is hard to find. 

10/ The second most important reason I post is that I can process my learnings and truly see whether I understood what I am talking about. 

11/ The above is not always the case. And that is why I appreciate the thoughtful comments of yours and learn a lot on the way.

12/ I personally do not like to post stuff that have no value for the reader. Example: Selfies & too personal posts. 

13/ I do not judge people who do the above. Each to their own.

14/ Sometimes I catch myself judging other people for things I do not want to judge them, like the above (thank you self-awareness).

15/ This feedback loop inside my head (no. 12, 13 and 14 above) is the most crucial thinking process to keep working on myself. 

16/ If I could wish for one thing, it would be this: That everybody keeps learning all their lives. That is the main way we can improve. 

17/ I am neither the smartest nor the most talented in anything. I was lucky to be born in Switzerland with an insatiable hunger to learn.

18/ I am still trying to figure out where that insatiable hunger to learn is coming from. 

19/ I would have never wanted to work in sales when I was young.

20/ But here I am - let's make the best out of it 😃

Thanks for all the support 🙌🏼

I am going to be in Berlin from tomorrow morning until Friday morning. 

ARRtist on Thursday.

Really looking forward to see you all there.

Anything else I should not miss in that time-frame?

Happy to get some hints for Wednesday and Thursday evening.


PS: Ping me if you are up for a chat.

Every week, I see another post claiming “we replaced our entire SDR team with AI agents”. 

I call bulls**t. 

Or the second option: Your SDRs only sent out eMails.

(Who the hell is hiring such SDR teams anyway?)

I think even Salesforce used AI partially as a reason to lay off 4'000 people.

Do AI agents really work already?

I do not think so. 

"Workflow automation" has been rebranded to "AI Agents".

That is what I think happened. 

What about AI Agents in sales?

Read about the hype, the FOMO and the most common use cases of AI in sales in my newest article:

Open article: AI in Go-to-Market: Between Hype, FOMO, and Real Use Cases by patricktrumpi.substack.com

AI in Go-to-Market: Between Hype, FOMO, and Real Use Cases

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