Andrew McGuire

If you think outbound = hiring SDRs to book meetings…this post might hurt a little. People think Outbound is for: – More pipeline – Higher ACVs – Controlled revenue – Enterprise logos But not all outbound motions are built equal. And the expectation mismatch is where most of the damage starts. Let me break this down the way I’ve seen it play out across stages. 1/ Stage 0–500K ARR: Outbound isn’t an engine or motion. It’s awareness + validation. You’re reaching lookalikes of your best early customers. You’re making sure the right accounts know you exist. The founder or first AE runs it while revenue still comes from network + inbound. It’s not scale yet. It’s signal amplification. 2/ 500K–1M ARR: Now founders “build a sales team.” SDRs are hired with a quota that combines Inbound + Outbound targets. SDRs bias towards Inbound as it converts easier. Leaving Outbound quota to suffer. Leadership pushes targets. But eventually SDRs churn. The company manages to scale on inbound momentum and founder-led deals. Outbound pipeline remains pipeline (forever). 3/ Crossing 1M+ ARR? Founder takes a second shot at outbound. This time they go: “Let’s hire real hunters.” and kick start the hiring process … aggaaaiinnn. But here’s the blind spot. While leadership was fixing outbound at the TOFU Lead level - Outreach… AEs became excellent at closing inbound. Now outbound meetings come in colder, larger, more complex. AEs struggle with TOFU Conversion layer - Discovery and Qualification. Resulting in post-disco ghosting. SDRs think they’re booking bad meetings. AEs think SDRs are under-qualifying. Founders conclude: “Outbound doesn’t work for us.” And the cycle repeats. ----------- The debate shouldn’t be about “Is outbound dead?” It should be around: What kind of outbound motion are you building and what’s the goal? Outbound isn’t just an SDR function. It doesn’t stop at Outreach. If you reduce it to cold calls and booking meetings…. you are not building an outbound motion. You’re just adding activity and hoping it turns into revenue.

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The reasons why we like lower pricing tiers, OSS, and free tiers is not out of fear of converting customers. It's because most prospects aren't ready to hear they are expected to spend $100k+ upfront before they're at value (even if they will probably spend more with you in the coming years). Most just want to know they have the comfort of an 'option' to commit less UNTIL they get to value. Sales cycles often look identical and put you in the drivers seat to justify a higher upfront contract value. The common pitfall is that free tiers or pricing tiers are too generous and/or don't make sense to convert to the next tier. So even the best sellers in the world can't convert users/buyers because there's no logical point in moving. "Pricing is product, product is pricing ™️." This year, several of our clients landed at self-service contracts and turned them into seven-figure deals. Self-service can be a disarming motion to true enterprise deals (you still need to do all of the traditional Enterprise selling in parallel).

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EVERY ZoomInfo customer can connect Claude and ZoomInfo together right now- but how about in Slack ? With Claude? Here’s how to build a targeted prospect list and account plan without leaving Slack. (In <5 minutes) Step 1: Ask Claude directly inside Slack to build you a list I asked for… “25 CROs and VPs of Sales based in Boston, at software companies between 500–1k employees, with $100M+ in funding. Name, title, email, mobile, total funding.” It taps straight into your Zoominfo database and all comes back right there in the channel. It even flags who is on your do not call list. Step 2: Pick an account. Ask Claude to prep you for the call, directly in Slack. It uses Zoominfo to pull every conversation you've had with them - calls, emails, pain points they've raised, products they use. It comes back with the leadership you NEED to know, what's happening at the account right now and specific angles that could help you win. This works inside Claude too when you connect it up to our MCP server - you can even ask it to build you a custom interface to sort, edit, and work the data however you want. Zoominfo is going to show up EVERYWHERE. Slack, Claude, wherever you're doing GTM work, your data should follow you there. Every ZoomInfo customer already has access to this - connect ZoomInfo to Claude here: https://lnkd.in/eM-UbCJt

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Most GTM Ops leaders fail in their first 90-180 days Because they tried to fix everything at once They're fighting a battle on too many fronts Spreading their scare resources too thin Unable to make impact anywhere 𝐈 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲: - New CRO and/or VP of GTM Ops steps in - Pipeline management is broken - Outbound isn't converting - Inbound leads aren't getting follow-up - CS isn't tracking health So they tackle all of it at once - Six months later, nothing's actually fixed - They've built dashboards nobody uses - Documented processes nobody follows - Launched initiatives that died after the kickoff. And now they're on track for termination - 1/3rd of the way through an 18-month tenure - With no real improvement to the GTM function 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬: Pick one thing - Not five initiatives - One specific area in GTM Maybe it's outbound prospecting Maybe it's pipeline qualification Maybe it's sales handoff to CS Then focus on the fundamentals - Define the process clearly - Build it into the tools - Track the right metrics - Train the team - Drive consistent execution This last piece is key! The job isn't done until the entire team is consistently executing the process and you can see it in tangible reports. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐢𝐭. You're not optimizing yet. You're not automating yet You're not building attribution models You're just getting from broken to good enough 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: In 90 days, you can build a process and drive execution Or you can build 10 processes that sit in a Google Doc The organizations that actually move revenue pick one thing They get it working Then they move to the next thing More on this in yesterday's 📰𝙂𝙏𝙈 𝙎𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛 📰 See comment below for the link ✌️

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€280K deal lost in 7 minutes to a competitor charging 3x more. Reported by one of my clients. Here's the call breakdown with timestamps: **[0:47] The Feature Trap** Prospect: "Does your solution integrate with Salesforce?" Their rep: "Absolutely! We have deep integrations with..." *Spent 3 minutes on features nobody asked about* Meanwhile, the competitor answered: "Yes. But more importantly, how are you handling lead routing today?" **[2:31] The Pricing Fumble** Prospect: "Your competitor is significantly more expensive..." Their rep: "Exactly! We're 70% cheaper with the same capabilities!" *Instant commoditization* The competitor's response they learned later: "We're priced for companies serious about revenue operations, not just cost-cutting." **[4:12] The Reference Panic** Prospect: "Can you share similar companies using your solution?" Their rep: "Let me get back to you with some case studies..." *Trust evaporated* Competitor had three customer champions on standby for immediate intros. **[5:48] The Silent Champion Death** The prospect's head of sales stopped talking at this point. Their rep didn't notice. Kept pitching to the ops manager who'd already checked out. **[6:35] The Desperate Close** Their rep: "If we could start next month, would that work?" Prospect: "We need to evaluate all options first..." *Translation: You've already lost* The brutal truth about why they lost: It wasn't price. It wasn't features. It wasn't timing. They lost because they acted like a vendor while the competitor acted like advisors. Every timestamp above shows the same pattern: → They talked about themselves → Competitor talked about the customer → They defended their position → Competitor explored problems The €280K wasn't lost in that call. It was lost in how they trained their team to show up. Here's what they changed immediately: **Killed feature-vomiting** Now every product mention must follow a customer problem. No exceptions. **Banned defensive pricing** Price is positioning, not mathematics. Own your number or lose to someone who does. **Made references mandatory** Every rep now has 5 customer champions ready to jump on calls. No scrambling. No delays. **Track engagement, not attendance** Who's talking matters more than who's listening. When decision makers go quiet, they call it out. **Rewrote their close** From "When can we start?" to "What's still unclear?" Pressure kills deals. Clarity creates them. Six months later: Win rate against that same competitor up 67%. Average deal size increased by €45K. Sales cycle dropped by 3 weeks. The recording of that failed call? Now required viewing for every new rep. Because sometimes your worst loss becomes your best teacher. What expensive lesson transformed how your team sells? 🎯

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Your AEs are sitting around waiting for SDR meetings while their pipeline coverage drops < 2x. And you're wondering why forecasts keep missing. The linear SDR-to-AE model assumes clean handoffs and qualified pipeline flowing upward on schedule. But markets are tighter now. Budgets are frozen. Decision cycles are longer. You CANNOT afford to depend on a single pipeline source. Parallel prospecting should be, with few exceptions, not even up for debate right now. Here are some standards to set in stone: 1. SDRs focus on top-of-funnel volume. Book meetings. Qualify interest. Create awareness in accounts that aren't actively buying yet. 2. AEs prospect their own territory. Hunt for warm referrals. Expansion opportunities. Build relationships with execs. Go after high-value targets that require account context and business acumen. 3. Execs (yes, you) support in relationship-building Board members, founders, C-suite: everyone participating in opening doors and accelerating deals. Don’t get me wrong - this is NOT about SDRs failing. It's about current market conditions requiring more pipeline from more sources. Some of the best sales teams I know moved away from mass outreach this year and leaned into their network. Asked for referrals. Re-engaged relationships from 2-3 years ago. Fewer touches but higher quality deals. Better logos. Larger ACV. PS - Few teams I know use Vieu to uncover who in the company network (investors, advisors, customers, execs etc.) is connected to target buyers and can make intros. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/g9GB2J8u That's AE-level prospecting. That requires business relationships and strategic thinking that SDRs typically don't have access to yet. The pushback usually sounds like: "But that's what we pay SDRs for. AEs should be closing, not prospecting!" lol ok. How's your pipeline coverage looking right now? If your AEs only work SDR-sourced pipeline, they're dependent on a single source. The implementation is straightforward: - Adjust quota expectations. If AEs spend 20-30% of their time prospecting, quota reflects that or territory size decreases. - Comp structure rewards it. Higher commission rates on self-sourced deals. SPIFFs for expansion within existing accounts. - Track pipeline composition. What percentage is SDR-sourced vs. AE-sourced? If it's 90/10, your AEs aren't really prospecting. - Get the right tech: Vieu for scaling network-led intros, Clay for market signals etc. This doesn't eliminate SDR teams, but it does admittedly change how they work with AEs. In a good way, IMO. Less handoff friction. More collaboration on account strategy. SDRs opening doors, AEs building relationships. Your top performers already do this. They're not waiting around for their next SDR meeting. They're working referrals, reaching out to warm contacts, expanding existing accounts. Make it systematic across the whole team.

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