Tommy Klouwers

Outbound is a PRECISION game. 🎯🏹 Hit the right accounts. Target the right persona. Nail the perfect message. Execute flawlessly. It starts with choosing the right accounts. Miss this, and nothing else matters. Too many companies let junior SDRs pick targets. Big mistake. They lack the experience. ❌ Understanding great accounts takes nuance. Expecting a new SDR to get this right is unrealistic. It wastes time and resources. 👎 Precision is everything. Get your targeting right. Save time. Close more deals. 💼✅ Repost ♻ to inspire your network and 🔔 follow Nick Palasz for more. #sales #outbound #B2B

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Dear SaaS CEOs, COOs, and CROs, stop blaming your CSMs for churn that happens for reasons not under their control. They can't stop customers from leaving if ⛔️ your product has major flaws ⛔️ you are acquiring the wrong customers ⛔️ you are setting unrealistic expectations ⛔️ your Customer Support is underperforming Yes, they can and should provide the insights to understand where and why customers are leaving. But it’s your responsibility to ensure the proper measures are taken and to hold the respective leaders accountable. Your churn rate will remain high until change your tune or go out of business (whatever comes before). Churn is a company-wide issue that needs an orchestrated approach to deal with it. Act accordingly. PS: Create more value for your customers and your company --> https://lnkd.in/d5cGMT4R #saas #customersuccess #customervalueledgrowth

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Dear SaaS CEOs, COOs, and CROs, stop blaming your CSMs for churn that happens for reasons not under their control. They can't stop customers from leaving if ⛔️ your product has major flaws ⛔️ you are acquiring the wrong customers ⛔️ you are setting unrealistic expectations ⛔️ your Customer Support is underperforming Yes, they can and should provide the insights to understand where and why customers are leaving. But it’s your responsibility to ensure the proper measures are taken and to hold the respective leaders accountable. Your churn rate will remain high until change your tune or go out of business (whatever comes before). Churn is a company-wide issue that needs an orchestrated approach to deal with it. Act accordingly. PS: Create more value for your customers and your company --> https://lnkd.in/d5cGMT4R #saas #customersuccess #customervalueledgrowth

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Last week, I was in a zoom room with 20 of the greatest GTM minds on the planet. CROs, VPs of Sales, CMOs, CCOs, trainers, talking heads. 90% agreed that the SDR role is basically dead. Why? 1. It's been used incorrectly. It's pretty much been proven that an AE without and SDR is just as productive as one with an SDR. Funny. AEs will find their way to their quota given limited resources. The constraint was thought to be time, but many AEs did not invest more in their deals bc they were spending less time prospecting. They ended up doing side hustles, making courses, working out, etc. Works for the person, not for the company paying them (and the SDR). 2. The economics are off in most cases. Having a $100k SDR, $200k AE, $125k SE, $130k CSM, and a $110k Onboarder team up on sub-$10k ACV deals is comical. The CAC payback period is too long for the current churn and contraction rates. In general, it's a bloated structure that caters to AEs who don't want to prospect or move with their customers into post-sales. My first sales job I was a one-man wrecking crew. I prospected, closed, onboarded, success-ed, renewed, and supported every account I signed. It was hard work, but I did it. 3. It's a vestige of the ZIRP/Grow-at-all-costs era. When cash is easy and money is flowing, there are certain investments which help you grow faster, even though they do not help you economically. Growth isn't king, cash is. Luxuries go away in lean times, and many people consider SDRs to be luxuries. 4. They aren't staying with their employer. The idea was hire a young sales professional. Teach them some basic sales skills. Give 'em an email account and a phone and have them ease into sales by doing one of the most basic parts of it - prospecting. Then, as you needed to hire AEs, you could promote the SDRs you'd invested in...kinda like the farm system in Major League Baseball. But, most SDRs leave before 14 months, so the talent pipeline has a major leak in it and all your effort benefits another company who hires them as an AE first. 5. Results are tanking. Many SDR teams are doing significantly less than they used to. The math doesn't work when you aren't booking tons of meetings. It makes more sense in true enterprise (10k+ employees) when the value of a deal is huge, but in SMB and MM, the results are so low that many companies would barely notice. This is not the opinion of one man [me]. These are the ideas of uber successful and famous GTM people. People who spend all day thinking about this stuff and implementing it in their companies or their customers. If SDR leaders want to change this line of thinking, y'all better start evolving and finding a way to make $1 invested in SDRs turn into $5 of ARR. Shoutout to Brandon Redlinger 🌶️ and Mark Kosoglow [original post] for putting the group together to discuss all things GTM.

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Demand Gen is one thing but how do you convert that "interest" into qualified pipeline? Chili Piper launched their Demand Conversion Platform today, which includes everything you need to convert demand: chat, form routing, lead distribution, and scheduling. Together with my friends Amy Volas, Emmanuelle Skala, Jill Rowley and others, we’ve helped define the playbook for Demand Conversion so you can create, convert, and close more qualified revenue. Check it out and start converting demand today! https://lnkd.in/ecCgmJ3C #marketing #sales #demandgeneration #demandconversion

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How can you be more strategic in RevOps? - Move from report jockey to strategic advisor? Here’s a tangible example: - Suppose we’re running a Pipeline Council meeting... - We start showing CQ pipeline and forecast are on target Then, we show the pipe gen for the next quarter is not on track. Here’s how we could tackle the conversation: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴? - This slide shows our pipeline for next quarter. - Current progress is $1M against a target of $3M - We’re behind pace to hit that $3M target on time. 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗞𝗣𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼? - This will impact one of our major KPIs… - New business bookings for next quarter.” 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱? - We have about 40 more days here - To increase our pipeline generation - In order to close the gap we have today 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁? - If we stay at the same pace - We’ll likely only reach $2.2M in pipeline. - We would likely miss next quarter’s revenue targets. 𝗖𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺: - We can see the issue is in the enterprise segment. - We’re creating about 1/3rd the opportunities we need 𝗦𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: - We’d suggest having a 2nd meeting - Looping in marketing and field sales - To brainstorm a one-off campaign here - And how we can close this gap together 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽: - Other ideas to beef up pipe gen in the next 40 days? This is the fundamental difference in being strategic - We’re identifying a root issue and a potential solution - We’re making it easy for leadership to respond to this data - Not asking them to analyze data and make conclusions alone But what do you think? What would you add here? 🤔 More on this in in yesterday’s 📰 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙊𝙥𝙨 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠𝙡𝙮 📰 Get it here: https://bit.ly/4cDUcVO ✌️

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The secret to turning your CS team into an upsell machine (...steal this genius idea from Alex Farmer) Want to drive more revenue from existing customers? Implement these 2 game-changing metrics: 1️⃣ CSQL (Customer Success Qualified Lead) — Leads generated by the CS team from current customers. If you're not tracking this, you're leaving money on the table! 2️⃣ Time to First Upsell — How long does it take to upsell a new customer? Shorten this window for explosive growth. Alex Farmer, founder of Customer Success Excellence, used these metrics to: ✅ Generate 40% more qualified upsell leads from existing customers ✅ Reduce time to first upsell from 18 months to just 6 months The result? Massive revenue growth! As Alex says, "If you don't measure it, you cannot improve it." So start tracking CSQL and time to first upsell TODAY. At first, the numbers might look terrible. That's okay! When you start measuring, you’re already halfway there! Commit to improvement and watch your upsells soar. Learn from Alex's genius and establish an upsell mindset across your entire CS org. Your bottom line will thank you! I'd love to hear your thoughts: How do you encourage upsells on your CS team?

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What we were promised: a unified ops function for all GTM teams. 😎 What we got: a new name for sales ops. 😔 The labels aren’t really the issue here. It’s the fact that alignment across functional ops teams still seems elusive in many companies. These are some common objections to creating a unified RevOps function: 😰 Functional leaders are worried about their ops teams becoming less responsive 😰 MOPS and CS Ops worry about getting swallowed up by Sales Ops and losing autonomy  😰 Marketing and CS worry their needs won’t be prioritized if RevOps reports to a sales leader These concerns are legitimate and need to be addressed. But they don’t change one simple reality: a lack of alignment among operational teams is usually just a mirror of the lack of alignment among the GTM functions. And these silos harm business performance. Instead of focusing on the challenges, let’s look at what a business can GAIN when ops teams are strongly aligned or unified: 🗺️ A holistic view across the entire revenue process ⚖️ Initiatives prioritized by business impact rather than executive fiat 🥰  A more unified and seamless customer experience 💰 More efficient tech spend with fewer redundant tools 🤝 All revenue teams rowing in the same direction 🤗 Pooled ops resources and mutual support 💪 A stronger ops function that can manage performance rather than just close tickets These teams DO exist, and this week on RevOps FM, I spoke with Julia Kim, who leads one of them at Electric. Julia leads a very mature RevOps function that supports marketing, sales, CS, and partnerships. Not only does this org structure work—her team is a driving force behind the business, which wasn’t at all the case when ops teams were embedded in their functions. In this episode, Julia shares: • The scope and structure of her team • How they plan and prioritize • How they balance running the business as usual with innovation and strategy • How RevOps can have different objectives at different stages of maturity • How she finds efficiencies across the tech stack • And much more Episode link in the comments 👇 —--- P.S. a unified function is one way to achieve alignment, but I don’t suggest it’s the only way. At my company, for example, my team supports marketing and BDR Ops and reports into marketing, while all other ops teams are centralized. This still works very well because a) The marketing leader also reports to the COO, ensuring consistent priorities b) Marketing ops still works closely with other ops teams, has regular cadences, shared OKRs, etc. So the key factors here are a centralized reporting structure and close collaboration. P.P.S. I feel like I've seen the meme I used before somewhere. If you created it first please raise your hand and I'll gladly give credit 😊

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5 KPIs I'm tracking to measure how well my internal BDR team are performing: 1. No. of Conversations 2. No. of Booked Discovery Calls 3. Discovery Calls Booked vs. Discovery Calls Sat Ratio 4. Discovery Calls to Pipeline Ratio 5. Discovery Calls to Close Ratio I'm looking at these weekly with the team, we've built a scorecard that labels the goal and and we plot down the weekly results. Each data point tells us what's working and what needs fixing. For example, if a BDR is down on their no. of conversations weekly target, what can we do to help increase this? If the DC's booked vs DC's sat is showing a lot of 'meeting no-shows', how can we help them improve? Simple but effective.

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Most CSMs don’t really have a system that works ⛔ They throw their time at answering emails, jumping on catch up calls, or trying to put together QBR decks. Sometimes this works pretty well. Plenty of CSMs are successful because they simply got lucky. But for every CSM that lucked out, there are hundreds that have failed. And I know that so many of these failures could have been avoided with a better plan. 😅 Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed as a CSM? Are you looking for a proven system to take your career to new heights? Well guess what I have taken over a decade of my strategies and playbooks and I have created a course to help CSMs LEVEL UP their careers! This course has taken over 5 months to launch because I have packed so much content into 6 weeks! 😱 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝘀𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝗴𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 - 𝗖𝗦𝗠 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗨𝗣 𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝘆! This LIVE cohort training course will cover the following: ✅ Handle objections in upselling ✅ Understand and build customer revenue success plans ✅ Understand how the role of a CSM impacts a business ✅ Recognize and overcome traditional CSM mindsets ✅ Identify common pitfalls and challenges in traditional CSM approaches ✅ Develop a deep understanding of customer goals and challenges ✅ Strategies for establishing credibility as a trusted advisor And so much more... Don't leave your career up to chance. Join CSM RevUP Academy and unlock your full potential as a Customer Success Manager. Say goodbye to failures and hello to a better plan. Enroll now and start your journey towards becoming a super successful CSM! ⬇️ Check out the comments below on how you can enroll today! ✍️ Would love to hear your thoughts. ♻️ Reshare if this helped you. #customersuccess #csm #careercoach

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"Funnels are dead" "Everything is dark social, so attribution is pointless" "The buyer's journey isn't linear so who cares about buying stage data" "Marketing data is all just made up" I see this stuff on Linkedin all the time. And I get it. Marketers struggle with how hard it is to get visibility into what is working and not working. It's hard. And getting harder by the day. But all this criticism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. "All models are wrong, but some are useful" - George Box. Yes, all the attribution models are wrong. Trying to understand why someone bought your product is very complicated and even asking them is riddled with bias (still worth asking though). But "models" are not meant to be 100% reality. They are a representation of reality to help you understand something complex. A model airplane can't actually fly you to Europe. But it sure could help someone who has never seen a plane before understand what a plane is and how it works. It's the same for marketing models. If you dig in, they are wrong in a load of ways. But when done right, they simplify reality into a more digestible format to help make important decisions. The "when done right" part is very important, though. Most companies struggle with poor data and misunderstand the questions different models can answer. But that does not mean trying is a waste of time. So when you hear the next LinkedIn "expert" who probably hasn't built a report in their life, try to tell you your reporting efforts are a waste of time, ignore them and keep at it. #gtmoperations #marketingoperations #revenueoperations  

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If you're a B2B SaaS company who isn’t great at lead gen & lead conversion... You will not thrive in the era of P.E.G. (profitable, efficient growth). But in the P.E.G. era, an MQL (marketing qualified lead) will not be enough. This metric is a hangover from the “grow at all costs” era of SaaS. It was a shortsighted metric that had marketing focused on the number of leads it could generate, instead of also being graded on what happened to those leads later on. That’s madness, because the process of growing a company is the process of: 1. Creating a lead 2. Moving it into the sales pipeline 3. Progressing it to close as a net new customer If you can’t do this, you can’t grow a company. If you can’t do this efficiently, predictably, and repeatably… You can’t grow a company efficiently, predictably, or repeatably… And your company’s valuation will reflect that inability. We can’t predict whether a lead will end up becoming a customer on our first touch, but we can identify high-quality leads - those who are likely to progress far in the sales pipeline. Those that go deep in the sales pipeline are more likely to close. Those are the leads we want to capture. Our entire advertising motion, lead capture motion, and the process of converting a lead into the sales pipeline* ... Should be focused on these goals. *I won’t call it lead nurture - listen to the full episode on the Growth and Influence Podcast (linked in my bio) and you’ll understand why.

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WTF is RevOps? Moneyball is one of the best examples I can find. The CRO is Brad Pitt - He builds the team - The manager reports to him - He makes big strategy decisions - He owns a number (of wins) to hit - And this takes up all the time he has The VP of RevOps is Jonah Hill - He builds the system - He builds the reporting - He analyzes the metrics - He brings ideas to his boss - He backs them up with the data - And he translates this into a story - About how the numbers lead to wins - So everyone can easily understand them - And appreciate the importance of the data This to me is RevOps, or at least part of it. It’s helping the CRO to build the right team and execute the right things to win. ✌️

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5 most common mistakes I see in cold email: 1. Trash offer 2. Bad Deliverability 3. Targeting is not ICP 4. Not enough volume 5. Slow inbox management 99.999999% of your cold email problems will be solved by simply fixing/at least improving these five.

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*Every call with B2B companies wanting me to implement DFY Clay campaigns for them* Want to work with me? 👇 Done-for-you outbound motion management and Unlimited Clay Plays. - Free Email Infrastructure Setup (if you don't already) Goal = automate hyper personalized outbound to our targeted list of leads. We will use Instantly or Smartlead for email sending tool - DFY Outbound Motion management - Unlimited Clay Plays, DFY List Building - Scoring list based on account criteria - Pushing best-fit curates leads to your SDR/AE’s CRM - Campaign Sequence Personalizations - Weekly Reporting / Strategy Call / Slack Bonus warm clay plays: 👉 inbound leads > clay table > filter ICP > enrich > update CRM 👉 website traffic > recover 30% of US visitors > clay table > filter ICP > enrich > update CRM Your SDR(s) will spend all day calling the best fit leads and social selling. AKA revenue generators. Let’s chat: 1. Go to howtouseclay(.)com [new website in several weeks] 2. Read through all details, see if my thesis aligns with your GTM goals 3. Book a call Happy Clay’ing ⚡️

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Why your customers aren't telling you the truth (...and how to fix it) If you're relying on NPS and CSAT scores to predict churn, I've got bad news: You're asking the WRONG questions. Customers can tell you they love you and still leave. Because delight doesn't drive renewals - value does. To get the truth about churn risk, ask customers if they're receiving real value. Not if they'd recommend you. But there's another reason customers mislead you: You're interpreting their feedback wrong. ❌ Blindly building every requested feature creates a bloated, directionless product ✅ Instead, focus on your ideal customer profile's core needs & problems Then craft targeted solutions for THOSE critical issues. Don't get distracted by niche requests. The key to honest insights is: 1. Asking the right (value-based) questions 2. Listening to the right (ICP) customers 3. Solving the right (critical) problems Only then can you trust what customers are telling you. Want to see how to gather customer truth at scale? Watch this video for the 2 big reasons customers don't give it to you straight: Stop flying blind when it comes to churn. Start getting the insights you need to keep customers for life!

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The secret to getting 25-100X more customer feedback (...and it's not lengthy surveys) Most companies struggle to get meaningful customer insights. The industry average response rate for NPS is a measly 1-4% once a year. But TheySaid is getting 11-14% response rates 12-16 times per year! How? 3 key things: 1️⃣ Personalized questions — We only send 1 question per customer. It's tailored to their role and stage, asking about what THEY care about. 2️⃣ Respect their time — Customers will give you 5 seconds, not 30 minutes. Keep it short, sweet, and relevant to them as a human being. 3️⃣ Close the loop — The #1 reason customers don't give feedback is they think you won't act on it. We built a system to action EVERY response within 2-24 hours. When you ask personalized questions, respect their time, and show you're listening... You create a positive cycle of customers giving feedback and getting better service & value. It's a win-win! But generic NPS surveys that only benefit the company? Forget it. Customers just don't care. If you want to learn how to get exponentially more customer insights... Watch this video breaking down the 3-part formula:

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An average marketer's playbook: - Bombard with sales emails through lead magnet opt-ins - Push products without understanding their audience - Treat every prospect as a number on a spreadsheet - Rely on flashy gimmicks or bro marketing tactics - Focus on transactions instead of relationships A great marketer's playbook: Initial contact: Build rapport without pressure with the intention to "help," not sell. Exploratory conversation: Engage, ask questions, and truly listen to understand their prospects' needs and challenges. Don't pitch; learn. Building trust: Provide value and consistently deliver on promises so prospects see them as reliable partners. Customized solutions: Co-create strategies that aren't cookie-cutter but tailored to their prospects' specific needs. Long-term partnerships: Offer ongoing support and collaboration so they aren't left in the dark after using the service/product. Nurture relationships, not just leads... You'll turn customers into lifelong advocates who are worth 10x their initial purchase value. Don't strive to make a sale. Strive to make a difference in the customer’s journey. P.S. Learn more ways to do this here: https://lnkd.in/eqie-Zvy

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GTM Alignment check: Service-based B2B revenue teams struggling with pipeline coverage... (First, you're not alone. The last 18 months have been brutal for most) 1. Your ICP is focused on mostly enterprise and upper middle-market (let's say you define this as $75M+ in revenue by customer size). 2. Your service offering includes a mix of MSA (right to hunt), Project, Re-occurring (regular but unpredictable purchase) and recurring revenue. 3. To simplify across service offerings, let's assume your ACV is north of $50k. Some examples of this would include: Tech Services and Software/Solutions, #Staffing and Recruiting, and Professional Service. If your GTM model mirrors 1-3, and you're focused on high-volume marketing and sales motions that include Inbound, 1 stage outbound/heavy SDR function (even if you don't technically employ SDRs), or any high-volume cold outreach... You might have an alignment issue. Explore these motions instead: 1. Establish a targeted or named accounts strategy, which will require ABM/ABS. 2. Shift your content creation focus to be less about you and more about your customers, then target your current customers with this content. (Part of a larger CS Program including regular outreach and QBRs). 3. Identify your best, best-ICP-fit customers and invite them to join your Customer Advisory Board. These changes are NOT overnight fixes; they ARE intentional strategic shifts. They WILL work to increase GRR and NRR, increasing LTV and creating sustainable revenue growth. Summary: The answer to your pipeline coverage problem probably exists in your current customer base. #RevOps #RevenueArchitecture #GTM

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