B2B Startup Sales Podcast

Lukas Götting & Robin Engelbrecht haben 60+ Sales Expert:innen interviewed in Ihrem Sales Circle Podcast. Hier sind 5 “Nuggets” aus unserem Dialog im Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast. 1️⃣ Konsistenz ist König #1 “Attitude kannst Du nicht fixen”. Nur wer beständig ist und bleibt wird früher oder später erfolgreich. Dies gilt auch für eine hohe Eigeninitiative, beständig besser zu werden. 2️⃣ Kultur ist König #2 Lukas & Robin haben viel in die Team-Kultur investiert. Bis heute gibt es morgens einen gemeinsamen Start in den Tag. Beide haben früh Aufgabenpakete für z.B. Kaltkakquise abgegeben. 3️⃣ Trefft Euer Team persönlich Du bist die Summe der Menschen, mit denen Du Dich umgibt. Gerade im Aufbau von Sales Teams ist es wichtig, präsent zu sein. Nur Video Calls ersetzen den physischen Austausch zusammen nicht. 4️⃣Mikromanagement bringt nichts, Kennzahlen schon Qualität und Konsistenz vor Quantität. Deal Coaching vor “Lass mich mal machen”. “Wie nahe ist die Person am Kunden?” vor “Telefonier mal mehr.” 5️⃣Nicht erfolgreiche Verkäufer:innen = Nicht erfolgreiche Sales Leader:innen “Welche Rolle nehmen New Hires im eigenen Team ein?” Sales Reps für Misserfolge verantwortlich zu machen greift zu kurz. Wenn Verkäufer:innen nicht performen liegt dies auch an der Führungskraft. #salessuccess #podcast #startupsales #startup #salesplaybook #b2bsaas

I personally hate tenders / RfPs / RfIs, with a passion. Because they often lead nowhere if you are out of control. Patrick interviewed 200+ companies on that after experiencing similar pain over 20+ years, which is why he co-founded Sequesto. Here is a great 5 point tender checklist that emerged from our podcast: 1️⃣ Can I even win? Many tenders are written for your competitors and already pre-decided. (Why) Did you (not) know about a tender before receiving a request. 2️⃣ Would this contribute to my core business? Answering tenders is often cumbersome and therefore costly. You don't want to involve your team for non-core business activities. 3️⃣ (How) Am I uniquely positioned to win? You should be crystal clear why a customer should select you. If you cannot make that argument, how should a buyer? 4️⃣ Is the timeline aligned with my internal capabilities? Tendering is not a “let's quickly do this game”. Large companies have a dedicated team for this for a reason. If you need to rely on external resources already here, be cautious. 5️⃣Is the tender stating the customer's pain specifically enough? If the problem is not framed clearly, you cannot craft a specific solution. In this case strive to better understand before asking to being understood. #salessuccess #podcast #startupsales #startup #salesplaybook #b2bsaas

Nadja helped lemlist scale 1->10M+ ARR quickly as 1st sales hire. Taking ownership of her career was a game changer for her. Nadja Komnenic grew up in Serbia, where sales is not a respected career path. Here are the 5 key take aways from Nadja's sales journey on our podcast: 1️⃣ Don't wait for others to make you successful This allowed her to move quickly in a hyper-growth company. Instead, she learnt sales from podcasts, interviews, blogs etc. Nadja did not wait for Guillaume Moubeche for guidance to execute. 2️⃣ Be adamant with your time management Nadja worked all day, every day early in her career. At one point, she realised that taking a step back is highly useful. She prefers to be adamant with her time management vs time blockers. 3️⃣ Imagine if you had 0 tech in sales. Doing things 100% manually has huge value. Go “customer first”, imagine a day in the life of your buyer. Only once validated move to scale and automate sales motion. 4️⃣ Make peers successful to spark action. Great coaching & training is technically useful. But reps will only take relentless action once peers succeed. Even initially resistant reps will adopt new practices once they see success. 5️⃣ Focus on what you can control - on average. Set your own goals for activities to be successful. Ask yourself regularly “What could I have done better?” If you do what you & your leader expected from you… …but the outcome is not there - let's analyse it together. #salessuccess #podcast #startupsales #startup #salesplaybook #b2bsaas

Raphael is "playing host" for a dialogue on Manuel's perspective on "RevOps" with a focus on Customer Success & subscription management to discuss How CRMs stop at Closed/Won and do not cover Customer Success For what "jobs to be done" Hubspot "vs" Salesforce make sense How to reflect multi-year subscription contracts with one-time revenue components in your systems Why maintaining multiple systems for marketing, sales, customer success & finance is messy How an ideal solution to go "beyond Quote-to-Cash" would need to look like - and who could build it What to do with limited resources until that solution exists

#144 “Vertrieb spielt sich fast immer gleich ab(?)” mit Patrick Utz, Coach & Salestrainer “Vertrieb spielt sich fast immer gleich ab”. Inwiefern dies wirklich so ist durfte ich mit Patrick Utz besprechen.

There is a huge difference between selling and truly understanding the pains of a customer. Sascha Meier brings up amazing and insightful examples of his own career that illustrate this difference and help you change to become more curious and change from selling to "helping your customers buy". This can make a huge difference in your career. Happy listening!

Nicole started her sales career at SAP back in 2007. Now she is leading a team of Account Managers as well as Account Executives as CSO at the CRM company BSI. Have you heard of an outside-in vs. inside-out approach? I did not. Nicole explains what she means by that and how you can apply it in your company.

Dave started as Sales no. 1 with Osso VR around 4 years ago. Now, they employ more than 215 people remotely. No offices. Dave learned what it needs to build a strong connection between team members so that the fluctuation is not going through the roof and he shares those tactical learnings in this episode. Obviously, they are also using VR for that. Listen in and learn how.

The fragmented B2B SaaS SDR/AE/CSM model slows down learning. Promoting SDRs too fast might be setting them up to fail. John Barrows is a Top 0.001% Sales Legend “door-to-door printer full-cycle sales graduate”, playing the infinite game and enjoying the journey.

We know that people only care about themselves. As a salesperson, you should listen a lot more than you talk. The ability to be in silence is one of the most difficult and valuable skills you can develop as a salesperson. And listening is not easy. We talk about what is needed to really develop that muscle, and how you can answer to some of the most difficult objections. Have fun and happy learning.

Have you heard of the challenger sales approach? Most salespeople have heard of it, but do not know how to actually use it. Manuel Marquine explains exactly how he is using that effective sales methodology....and much more. Listen in and learn!

Firaas is sharing all he knows about keeping customers in your SaaS business. What do you need to understand from a customer perspective? Furthermore, he is answering the question of how he thinks CSM and Sales should be working together to grow an account effectively. Listen in and learn!

Sales is about people. BtoB is BtoI. Every sales process is business to individual and much of what matters are the people you are talking to. Who they are, what they are interested in, and how they react. You need to adjust your approach and your talking to the individual. That is what Daniel and Patrick talk about in this episode. For a lot of tactical advice, tune in and learn

Money is not the answer to sales hiring. Embrace consistency & focus. Enter Maximilian Karpf.

Andreas shares his two best tips on how to not f*ck up the first meetings with your customer. And this applies as much to Europe as it probably does to any other region.

Volker Hein is the Master of the pitch. All said. Volker brought two questions (not tips this time), which will change the way how you think about deals and pitches. Have fun and happy learning.

Nobody Regrets Qualifying Out. But so few people do it enough. Andy Whyte has a few thoughts here on value, stakeholders & process.

Cosuno is a success story from Germany. Michael started at Cosuno in November 2020 when they were 8 people. Today, the company employs almost 200, out of which 60 are in sales. How can you find and hire the right talent so quickly in the current "war for talent"? Michael shares a few answers to that question.

Pricing is part science, part art. And huge for profitability. Jeffrey Tjiok worked with 25+ B2B Tech companies, many of them VC-backed unicorns.

Martin Giese is a B2B Startup Sales legend that interviewed many hypergrowth scaleups such as Personio, SAP Hybris, LeanIX & many more for "Fast Forward: Accelerating B2B sales for startups".

Jan's getting job offers for 3x the money he is making today - rejecting them all. Because he's prioritising People, Product & Personal Development before money (now).

“Run-rate selling” sucks. The constant pressure, pace & pain of potentially not hitting quota. Jamal Reimer went from missing quota to closing 8-figure deals repeatably. Here's how:

Telling somebody "to be authentic" does not mean much at first. Because authenticity is relative to the person you are telling to be so. Martin and I unlock what it means in the context of selling. Because what we actually want to say is that some traits are important in sales (be honest, direct, speak about problems, say no to business that has no positive long term effects) and that those traits should come naturally to salespeople. What do you think?

Bisho Chamssuddin went “from molecular biology to sales”, thriving in face-to-face sales. He is OK with rejection & resilience, but not unrealistic goals for SDRs without getting external support. Here are 3 Insights on how to build a predictable demand generation process after getting a lot of sales coaching from our dialogue in our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast: 1️⃣ Rejection requires resilience The rejection he experienced was “unreal” in terms of having 200+ “outreaches” per day. And getting rejected 180+ times of it. Every day. A key for him was to not take rejection personally & focus on improving the process. 2️⃣ Record & review your sales calls Both the sales manager and the rep should review their sales conversations. Then reconstruct these conversation in mock-up calls. Then “rinse & repeat”. At scale, not only for 1-2 mock-up calls. 3️⃣ Aim for people with an elite athlete mindset You need people who want to be the best at what they do. To improve 1% every day. To get feedback, implement quickly, and continue learning. This has 100% to do with getting the right coaching to build the right sales systems & 0% with product training. P.S. PM me if you want to get on Bisho's weekly Wednesday SDR small group coaching call. #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #salesrecruiting

Christian Fontius studied business, but learnt 0 about B2B Sales there. So he went “learning by doing” as StackFuel's 1st business employee (shout out to Leo Marose) Here are 3 Insights on how he's bringing innovation with AI to a traditional market (wind industry) from our dialogue in our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast: 1️⃣ Sales is Service & Stories Detach from the outcome & embrace a service mindset. Give your buyer's champion a nice story to tell internally. If this does not work out, don't get frustrated, but ask “Can you help me understand better” 2️⃣ Rehearse your 30 second intro for cold calls When cold calling, you face a strong attention constraint. You therefore want to have a rock-solid, sharp intro pitch. Christian even uses bao (a Conversational Intelligence solution to iterate quickly here. 3️⃣ Be hyper-precise when framing the buyer journey. “This is how we run things. After this call, here's what will happen next. We will run an initial collaboration for 10 wind turbines for a low 5-figure investment. When this works well, we roll-out the solution company-wide for a 6-figure investment. “BONUS”: Christian sees a misunderstanding in DACH about sales being about “only money” instead of solving customer problems. P.S. Turbit closed 2 deals on the day of the recording & is looking for a Senior Account Executive #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #salesrecruiting

Patrice and Patrick talk about the single most important metric "pipeline velocity rate", how it is calculated and what you should do in case the number is off. Additionally, Patrice shares insights into his sales process. Listen in and learn!

Bruno started in enterprise sales back in 1995 - that is longer than most salespeople on this planet. He has seen how buying changed and what that means for sales organizations. That is why we are talking about older methodologies such as MEDDICC and how we should be using them today.

Marvin Karis hat die Verkaufsstrukturen bei Echobot mitaufgebaut. Bisher haben alle 40+ Verkäufern “Full-Stack” gearbeitet (Lead Gen + Closing). Im Rahmen der Internationalisierung evaluiert Echobot nun den Split BDR/AE/x. Hier sind 3 Insights aus unserem Dialog im Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast: 1️⃣ Je besser Produkt & Strukturen, desto einfacher der Verkauf Der angehende Split BDR / Account Executive ist ermöglicht durch ein einfacher zu verkaufendes Produkt. Weiterhin hilft dem Team ein professionelles Stack sowie team-übergreifende Pods. 2️⃣ Hire for attitude, train for skill Echobot setzt auf Absolvent(inn)en von Universitäten und entwickelt diese dann proaktiv. Daher sind Soft Skills via Bewerbungsvideo wie Coachability & Offenheit hier wichtiger als Hard Skills wie Prospecting & Closing. Auch mit mittlerweile 120 Mitarbeitern sind Marvin & Team das Aufrechterhalten Startup-Spirits mit gemeinsamen Events, Perks & eigenen Formaten sehr wichtig. 3️⃣ Verschmelzung von Marketing & Verkauf Vertriebsmitarbeiter bauen selber ein starkes Brand auf, was Marketing befähigt. Marketing kann daraus bessere Landing Pages mit Custom Audiences bauen. Der Vertrieb funktioniert hier als Ohr, das Marketing als Sprachrohr. #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #salesrecruiting

Murad has a long history in telesales. He knows that what you say is very important, but how to say that is even more so. And there are methods that help you make changes in your voice and become a much better cold caller. These methods are basically changing the hardware of your system (mouth, jaw) and help you a much better communicator

Alessandro has been in IT sales for the past 12 years. He is a master in building relationships through genuine feedback, real compliments and asking for personal goals. If you really mean it, according to Alessandro, you will be able to create those relationships much faster.

We have been talking about a lot of sales tactics. But doing sales all day is not possible if you do not feel great and start the day right, thinks Torsten Sauer. That is why he is sharing some tactical tips on starting the day and goal setting with the team and as an individual. Listen in if you also struggle with the long screen times in today's world full of screens.

Oliver is leading >100 salespeople in the SMB business of Personio and was an integral part of building that team. This episode is for aspiring and working sales leaders. The priority of a first-line sales leader is coaching their salespeople to become the best version of themselves. However, many leaders are focusing on strategy and projects instead of training. What about you?

Alex shares some amazingly tactical tips on how you can learn from other company's salespeople. Additionally, Alex and Patrick talk about the difference between selling to technical people compared to business-oriented people. You might not be able to just ask questions in a discovery call but also share some value and be genuinely helpful is going to help a lot.

Tim Fetzer in 2022 staffed a talent within 10 days from 1st call to signed contract. Speed, attitude, persistency & relationships are crucial in sales recruiting - like in sales. Actually, recruiting is “doing sales twice a day” - 1x to the candidate & 1x to the company. Here are 3 key insights I learnt from Tim having him on our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales podcast. 1️⃣ Hire for attitude & speed. You need people who are willing to go the extra mile and make team successful. Stock options & equity are becoming more valued by sales reps, “everyone is asking for it”. If the attitude is there, strive to hire “start to finish” within 1-3 weeks. The hiring managers need to “play along” with this, trust the process and make time. 2️⃣ It's a marathon at a sprint pace right now. Lots of companies are looking for hunters with 3-5 years of experience in SaaS. Candidates often get multiple offers every week with double-digit InMail per week. Companies are often impatient but unaware of the degree of the war for talent. 3️⃣ Hire the right team leads (like @Ben Bauer) Sales reps join - and stay with - team leads who help them get to the next level. This also enables more affordable hiring to hire young hungry talent and develop them. #podcast #startupsales #b2bsaassales #startup #salesplaybook #salesrecruiting

Chris truly is an expert when it comes to recruiting. He first worked as VP at one of the largest recruiting companies worldwide called Adecco and almost 20 years ago started his own company Xenagos. He was also one of the first Sales podcasters in Europe with his "VertriebsFunk Podcast". Chris and Patrick discuss what it takes to recruit great salespeople and how you should build the best recruiting process.

Lisa knows how not to be afraid, create positive tension and disagree with C-level executives of potential customers. Lisa and Patrick uncover the tactical way to the challenger sales approach as she has been using that approach for a long time.

Sandro Meyer won all of his customers at Growthbay from his audience funnel. Now what is the difference between an audience funnel vs a prospecting funnel? Here's 3 insights I gained from having him on our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast. 1️⃣ Content contribution is underrated: Many companies invest heavily into creation, hit publish and then “wait, see, and hope for the best”. Instead of re-purposing content “gems”. 2️⃣ Saying no to offer requests: 3️⃣ Don't skip PMF (Product-Market-Fit): x Thanks so much for sharing your learnings and insights from the last 10 years as a marketing leader with us Sandro! #selltoscale #salessuccess #salescoaching #salesacceleration #salesplaybook

Jaap Boven worked himself up from SDR to Sales Director in 5 years. He is sharing his experience in regards to compiling a great target list and reaching out to those in a way that you get to talk to them. He also shares some important tips on how you can stand out in today's crowded sales market.

“We need more leads. This will solve all or at least tons of sales problems. Can you please do outbound sales at scale for me for EUR 2'000-5000 / month?“ “NO - if product-market-fit is not there and you have only few potential buyers.” Here's 3 great insights from having him Theo Shikov, CEO & Founder Out2Bound on our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast. 1️⃣ Following up is everything: In Europe, there is still this stigma that following up can be negative. It is not. Countless prospects only reply after 5-7 touchpoints. And then become customers. 2️⃣ Embrace Personalisation at scale: Get to the DNA of your target company and buyer. Then decide via “ABC-Bucketing” where to invest into deep personalisation and where to “only” nurture at scale. 3️⃣ Don't skip PMF (Product-Market-Fit): Scaling outbound sales motion without nailing down your sales arguments and ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) can actually hurt you, especially if your market has

Jonathan Ilett is leading sales at Cognism, one of the fastest-growing sales tech scale-ups in Europe with over 300 employees. He faced several challenges young salespeople face in their careers and knows what is needed to become successful. For some great examples of open-ended questions, listen in.

“Before I begin telling you what I think, I want to establish that I'm a “dumb shit” who doesn't know much relative to what I need to know. Whatever success I've had in life has had more to do with my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than anything I know.” (Ray Dalio) Jonas Gesslein invested 8 years of his career in face-to-face sales on the street (“Dialogmarketing”) before becoming an SDR leader and it was a true pleasure learning from him on having him on our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales podcast. Here are 3 insights he shared on our conversation: 1️⃣ Prioritise learning to (only) KPIs: Enable coachees to figure out solutions themselves and empower them to take action and be confident and proactive themselves to fix problems. 2️⃣ Be incredibly fast in hiring: Jonas dedicated 30-50% of his time as an SDR Leader at Solve Mate to hiring, then strived to “close the deal” within ideally a week if an A+ player. 3️⃣SDRs deserve coaching: Either hire a fantastic sales leader that can lead SDRs. If not in place, get external help & invest into your SDRs to help them ramp quickly & be successful. Thanks Jonas for sharing these great insights & happy prospecting!

Max worked in several SaaS Sales Leadership positions at such companies as Personio, Homanoo, Oracle and Payfit, and recently started to build his own company. He learned the hard way that measuring important KPIs is really important for decision making in sales and customers success - and something that is not done enough. We are deep-diving into what KPIs you should measure and show you how to improve the game step by step. Happy learning.

SaaStock has grown to be the biggest B2B SaaS Conference in Europe. But behind the well-known event is a multi-product, fast-growing 7-figure ARR company. Then revenue went to 0 with COVID-19 but its founder Alex Theuma adapted quickly. It was a true pleasure having Alex on our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast. 1️⃣ Sales-centricity: Alex started SaaStock with 10+ years sales experience and embraced growing revenues & scaling the team with sales at the heart of the organisation. 2️⃣ Adaptability & resilience: Alex needed to scale down the team from 24 to 9 people upon moving from physical to virtual setups, but went 0-1M revenue from virtual conferences. 3️⃣ Educating the market: Professionals where not used to pay for virtual, but only physical events. Employees as well as founders also therefore asked more for discounts or even free tickets, unaware how high the investment is to put an event such as SaaStock is. Love your “enthusiastic focus” Alex & really looking forward to see you at SaaStock!

Beekeeper is one of Switzerland's biggest B2B SaaS Startup success stories. But to achieve 8-figure ARR, you need fantastic sales reps closing 6-figure deals. Oliver Arber is one of the best in the game. It was a true pleasure having him on our Europe's B2B SaaS Sales Podcast. Here's 3 great insights from him 1️⃣ “Be paranoid”: Constantly “have your radar on” what could go wrong until a deal is closed, avoid the “Happy Ears Phenomenon”, embrace risks and deepen your discovery. 2️⃣ You never do large deals alone: Working closely with your & the prospect's team, Oliver brings in e.g. Cris Grossmann or Daniel Sztutwojner strategically. 3️⃣ Get a Champion AND a Spy (Coach): You need to know what's going on in the buyer's organization at all times, especially if you're waiting for intelligence but don't get it. Special credits to Mila Nussbaumer for keeping Oliver 4.5+ years at Beekeeper because she cares a lot about her people and developed them accordingly!

Raphael Schifferle, newly promoted to CMO at Brugg Lifting has a long background selling cars and industrial products. An angle we have not looked at in the podcast. However, there are still very important takeaways for all sellers in SaaS and tech. Raphael is always preparing well and goes into a customer meeting with a positive mindset. How he manages to do that every day and how he can put the customer's needs in the centre you learn in this episode. Happy learning and stay unique.

Patrick Minder's story is an incredible success. At 34 years old, he is leading Swisscom's Platform and Software B2B sales business - a unit consisting of over 1'000 sellers and supporters. Prior to working at Swisscom, he was building up JLS Digital as CEO and CSO. In this episode, Patrick is sharing some of the wisdom that got him where he is today. The love for people and the product you sell are among those important factors. Happy learning!

Paolo Donnarumma is a sales legend and knows exactly what you need to succeed in large enterprise sales deals. Even though there might be negative short-term consequences, Paolo is an advocate of closing opportunities that are not hot anymore quickly. It sounds easy but is actually really hard. "But they said they buy in three months!" Well, you do not know and you should not make your feelings dependent on that possibility. Free yourself from those opportunities. How you can do that, and other tactical tips, you learn from Paolo in this episode.

For more than 10 years, Manfred has been engaged in tech B2B business development. In his current role as Head of Growth at RAQUEST, he helps the FinTech with scaling up the business and hire talents. Moreover, together with other sales leaders, he has founded acceederate a network of business angels helping B2B startups to win their first customers. In this podcast, Manfred discloses his five golden rules of how to make proof of value/concept phases to sales success: 1. Make no commitment without commitment 2. Make friends with fans 3. Know the enemy 4. Lead! 5. Be one step ahead A must-hear for enterprise salespeople

The first episode of this podcast was a discussion between Manuel, Lars and Patrick. That is how it all started. Back then, Lars and Yokoy were at 20 people with three in sales. 1.5 years later, Yokoy finished series A and employs more than 100 people, 40 of which are in Lars' team. Learn how he managed to grow his team so fast and what tactics they are using to win customers every day.

You do not want to be ghosted again? Then, this episode is for you. James 'saywhatsales' Buckley is currently Chief Evangelist & Master of Ceremonies @ JB Sales and definitely earned his evangelist title. One can literally feel his energy and he has a lot of interesting tactical tips to share for all the salespeople who do regular demos and have difficulty following up with potential clients. Happy learning and let us know your feedback.

Focusing on customer acquisition in a startup is crucial. But you need to stop flying blind on existing customers. Because Customer Success only works if you commit to understand, plan & implement. Here are 3 steps to execute on this I learned from Valentina: 1️⃣ Understand: Start with a Status Quo Assessment. You need to understand the challenges and what works before you can improve. Focus on people, technology, strategy and processes. Stop flying blind and start making decisions based on data. 2️⃣ Plan: Craft a vision for Customer Success as a company. Dig deeper on the customer journey phases, visualize them and share with the team and customers. Be honest about what does not work. And how to fix it. “Hustling” is not the answer. Industrialise & automate where you can.