Benedikt Burkhardt

When I was an SDR, I booked 224 meetings and it all started with the right triggers. No guesswork. No spray-and-pray. Just signals that point straight to buying intent. I built my process around 4 key triggers: → Role Changes A new hire or promotion means fresh priorities and an open budget. → Funding Events Capital injections accelerate projects. Strike while they’re spending. → Tech Installs When a company adopts new software, they often need complementary tools. → Content Engagement Downloads, webinar sign-ups, blog views prospects who raise their hand are begging to talk. Together, these triggers feed my Trigger Scanner, so I always know why now and email with confidence. Since switching to signal-driven lists, my reply rates jumped from 2% to 12% and pipeline followed. Want the exact triggers I used in my outbound to book qualified meetings? - Like this post - Send me a connection - Drop “TRIGGERS” in the comments and I’ll DM them over Stop guessing. Start using these triggers to have an EXACT reason to reach out!

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30-45% of deals today can start inbound if you cut the form step. One click to chat, not “submit and wait”. In five minutes, the buyer gets answers on pricing, you confirm ICP fit, and both sides know if it’s worth moving forward. That’s the difference between closing in two weeks or losing momentum in two months. The old loop: form, SDR call, AE call, another call, was built for sellers. Buyers don’t tolerate it anymore. They expect to qualify and book on their terms, in one continuous interaction. Teams still clinging to static forms and slow email follow-ups are bleeding pipeline they never even see. The shift is here: DM Selling. Intent captured and acted on immediately. The ones doing it are pulling ahead. The ones not doing it are being left out of the AI shift in GTM. That’s exactly why we built Knock AI, to make DM Selling the default.

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Coaching your frontline sales managers can increase the entire sales team's performance by as much as 20% Some other data points: 👉🏻Companies that invest in coaching see an 788% ROI through increased productivity and employee retention. 👉🏻Reps are 21% more likely to hit quota with the right leadership. 👉🏻Revenue per seller can jump as much as 50%. Compelling, isn’t it...？ So why is it that sales management training & coaching comes so low down on the priority list when the results are so impactful? In many cases sales managers have been promoted because they were top salespeople, but the skills needed to be a high performing Individual Contributor (IC) are very different to those needed to lead a team (where you go quite literally from 'I' to caring about 'We'). Without the right training and coaching, most are left to figure out on the job - neither of which is optimal for the individual or the company. Ok, so yes, at this point there is a shameless plug for my revenue coaching services, but the results are truly special when a revenue leader with potential and talent (but still learning on the job), can fast track through effective coaching... So what does coaching with me look like: 🌟Personalised 1:1 sessions tailored to your needs 🌟Assessment of skill & knowledge gaps against a revenue leadership maturity model 🌟Clear coaching plan with tangible outcomes 🌟Access to best-in-class playbooks & frameworks (as well as practical guidance on how to execute on them).  Who's my coaching for: ✅First-time sales leaders stepping into new VP/CRO roles ✅Experienced SaaS leaders taking on new functions or geos ✅Ambitious leaders with an 'always learning' mindset ✅SaaS companies that want to increase sales performance by 20% 🎯This quarter’s offer: Book five coaching sessions and your sixth is on me. If you are interested in finding out more, please email me at [email protected] Apologies for cringy photo - it's me at my desk following a coaching call - tenuous link to the post I know :)!! #thefemalesalesleader  #softwaresales  #salesleadershipcoaching  #saas

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Level Up Your Sales Conversations: 5 Phrases to Persuade Without Being Pushy Ever wonder if your sales language is landing the right way? These 5 examples below powerfully show how even small communication tweaks can make a real difference in expressing value. ↳  Instead of phrases like: ❌ "Let me know when you change your mind." ❌ "I'll send you some more info, so you can get back to me if you're interested" ❌ "You are missing out, if you don’t do this." ❌ "This is the best solution." ❌ "I think you should increase your budget." ↳ Try these more collaborative approaches: ✅ "Would next week work for a quick follow up?" ✅ "Would you be open to go through details in a quick call?" ✅ "Based on what we've seen with other customers, there's a significant value in [xy]. What potential downsides do you foresee?" ✅ "This solution offers [xy] benefits, which I think aligns well with your objective [y]." ✅ "We've identified some areas where a strategic budget increase could yield substantial returns. Shall we discuss the potential impact?" Let's shift from telling to collaborating and from pushing to partnering. What other phrases have worked wonders for your sales conversations? ♻ Like and share if this resonates. 🔔 Follow me Claudio Meidler for more like this. 

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Even at $8M+ ARR, I'm still running sales directly with my team. It creates an unfair advantage: Our AEs work as hybrid professionals. • More technical than typical sales reps • Less technical than sales engineers • Perfect mix of product knowledge and sales skills The feedback I got at a recent customer dinner confirmed this: "Your AEs understand the product at a depth I rarely see. They're not passing technical questions to SEs." So, we call them "Demo Strategist" and not AE anymore. Here's why this works: → Direct founder involvement means AEs learn the product vision, not just features → They become problem solvers, not just quota carriers → No extra layer means faster decisions and better customer experience Could I hire a VP of Sales? Sure. But they'd likely turn our team into traditional sales reps - focused on quotas over problem-solving. At our stage, I'd rather have strategists who can dive deep into customer problems than pure closers. This might change at $20M ARR. But for now, this model is our competitive edge. LESSON: Don't blindly follow startup playbooks. Do what works for YOUR company.

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Please, for the love of revenue, stop opening your pricing call by pulling up the proposal and running through the price. You’re not a waiter dropping the check at the table. If the prospect says, “We just want to review the price,” that’s your signal to slow down and give context to the conversation. Every pricing call should start by confirming: - current challenges or problems to be solved - desired outcome for their business - how your product or service is going to deliver the outcome for them Once you are aligned on these three things, you can move forward with showing the price. This is especially important when a new evaluator joins the call. For example, you have been working with a champion who gets to the point where they want to see the price. You schedule the call to review the commercial terms. They invite the CFO or the economic buyer. That CFO has no context for value that you are going to deliver. They haven’t felt the pain you’ve been unpacking over the last few weeks. That's your job to give them the right context. Price only makes sense when you understand the current challenges and desired outcomes. That’s why I always start pricing calls the same way: “Before we jump into numbers, I just want to make sure we’re aligned on the goals of this partnership. Can we quickly revisit the challenges you’re solving and the outcomes you’re targeting? I want to make sure the proposal maps to that.” It’s a hard thing to say no to. And it does two important things: It gives you a chance to reinforce the value. It opens the door for new information or things the buyer hasn’t told you yet, but that will matter in the decision. I have lost many sales opportunities in my career by rushing to show the pricing. I thought moving fast meant being efficient. But I skipped the context. So the next time you have a pricing call, slow down. Frame the conversation. Align on the value of the partnership. Then move on to the commercial terms. ______ If you need help structuring that conversation, I’ve got an executive summary template that makes this easy. Comment "Summary" and I'll send it to you.

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Sales workflows are scattered across multiple tools. (And teams waste hours switching between them.) • Research happens in one place. • Prospect data lives in another. • Sequences are built somewhere else. Apollo's AI Assistant changes this completely. It's the first AI that runs your entire sales funnel in plain English. No switching tools, no setup, no prompt engineering required. I tested this with a recent outreach campaign. Instead of spending my morning jumping between platforms. I told the AI: "Find 200 SaaS companies in California with 50-200 employees and set up personalized outreach sequences." Ten minutes later, everything was live and running. Here's what it automated: ✓ Complete prospect research with enrichment ✓ Decision maker identification and contact finding ✓ Personalized sequence creation and launch ✓ Real-time performance tracking and optimization What used to waste my entire morning now happens while I grab coffee. The AI handles complete workflows, not just single tasks: ➟ Built on Apollo's market-leading B2B database ➟ Works in conversational English, no technical skills needed ➟ Shows every step and explains costs upfront ➟ Runs end-to-end processes across your entire funnel The future of GTM isn't managing more tools. It's having one AI that runs your entire revenue engine. 📌 Join Apollo’s AI Assistant waitlist: https://bit.ly/465MC5Q 🔄 Repost to help others automate their sales workflows #ColdOutreach #SalesProspecting #LeadGeneration #OutboundSales #ApolloAIAssistant #ApolloPartner #ApolloPartnership #SponsoredByApollo

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Stop Treating Partner Managers Like Senior SDRs A lot of partner orgs are over-pivoting to partner-sourced as the only metric that matters. Source is the gold medal, but it’s not the full picture. The real unlock is in the data that typically plays out: win rates and deal velocity. When I ran partner attribution reviews, one pattern was clear: Partner-sourced and co-sell deals closed at 2–3x the win rate of direct only. That’s the data that kills the SDR comparison. Partner Managers do create demand, but they do so much more. They build alignment, accelerate deals, and expand customers. Their job isn’t volume. It’s impact. If you want a real partner engine: 1️⃣ Replace “meetings booked” with “deals impacted.” Track sourced and assisted pipeline. 2️⃣ Replace “partner count” with “partner yield.” A few active partners drive most of the wins anyway. 3️⃣ Replace “activity metrics” with “impact metrics.” Measure velocity, deal size, and win rate lift. I once killed 70% of our partner “activity” tracking and focused on key attribution. Why? Because we stopped managing noise and started optimizing impact. The best Partner Managers drive demand and conversion. That’s why their impact shows up in win rates, deal velocity, and expansion revenue, not just sourced pipeline. 💬 How are you measuring partner impact inside your org today?

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