Good Morning. Today is National Give Something Away Day. In this newsletter, we give away free sales sauce every week. But for you, the best thing to give away today is a little bit of your time to the prospects who’ve been sitting in your CRM untouched. Give em’ a call. They’re just waiting for you to bother talk to them. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• What makes it a ‘better time’ ❓️ 

• AI techniques to 2X your response rates. 👀 

• Playbook for winning closed lost opps ✅ 

• Sell these if you want to make a lot of money 🤑 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

🚀 Crush Your Sales Quota with AI-Powered Strategies

The modern sales playbook that combines proven frameworks with cutting-edge AI to help you exceed targets consistently.

AI-driven techniques to 2X your response rates. Master the 10-30-10 video framework that converts. Discover proven questions that uncover true customer pain points and Battle-tested tactics to outmaneuver competitors.

What makes this different? We've merged time-tested sales frameworks with AI technology to create a system that actually works in today's market.

[Download Now] to access strategies that top performers are already using!

Get Your Playbook Here 👉️ 

The Playbook for Winning Closed Lost Opps

There’s a bunch of stories about people who lived in a house for decades without knowing they were sitting on mineral rights worth millions. 

Every day, waking up and living a normal life, without ever realizing that life changing money was literally under their feet.  

Then one day, an oil company shows up with a check, and they’re rich. 

You’re probably doing the same thing when you log into your CRM. 

Grinding cold outbound and fighting to get a first meeting booked, while hundreds of closed lost deals sit untouched. These are prospects who have already taken a demo or gone through discovery, and they might just be ready to buy now.

The estimated B2B win rate is around 21% (this varies a ton by industry). That means roughly 4 of every 5 deals end up closed lost. 

And according to an analysis of 230K contacts & 7K opportunities inside CRMs, 36% of new deals that close had a previously closed lost opportunity. 

More than 1/3 of the people who eventually bought already went through a buying cycle and said no. THIS IS YOUR BEST LEAD SOURCE EVER!

Sorry for the yelling, but I felt like that needed to be emphasized. 

Today I’m giving you the playbook for reviving these deals and turning old closed lost opps into your next commission check. 

Trigger Events

The very best time to try to go after a closed lost deal is when they email you and tell you they’re ready to buy now.

The second best time is when there’s a trigger…

A trigger, put simply, is when something at the company changes. Something like a company raising a new funding round or hiring someone new on the team. Anything that shakes things up and makes the company more likely to buy this time.

There’s a lot of sales tech out there that claims to have intent & trigger data, but finding triggers for free is easier than most reps think. If you have LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can easily “save” companies to your account, and they’ll send you an alert any time there’s a change.

If you want to go a bit more old school, connect or follow the main points of contact at your accounts. They’ll post about any major announcements, like funding or getting a new job.

I also like to look at their careers page to see if they're hiring for the department that would use your product.

When you spot a trigger, the outreach should be simple and straightforward: "Hey Jan, I saw you recently hired a VP of RevOps. When you spoke to my colleague Bob last year, XYZ was one of the reasons the timing didn't work. Figured it might be worth a fresh conversation." 

Be specific and focus on what changed.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Follow Up

Trigger events are ideal. But you and I both know most CRM notes are garbage.

In most of my roles, the last rep who had an account didn’t care to leave detailed notes when they closed it out. The notes say something like "went dark," and the reason says "other".

And in 90% of cases, the internal change that will make them a buyer now isn’t something you can find on LinkedIn. You’ve just gotta catch them at the right time.

So in these cases, your job is really simple… Just follow up.

Block off an hour, pull up every closed-lost deal from 6 to 12 months ago, and just start reaching out. Word it like a genuine check-in: "Hey, you talked to my teammate in January about X. Wanted to see if this is a better time to revisit?" 

You'll be surprised how well this works.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. France plays Spain in the World Cup semifinal today, with the winner moving on to face the winner of England vs Argentina in the final. And there’s a lot more than bragging rights on the line. The winner gets $51M, the runner-up gets $34M, 3rd place gets $30M, and 4th place gets $28M. It’s basically the World Cup version of a comp plan: the further you make it, the bigger your commission check. Now let’s get into today’s follow up. (:

• The main ingredient of a good follow up. 📩 

• The easiest way to write follow up emails ✍️ 

• A little trick to get someone’s trust 🤝 

• The number of sales reps doing in-person meetings 👀 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Be The Sales Rep Who Actually Follows Up

Say you just got off a 30 min disco call and scribbled some light notes.

Now you have another call starting in 3 minutes... And we all know that follow up email probably isn't getting sent.

Granola fixes that.

It listens to your calls and turns them into short, clear summaries with next steps. And then it writes a follow up email that sounds like you.

Be that person who actually follows up on time.

Download Granola free and use code: THEFOLLOWUP for a free month.

Get a Free Month of Granola 👉️ 

A Little Trick to Make Prospects Trust What You’re Saying

In 2009, Domino's ran focus groups and found out that their customers thought their pizza tasted more like the cardboard box it came in than actual pizza.

They also came in dead last in taste compared to the Big 3 pizza chains. 

I’ve met some product teams that would’ve buried that research while they quietly made the pizza taste less like cardboard. Then launch a campaign hyping up their “new and improved” product.

Domino's decided to film the focus groups, put real customer complaints in a national ad campaign, and tell America their pizza was bad, but they made a change to the recipe that was worth trying again. 

That means they spent real advertising money (aka, millions of dollars) to tell the world that they knew their last product sucked. 

In Q1 2010, same-store sales jumped 14.3% YoY, and their stock shot up 44% that month. Domino’s later credited that ad with creating years’ worth of positive momentum for them.

Admitting they had a big flaw made their customers trust them more. 

You can use this same technique to make your prospects trust you more. Here’s how…

How the whole thing works

In 1966, psychologist Elliot Aronson ran an experiment where he had a group of college students watch a tape of a guy trying out for the College Quiz Competition team. 

The guy answered 92% of the questions correctly and said he was an honors student. So he made it clear that he was competent. In one version of the tape, he spilled coffee all over himself. And in another version, he didn’t. 

As you might guess at this point, when the guy spilled coffee on himself, he was rated as more likable. 

The researchers call this the Pratfall Effect. 

A small, visible mistake makes a competent person more likeable because it makes them feel more human. But there is a caveat to this… in the same study, when a guy who was viewed as average (not as competent) spilled the coffee, he became less likable. 

So the effect only works when someone views you as competent.

If they think you’re inexperienced or dumb, admitting you made a mistake will actually work against you. 

Pulling This Off in Sales

71% of B2B buyers say it's very important to understand a product's cons before buying. Seems fair… 

But only 36% felt the vendor they chose was upfront about their limitations. 

There’s an opportunity in that gap.

When you say something like, "We're the best option for X and Y, but if Z is your top priority, we're probably not the strongest fit," your prospects will drop their guard.

You told the truth without being asked, and showed that you have honest intentions.

You’re a salesperson, so obviously, you want to sell someone your product. But above that, your job is to make sure they buy the right product for their situation. 

A 2018 study on sales messaging found that salespeople who used a two-sided pitch, mentioning both advantages and limitations, were trusted more than those who only talked about the positives. 

Honesty will earn you trust when you use it at the right times.

Don’t Cross This Line

When you’re going to admit a flaw, make sure it’s specific, relevant, and real. 

Saying “Our implementation usually takes 6 to 8 weeks. So if you absolutely need to be live this month, we’re probably not your best option.” is a strategic admission.

But saying "Honestly, our product is kind of buggy right now" is just bad selling.

The admission has to feel voluntary, and it should come after you've demonstrated competence or a fix, not before. 

Avis understood this in 1962 when their "We're #2, so we try harder" campaign openly admitted they weren't the market leader. Within a year, Avis went from losing $3.2 million to earning $1.2 million. 

The admission made their effort feel more genuine.

Sales Meme of the Day

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley

Good Morning. Yesterday, OpenAI released GPT-Live, which is their new voice model that’s supposed to make talking to AI feel a lot more like talking to a real person. Apparently, it can listen, respond naturally, avoid awkward interruptions, and even say things like “mhmm” so you know it’s paying attention. Which is impressive, but I’ll only believe AI can replace salespeople when it can get weirdly nervous the second a prospect picks up the phone, forget its opener, and somehow still book the meeting. That’s what real selling is all about. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Someone who needs to think about it 🧠 

• Your complete guide to using Claude AI 👀 

• Selling to someone who had a bad experience 🙃 

• The quota you need to make $250K 🤑 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

The Complete Guide To Transform Your Workday With Claude

Supercharge your productivity with HubSpot's comprehensive guide. This free resource is your fast track to AI mastery:

• Executive assistant setup for meeting notes, follow-ups, and scheduling

• Quick setup guide to using Claude projects

• Step-by-step blueprint to scale AI across your team

• Frameworks for content creation and data analysis that turn complexity into clear direction

Plus, the strategies and AI tips to harness AI’s true potential. Start using Claude to offload those tasks you would rather delegate.

Find Your Guide Here 👉️ 

How to Sell to Someone Who's Already Had a Bad Experience

A while back I was shopping for a used car.

I'd already been to a few dealerships and had a trade in offer I wasn't happy with. When I told the next salesperson the number, he shrugged and said "Yeah, that sounds about right. Probably about the same as what we'd do."

Cool. Thanks for nothing.

The salesperson at the next dealership heard the same number and said "Oh man. I bet you were hoping for more than that. I know I would be. Let me see what I can do - I want to make sure you walk out of here with the highest trade in value possible."

He came back with almost the exact same number. Didn't matter. I bought from him anyway.

He made me feel like he was actually on my side. Like my frustration was a problem worth solving and not just a fact of life to shrug at.

That's the clear difference between a rep who loses when their buyers already had a bad experience, and a rep who finds a way to win the deal.

They're More Educated This Time

A prospect who's been burned before is actually a better buyer the second time around.

They've already survived a full buying process. So they know exactly what questions to ask, what went wrong, and precisely what they never want to experience again.

It’s easy to look at these skeptical buyers as an uphill battle, but in reality, they give you an easy angle to sell against.

They've already done their research. So they'll tell you their pain points, their dealbreakers, and their priorities without you having to dig for them.

Now let’s talk about how to actually sell to them.

Be Their Therapist First

The first thing a burned buyer needs is for someone to actually acknowledge what happened.

They don't want your pitch, and they don't want you to gloss over their bad experience with a quick "yeah, that happens sometimes" before pivoting to your product demo.

They want to feel heard. (don’t we all…)

Think about what a good therapist does. They listen and validate, and make you feel like your experience genuinely matters before they offer any advice.

The best response when a prospect tells you about a bad experience sounds something like this:

"I see this all the time, and I'm sorry you went through that. I really hate to hear it. Can you walk me through exactly where things went wrong last time?"

That one sentence validates their frustration and then opens the door for them to tell you exactly what went wrong… (which is the most valuable information you can get before your pitch).

Isolate the Issue, Then Own the Fix

Once they've told you what happened, isolate the exact issue.

Was it implementation? Support? Did pricing change after they signed? Did the product not do what they were promised?

Getting specific matters because "I had a bad experience" is too vague to sell against. But "their onboarding took four months and we never got a dedicated rep" is something you can directly address, and guarantee that it won’t happen again.

Now you can say something like "Here's exactly how our onboarding works. You'll have a dedicated rep by day one. The whole process takes 30 days. And here's my direct number so if anything goes sideways, you're not submitting a ticket into the void."

Instead of trashing the last vendor, focus on solving the exact problem they already handed you.

And because you listened first and validated what they went through before pitching anything, they actually believe you mean it.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. The U.S. soccer team lost to Belgium last night, which means their World Cup run is officially over. At least us salespeople are used to getting emotionally invested in something that disappears right when it starts to look promising. Anyway, no use living in the past all morning. There are still emails to send and deals to overthink. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Send a follow up they need to correct ✍️ 

• Design your own Sales Funnel w/ AI 👀 

• A small trick that makes competitors look bad 😄 

• What the top AE at Replit does differently 🤑 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Streamline Your Sales Funnels With AI 

10+ AI-powered prompts that help you generate leads, nurture prospects, and close deals. From first touch to final close, here’s what’s inside to help you automate and accelerate every step:

• Step-by-step AI prompts to automate every stage of your sales funnel

• Lead generation strategies to attract the right audience

• AI-powered email templates for cold outreach, follow-ups, and re-engagement

• Essential AI tools to optimize and scale your sales process

See how small changes powered by AI can make a big impact on your process. Grab the kit and explore new ways to streamline your funnel.

Download the Free Guide 👉️ 

One Small Trick That Makes Your Competitors Look Bad

I’m in the market for a new air conditioning system, and 5 different HVAC sales reps came out to give me a quote.

Four of them followed a checklist, looked at the unit, told me what they’d replace it with, and handed me a proposal with a quote.

The 5th sales rep measured every air intake in my house, ran a calculation, and showed me that my old system probably died earlier than it should have because the intake setup wasn't built for the size of my unit. Not enough airflow led to too much strain. He walked me through exactly why it failed and what needed to change so the next one wouldn't have the same problem.

Out of 5 sales reps, he was the only one who caught it. And he got the job.

His price was also right in line with the others, which helped. But the real reason I picked him is that he made me feel like I was working with an expert, while the other four failed to diagnose the root problem.

The technique he used is something every sales rep can replicate. Here’s how:

The Go-To Move

Every great salesperson has one or two go-to things they teach every prospect.

A piece of knowledge or a diagnostic, or a specific feature they point out that nobody else mentions.

It's rehearsed and repeatable. And it’s extremely effective because it makes you look like the smartest person in the room, and it makes every competitor who didn't mention it look like they either missed it or hid it on purpose.

That HVAC rep probably runs the same air intake calculation at every house he visits. It takes him ten minutes. But to the homeowner, it feels like he just uncovered a problem nobody else was sharp enough to find.

How to Build Your Own Version

You need to build your own go-to ‘thing’.

It should teach your prospect something and make the competition look like they don’t have your same expertise.

Say you run a consulting firm or any service that bills hourly. Your move could be offering a price cap. "This is the quote, and the total will not exceed this number." Then you ask the prospect if the other companies they're talking to offered that. And of course they’re not, because you invented it.

And now the prospect is thinking about what happens when that cheaper quote runs over. Because hourly work always runs over.

You can even play it off when they mention a lower price: "Yeah, that makes sense. They probably don't cap it. I see this a lot. A lower price gets you in the door, but look at the contract. They can charge you way more if the project takes longer or they hit an issue." Now the cheaper quote feels like a risk instead of a deal.

If you sell software, your move might be walking a prospect through exactly how data migration works and where most implementations break down.

If you sell insurance, it could be a specific coverage gap that 90% of policies have and that most brokers never bring up.

You only need 1 or 2 of these that you deliver in every pitch.

TLDR: Why this works

When you teach a prospect something they didn't know, you're perceived as an advisor instead of just a sleazy sales rep.

It also changes how they evaluate everyone else.

Once that HVAC rep showed me the intake problem, every other quote felt like it was missing a key ingredient. I couldn't unsee it.

Find your version of the air intake calculation. Practice it until it's second nature. Then use it on every single call.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Today is the last real working day of the week. July 3rd is observed as a federal holiday, so most of your prospects will be out of office by 3pm today and gone until Monday. This is your last chance to throw a few Hail Marys before Monday, when you'll be stuck sending those "hope you had a great 4th, any chance you're free for a call this week?" emails. Make them count. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• “I'll share this with my team” 🗣️ 

• 13+ essential sales apps you should try out 👀 

• 4 things that will make you sound confident 😁 

• How ZoomInfo got their first customer 🤑 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Prospects, prioritized

Pipeline starts long before the first call. The apps in this section surface real-time signals and enrich the records you already have, so reps know which accounts deserve their time.

Clay connects 150+ data providers and AI web research to enrich HubSpot contacts and companies. Use it to identify which records to prioritize based on real-time signals, then take action — enrich them, build ad audiences, or trigger outreach, with everything synced back to HubSpot.

G2 layers in buyer intent. Sync G2 signals to HubSpot, then filter by category, competitor, or profile view to build targeted lists and workflows that focus reps on in-market buyers.

When it's time to dial, Nooks pulls CRM data straight into its AI dialer so reps can call new leads instantly — no manual imports required. AI prospecting, enrichment, and an assistant grounded in your CRM data round out the platform, so reps spend less time on busywork and more time in live conversations.

See the full Sales App Collection 👉️ 

How to Sound More Confident Than 99% of Salespeople

At one of my first sales jobs, I got flown out to the company’s SF office as a brand new BDR to give a pitch on the company's HR software.

Best believe I felt like a big deal checking into my budget hotel that night, but that’s beside the point….

I was in my early 20s, and I barely understood what the product did. I stood up, gave the pitch, sat back down, and felt pretty good about it.

The feedback I got was four words. "You hedge too much."

I had no idea what that meant. So they played it back for me. Every other sentence had a "sort of" or "kind of" or "I think” or “it should" in it. I was hedging everything I said because I wasn't confident in what I was talking about. And it showed.

I still got the job, but I still hear that feedback in my head today.

Most reps never get that feedback. So they just keep hedging, rambling, and rushing through calls without realizing what it costs them.

So today I’m breaking down the 4 things you can start doing right now to sound more confident on every sales call.

Drop the Hedge Words

Sort of.
Kind of.
Maybe.
Should be.
Possibly.

These words feel harmless, but they destroy your credibility. Research shows that indirect communication makes people seem less trustworthy.

When you say, "this should probably help with your pipeline issues," your prospect hears uncertainty.

But when you say, “based on what you told me, this is where we can help,” they hear someone who knows what they’re talking about.

Researchers found that hedged information gets flagged as inaccurate or unimportant by listeners. Their brains literally mark it as less trustworthy.

Try recording your next few calls and count how many hedge words you use. The number will surprise you.

Slow It Down, Speedy.

Most reps talk too fast on sales calls because they think speed signals competence.

The research says the opposite. The National Center for Voice and Speech found that the optimal speaking rate for understanding is 150 to 160 words per minute. If you go above 180 WPM, comprehension drops by up to 25%.

A different Princeton study found that moderately paced speakers were rated 20% more trustworthy than people who talked too fast or too slow.

Slowing down also forces you to be more deliberate with your words, and pauses become emphasis.

Stop Overexplaining

The smartest people in any room are the ones who make complicated things sound simple.

The easiest way to lose an audience is to keep talking after you’ve already made the point.

Let's pretend you're selling Claude or ChatGPT to someone who's never used AI before. You could explain how large language models work, how they process tokens, and how they're trained on massive datasets. And there’s a good chance your prospect will nod politely and forget everything you said before the sentence is over.

Or you could just say, "Paste in a job description and it writes you five personalized outreach emails in 30 seconds. Try it." They get it immediately. They understand the benefit. And you can move on.

Experts simplify topics. And people like to buy from experts.

Keep 2 or 3 Stories in Your Back Pocket

Stories sell. Like, really, really well.

The best communicators always have a handful of go-to stories they can pull out in different situations. Watch any good podcaster, and you'll notice they tell the same story across dozens of episodes. They do this because they understand that stories are the best way to get their point across.

Pick 2 or 3 real stories from your experience. Could be a customer who saw a specific result or a deal that almost fell apart, or a time your product solved something unexpected.

Having stories ready means you don’t have to scramble for an example on the spot, and you’ll leave a lasting impression on everyone you tell it to.

TLDR: Drop the hedge words, slow down, simplify, and let a handful of good stories do the heavy lifting.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. A massive heat wave is expected to hit the central and eastern U.S. this week, with “feels like” temps pushing past 100 in a bunch of major cities. Which means it’s a good week to stay inside, drink water, and send a bunch of follow up emails before your prospects log off for the 4th of July this weekend. Try this one out: “Hey Bob, the weather channel says it feels like 102 degrees outside today, but to me, it feels like you’re ignoring me. Free to chat?” There’s no way that doesn’t get a response, right? Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Most valuable way to spend 30 min❓️ 

• 30+ ready to use sales call scripts 📞 

• The little trick to get sensitive info 👂️ 

• How an ElevenLabs rep negotiated his comp 👀 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Master Every Sales Call with These 30 Ready-to-Use Scripts

Nail your next call with confidence using 30 proven templates built to convert. From first touch to upselling, these scripts are designed to keep you in control and ahead of the conversation:

• Templates for every stage of the sales process, from cold outreach to closing

• Customizable templates for phone, email, and voicemail

• Built-in conversation flows to help guide prospects toward “yes”

• Proven scripts that help you connect with leads, overcome objections, and close more deals

You’ve got the charm, now get the words. These scripts do the heavy lifting so you can focus on closing.

Get the templates for free 👉️ 

Getting Someone to Tell You Something They Shouldn’t

I watched a rep on my team run a discovery call last year where he asked about 14 questions in 22 minutes.

Good questions too. Thoughtful, open ended, straight out of the playbook. The prospect gave one line answers to every single one, and the deal didn’t go any further.

The problem was that they turned on a fire hose of questions, right in the prospect’s face. And instead of feeling understood, they felt like they were being interrogated.

The CIA ran into the same problem decades ago and built a technique around it called elicitation.

Originally popularized by CIA officer John Nolan, the core idea is simply: use statements instead of questions. And yeah… his book is rare, which is why it’s $900 on Amazon.

When you make a statement, people feel like they're in a conversation. And they volunteer things they'd never hand over if you asked directly.

Soviet spies used this on US Navy sailors during the Cold War. A submarine pulls into port in Thailand, sailors are drinking at a bar, and a Russian in a Hawaiian shirt sits down and says, "I know the German submarines can outrun yours because their propellers are 22 feet in diameter and yours are only 18." The sailor, a few drinks in, can't help himself and says: "No, they're not." And just like that, classified propeller specs are on the table. And nobody asked a single question.

If instead, the Soviet spy walked up to the sailor and said, “Are your propellers 18ft in diameter?”, the red flags would go up, and the sailor wouldn’t offer up that info.

Here’s how you can use this technique in sales.

Make a Statement → Get a Correction

The strongest version of this is triggering someone's need to correct you.

People can’t resist fixing wrong information. It's almost involuntary.

On a sales call, instead of asking "What tools are you using for this?" say, "I'm guessing you're probably just handling this in spreadsheets." If they are, they'll explain why. If they're not, they'll jump in and tell you exactly what they're using.

→ “No, we actually started using XYZ software last year, and it hasn’t been great. We started using it because everything was a mess in spreadsheets before that.”

You get the full answer. And they never felt interrogated.

This is amazing for budget convos too. Skip the question entirely and say, "Most teams your size usually spend somewhere between 40 and 60K a year on this." 

That's a technique called bracketing. Give a range. And the prospect will place themselves in it, above it, or below it, almost every time.

Then they're reacting to a number, instead of answering a question about their budget.

Disbelief Pulls Out the Details

Once you have the surface level info, disbelief is what gets you deeper.

Say your prospect mentions they've been evaluating solutions for six months. Instead of asking what's taking so long, say, "Six months and no real issues with the process. That's impressive."

They will immediately start telling you every challenge. Every internal blocker and internal political fight slowing them down. People can't let a wrong compliment stand.

Here’s some phrases that make this work: "I bet that was a tough transition." Or, "So you've been managing all of that with a team of four." These are statements that invite a response without demanding one.

The prospect feels like they’re volunteering information, not being forced to reveal it.

Use Both

Statements are a major hack, but that doesn’t mean you stop asking questions.

Thoughtful, open ended questions are what make a great discovery call. Elicitation doesn't replace them. But it fills in the gaps where direct questions hit a wall. Things like budget, competitive landscape, internal politics, and timeline pressure.

Those are the moments where a statement could get you further than a question.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Today is National Work From Home Day, which is pretty much every day in my household. The best part of working from home is no commute, and no shower until right before my first sales call. The worst part is having no co-workers to talk to besides my dog. He’s a great listener, not great at conversations. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• The anti-buy list. ☝️ 

• The easiest way to write follow up emails ✍️ 

• How to literally ‘give value’. 👀 

• CIA tactic that makes people give sensitive info. 👂️ 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Be The Sales Rep Who Actually Follows Up

Let’s say you just got off a 30 min disco call and scribbled some light notes.

Now you have another call starting in 3 minutes... And we all know that follow up email isn't getting sent.

Granola fixes that.

It listens to your calls and turns them into short, clear summaries with next steps. And then it writes the follow up email for you.

Be that person who actually follows up on time.

Download Granola free and use code: THEFOLLOWUP for a free month.

Get a Free Month of Granola 👉️ 

How to Literally Give Value Before You Ask

"Give value" is at the top of the list for the most common advice in sales. And it's also the least specific.

But like… what does "giving value" actually look like on a Tuesday morning when you're trying to book a meeting with a VP who doesn't know you exist?

Most reps usually end up attaching some generic whitepaper to a cold email or sharing the company's latest AI slop blog post… but we all know your prospects don’t get value from that stuff.

So here’s 4 things of actual value to give your prospects before you ever make an ask.

(And when you give first, people naturally want to return the favor.)

1. Run a free report from your own product. 

At my first job, we'd run salary reports on specific roles a prospect was actively hiring for and send them over (btw, we sold salary data to HR departments).

The reports included ranges by area, company size, and experience level. That data normally costs money, so giving it away for free was the best door-opener we had.

If your product generates any kind of data or insight, give a sample away for free.

If you sell a sales data tool, send an example list of prospects for their ICP. If you sell recruiting services, send over a qualified candidate for the role they’re hiring for.

Make it info they’d normally pay for.

2. Share a buyer's guide to your own category. 

If it’s your prospect’s first time buying a tool like yours, show them how to buy it.

List out every feature they should evaluate, the questions they should ask each vendor, and the price ranges they should expect at their company size.

It doesn’t need to advertise your product as the right choice. Because that's the point.

It shows you understand the space well enough to help them make a good decision, and that earns their trust (which will make them buy from you).

3. Share the industry knowledge you already have. 

A rep from an irrigation company came to my house and told me what type of grass I had, how often it should be watered, and when I should put down fertilizer.

None of that had anything to do with the irrigation system they wanted to sell me. But it showed me they were grass experts. So I trusted them more than any other vendor I talked to.

If you've sold in an industry for years, you have knowledge that’s not directly related to your product, but is valuable to your prospects. Share it openly and without an agenda.

4. Give them tickets to something they'd actually attend. 

This one isn’t free… but it works.

Industry conferences, networking dinners, sporting events. These carry real costs, so your company needs to fund the play. But they put you in the same room as your prospect for hours instead of begging for 15 minutes on a Zoom.

A BDR from Sigma got the CRO of Datarails a ticket to the World Cup. And of course, it got him the meeting.

A great experience creates a memory attached to you and pretty much guarantees a meeting.

Every one of these works because of the rule of reciprocity. People feel the need to return the favor after receiving something of value.

So give first. Ask second. That's the whole strategy.

Sales Meme of the Day

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley

Good Morning. It's National Let It Go Day. Try not to start humming that song from Frozen, or it will get stuck in your head all day. Or do, because it’s a good reminder. Prospect ghosted you for six weeks? Let it go. Got hung up on before you said your name? Let it go. Someone asks how you got their info, and it’s 2026? Definitely let it go. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Make them put a number on it #️⃣ 

• 75+ sales emails that are field tested ✍️ 

• Find your sales alpha 👀 

• Running a sales promo out of your own pocket 😬 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Sales Emails That Actually Work: 75 Templates Inside

Fed up with emails that vanish into the void? Our collection of 75 field-tested templates delivers what others just promise: responses. No fluff, no jargon – just emails prospects actually read and reply to.

You'll get:

• 25 first-touch templates that spark real conversations

• 30 follow-up templates that keep deals moving

• 20 break-up templates that preserve future opportunities

These aren't theoretical best practices. They're battle-tested messages used by successful sales teams to land meetings and close deals. Each template is designed for quick customization – swap in your details and start seeing results.

Download Now 👉️ 

How to Find Sales Alpha

Every time a company announces a funding round, the CEO's inbox gets blown up.

100s of cold emails, all with some version of "congrats on the new money in your bank account, I'd love to sell you something."

Same thing happens when someone gets promoted to a VP role.

These are real buying signals. The problem is that almost every other sales team on the planet has access to this exact same information at the exact same time.

On Wall Street, there's a concept called "alpha."

It's the return you get above the normal market. In other words, it’s when you ‘beat the market.’

If every investor buys the same stock at the same time, nobody beats the benchmark, and no one has ‘alpha.’ Sales can work in a similar way.

If your outreach triggers are identical to your competitor's, you have zero edge.

So today, I'm breaking down how to find sales alpha that your competitors haven't discovered yet.

Priced-In Signals

Funding announcements, job changes, and new hires are the signals that everyone with a LinkedIn account can see (just like you).

Since everyone sees them the same day or week, speed isn't as much of a differentiator as it used to be. Especially when you have a long buying cycle.

So in order to find signals no one else has, you have to look for information your competitors either can’t see, won’t collect, or don’t know how to interpret. Now let’s talk about how…

Finding Your Edge

Start with the signal you wish you had. Think about the thing that, if you knew it was happening inside a prospect's company right now, would guarantee they're about to buy.

The absolute best signal you can imagine, that would be unrealistic for you to know about. Then we work backwards.

Let’s say you sell cybersecurity software. If you knew a company had just failed a compliance audit, they'd be buying security tools asap. You obviously can't see audit results. But you can watch for companies suddenly posting compliance roles, hiring for security positions they've never had before, or updating their privacy policy pages for the first time in years.

Each of those is a breadcrumb that points toward a compliance scramble before they've told anyone about it.

Think like a trader trying to find alpha that no one else has.

• Your prospect's biggest customer just raised a round? That customer may start demanding more support, faster onboarding, or more capacity.

• Employees are leaving Glassdoor reviews mentioning broken internal tools? Someone is probably evaluating solutions right now.

Your own CRM is one of the most overlooked sources of alpha you have. Old call notes from two years ago might mention a contract renewal date, a pain point they weren't ready to address, or a competitor they were evaluating at the time. That intel is sitting in your own system that no competitor will ever have access to.

That’s the easiest place to start.

Alpha Decays

Here's the catch… because there’s always a catch.

Every signal eventually gets commoditized. The first rep who used funding announcements as an outreach trigger crushed it. Now it's noise.

Ramp was early to AI-generated cold emails in 2021. At the time, it stood out and worked. Now every team is doing it, and most of it looks like slop.

The best reps treat prospecting like a trader treats a strategy. Always testing, always looking for the next edge, and always willing to drop what stopped working three months ago.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Today is National Fishing Day, which feels really similar to sales. Cold prospecting is basically business fishing. You cast a hundred lines, sit around waiting for something to bite, and pray that when it does, it's a whale and not a minnow you have to throw back. There’s probably a deeper lesson in there, but we don’t got time for that. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Make a quick trade. 🤝 

• The easiest way to write follow up emails ✍️ 

• Why VP’s of Sales don’t last long. 👀 

• Companies that will change your career trajectory. 📈 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Be The Sales Rep Who Actually Follows Up

You just got off a 30 min disco call and scribbled some light notes.

Now you have another call starting in 3 minutes... And that follow up email isn't getting sent.

Granola fixes that.

It listens to your calls and turns them into short, clear summaries with next steps. And even writes the follow up email for you.

Be that person who actually follows up on time.

Download Granola free and use code: THEFOLLOWUP for a free month.

Get a Free Month of Granola 👉️ 

Why VPs of Sales Never Last Very Long

In my first sales job, I had two different VPs of Sales in the year and a half I was there. The first one got pushed out left. The second one got fired about a year after I left.

At the time, I figured it was just my company. But it turns out that turnover is pretty normal.

VPs of Sales are under a lot of pressure. When the revenue targets fall short, the CEO and board look at the person running sales. And sometimes that's the right call.

But sometimes the VP just inherited a mess nobody wants to acknowledge.

The Math That Explains It

An analysis of 14K execs found that CROs last an average of 1.8 years, and 1 in 3 CROs turn over every single year.

In 1988, the average tenure was around 7 years. Now it's under 2 years.

In most cases, it takes a new VP of Sales 6 months just to understand the org. Who's good and who's not. Where deals are coming from. Which processes work, and which ones exist because someone built them three VPs ago and nobody questioned them.

Then it takes another 12 months to implement real change. Hiring the right people, building a new playbook, fixing comp plans, restructuring territories.

A new VP of Sales doesn't have that luxury. The average tenure has dropped from 26 months to 19. That's essentially 6 quarters to try to make things work and deliver results, or you’re on the chopping block.

It's Usually the Seat, Not the Person

There are bad VPs of Sales. Everyone who's been in sales long enough has worked for one. But some data suggests the problem has more to do with structure and less to do with the person.

HBR found that 62% of companies see revenue growth decline or stay flat the year after replacing their CRO. Growth drops from an average of 15.5% to 11.7%.

If swapping the leader fixed the problem, the numbers would go up. But they usually don't.

Leadership sets aggressive revenue targets without investing in the headcount, marketing, or tools to hit them. Then reps churn underneath the VP because quota attainment drops, and frustrated reps leave.

The VP is trying to build a plane while it's flying, but they don’t have all of the parts they need.

Then, when the numbers aren’t hit, the board replaces the VP and hands the next person the keys to the same broken setup.

One redditor put it perfectly: "If a company is on their 6th VP, it's not a VP problem."

What’s Different About the Ones Who Last

Mark Roberge is the founding CRO at HubSpot. He built the sales team from zero revenue through the company's IPO and stayed for about seven years.

His approach to the job was all about systems. He built a scoring system for evaluating sales hires, created a standardized training program, and used data to diagnose what was working and what wasn't at every stage of the funnel. The systems outlasted any single person, which meant results compounded over time even when he wasn’t directly involved.

In a survey of 90K customers, the sales organizations with the highest satisfaction scores had management turnover of only 10 to 15 percent. The average sales leader at those companies stayed about 10 years. When turnover hit 50%, customer satisfaction dropped significantly.

Stability at the top leads to more satisfied customers.

The VPs who last tend to share a few things.

1) They build systems that work without them in the room.

2) They push back on unrealistic targets early instead of quietly hoping things work out.

3) They invest in developing their team even when things get hard and replacing people feels easier.

It takes longer to see results, but if you want to hold a sales leadership role long term, you have to invest in things with a long time horizon.

Sales Meme of the Day

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley

Good Morning. The last 5 five days in sports have been wild. The US won their first World Cup game. The Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. The Knicks won the NBA Finals. And the UFC put on a fight card at the White House. It's been a lot. But now it’s time to focus on what matters (making money). We're calling it the Great Summer Lock In. Heads down, calls up, pipeline full. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up.(:

• Make a deadline with their dates 😁 

• 30+ expert written sales emails ✍️ 

• Why do companies have a P club 👀 

• Get advice from reps at your dream company 🤝 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Turn Prospect Silence into Sales Opportunities

Need to follow up on a proposal? Chasing a client response? These 30 expertly crafted email templates cover every professional situation—from networking connections to sales follow-ups and team collaboration.

Stop staring at blank screens wondering what to write. Each template includes strategic prompts, real-world examples, and insider tips from communication experts. 

Whether you're building relationships, closing deals, or managing projects, these templates will help you communicate with clarity and confidence.

Download Now and transform your professional communication today!

Get the Email Templates 👉️ 

What the Heck Is Presidents Club?

I've never worked at a company that had a Presidents Club. 

Actually, during my second sales job, at our sales kickoff, the company announced they were doing their first ever Presidents Club. But six months later, my entire team got laid off. (Yeah… still never been at a company with a President’s club.) 

So I get it if the concept of a President's Club doesn’t feel real. 

You see the LinkedIn posts with a group of sunburned reps on a tropical vacation somewhere, humbly bragging about making Presidents Club, but you don’t really understand what they did to get that trip. 

Today, I’m breaking down what a Presidents Club actually is, how reps qualify for it, and why some companies even have one in the first place.

WTF is Presidents Club?

Presidents Club is basically just a recognition program for the top-performing sales reps at a company. 

The reward is usually a trip. Resort destinations with dinners, activities, and usually a plus-one.

The idea dates back to 1925 when IBM created the "Hundred Percent Club" to honor sales reps who hit their goals. 

The program eventually evolved into IBM's Golden Circle, which rewards the top 1.5% of their sales force with an all-expense-paid vacation. By the 1990s, Golden Circle winners were getting flown to Hawaii for full-production events. Then, by 2008, the top 1% were spending three days in Bermuda with spa treatments and keynote speeches from celebrities like Michael Douglas.

Today, SaaS companies, fintech firms, and startups all run their own version of it. They reward the people driving the most revenue with a paid vacation, and make it visible enough that everyone else wants to get there next year.

How Companies Decide Who Makes Presidents Club

Most companies use one of two models: 

1. A fixed threshold: hit a specific quota attainment number, and you're in. That number usually sits somewhere between 120% and 135% of quota. If 30 reps hit it, 30 reps go. If 5 hit it, 5 go.

2. Stack rank: The company takes the top 5 to 20% of performers and those reps qualify regardless of the exact number they hit. This keeps the trip exclusive even in a strong year when a lot of reps are above quota.

Both approaches have tradeoffs. Fixed thresholds feel fairer because the rules are clear upfront and everyone is playing the same game. Stack ranks keep the program exclusive, but they can frustrate reps who crushed their number and still didn't make the cut because someone else crushed it slightly more.

Most programs also require a tenure minimum. If you joined in Q4 and had one good month, you're probably not qualifying. Companies want two or three full quarters of performance data before they send someone to P Club.

P Club Makes Companies Richer

A Presidents Club trip costs a lot of money for the company. Flights, hotels, meals, activities, plus-ones. A p-club runs around $6K+ per person, and that number climbs fast for international trips or luxury resorts.

But the data says it's worth it. Studies show that a properly designed P Club will increase sales productivity by 18% and produce a 112% ROI. And US companies collectively spend $22.5 billion a year incentivizing performance with trips. 

Then there's retention. Top performers have options, and they're getting recruited constantly. A Presidents Club trip creates a moment where the best reps feel recognized, connected to leadership, and part of something worth staying for. That's hard to put a dollar amount on.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Last night the Knicks pulled off the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history, coming back from a 29 point deficit to beat the Spurs 107-106 with 1.2 seconds left on the clock. New York now leads the series 3-1 and is one win away from a championship. This is the equivalent of being at 10% of quota with 1 week left in the month and somehow closing at 100%. It happens. Not often, but it happens. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• So… who’s ‘we’? ⁉️ 

• The easy way to write follow up emails ✍️ 

• The guide to better sales convos🗣️ 

• Behind the scenes of a gifting campaign 👀 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Be The Sales Rep Who Actually Follows Up

You just got off a 45-minute discovery call. You scribbled some light notes.

You have another call in 3 minutes... And that follow up email isn't getting sent.

Granola fixes that. It listens to your calls and turns them into short, clear summaries with next steps. And it can even write the follow up email for you.

Be that person who actually follows through.

Download Granola free and use code: THEFOLLOWUP for a free month.

Get a Free Month of Granola 👉️ 

The Salesperson's Guide to Having Better Conversations

Think about the best conversation you've had with a prospect. 

It feels like you’re in a flow state. It has a certain rhythm to it.

You can ask almost anything, they open up about their real problems, and you log off the call in a great mood knowing the deal is moving forward.

Now think about how much more you'd close if every conversation felt like that.

Better conversations = more sales. They change how much you sell, how fast deals move, and how strong your relationships are with customers, teammates, and even people outside of work. 

The good news is that being great at conversations is a skill, and there's a simple framework that makes it easy to practice.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg breaks down the framework in his book Supercommunicators. 

Every conversation you have falls into one of three categories. And the key to being better at all of them is figuring out which one the other person is in.

The Three Conversations Happening on Every Call

Practical conversations are about solving a problem or making a decision. In sales, this is the default. Features, pricing, timelines, implementation. Most reps live here because it feels the most productive. You're exchanging information and moving the deal forward.

Emotional conversations are about how someone feels. When a prospect says "we've been burned by vendors before" or "I'm honestly frustrated with how things work right now," they're telling you how they feel. They want to feel heard before they're ready to hear your solution.

Social conversations are about identity, status, and how someone fits into the people around them. These usually show up when a prospect is thinking about how a decision will affect their standing internally. Will their boss see them as someone who made a smart call or a risky one? Will their team support the change or push back? Will they be the person who championed a new vendor that ended up failing? Most prospects never say any of this out loud, but they’re always thinking about it.

All three of these conversations can take place on sales calls. Sometimes in the same call. 

Match the Conversation They're Having

Communication feels broken when two people are in different conversations at the same time. 

One person could be emotional, while the other responds with something practical. I’m definitely guilty of this. 

If a prospect tells you they're frustrated with their current setup, it’s emotional. So if you immediately jump into "well, our platform does X and here's how I can help," you've switched to practical. 

You need to make them feel understood first, before trying to offer a solution.

If they're emotional, be emotional first. Acknowledge what they said. Ask a follow-up about their experience. Show that you actually heard them. Once they feel understood, they'll move into practical mode on their own and be way more open when they get there.

Same thing with social conversations. If a prospect is worried about internal buy-in, responding with more product features doesn't help. What helps is asking how their team usually evaluates new tools, who else would need to be involved, and what a successful rollout would look like from their perspective.

Ask Better Questions, Get Better Conversations

The difference between a mediocre discovery call and a great one is all about the questions you ask.

Surface questions will get you facts. "What's your budget?" "Who's the decision maker?" "What's your timeline?" You need to ask these, but they don't build a connection.

Better questions ask about values, experiences, and motivations.

• "What made you start looking for a solution right now?" gets the prospect talking about what matters to them.

• "How does your team usually make decisions like this?" tells you who the decision maker is, how the organization works, where the politics are, and what might slow the deal down.

When someone shares something real with you, they start treating you like someone who understands their situation. And that's where sales magic happens. 

Sales Meme of the Day

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley

Good Morning and welcome to the second Tuesday of June. Coffee lovers, we've got some good news for you. The Italian coffee maker Lavazza just launched Tablì, a brewing system that uses tablets made from 100% compressed coffee grounds. No plastic or fillers like you get in K-Cups. It took them 5 years, 15 patents, and an entire new production facility to pull off. Serious commitment for a better cup of coffee. Now grab yourself a cup of coffee, and let's get into today's Follow Up.

• How do they make decisions? 🤔

• 100+ prompts to help you with every task 👀 

• When your champion leaves the company 😬 

• Average OTE reps making $1M+ 🤑 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

100+ ChatGPT Prompts to Revolutionize Your Day

Supercharge your productivity with HubSpot's comprehensive guide. This free resource is your fast track to AI mastery:

• Industry-Specific Use Cases: 15+ real-world applications across various sectors

• Productivity Guide: 21 best practices to 10x your efficiency with AI

• Prompt Powerhouse: 100+ ready-to-use prompts for immediate implementation

• Challenge Buster: Overcome common AI hurdles with expert strategies

Plus, in-depth sections on email composition, content creation, customer support, and data analysis.

Find Your Guide Here 👉️ 

What to Do When Your Champion Leaves During a Deal

If you upsell to the same buyers, manage your own accounts, or have a sales cycle longer than 1 month, you’ve experienced the situation I’m about to describe.

You're in the middle of a deal, and your main contact tells you they're leaving the company. It messes everything up. 

Weeks of calls and convincing your contact that your solution is the right one for them. Then, out of nowhere, the one insider you built a relationship with is leaving.

Unfortunately, this happens to me all the time. It’s usually a huge bummer and ends up delaying the deal. But how you handle the handoff to your new point of contact will determine whether the deal survives or dies. 

Here’s what to do the next time your champion leaves the company. 

Get the Intro ASAP

The single most important thing you can do is get introduced to whoever is taking over before your champion is gone. A warm handoff from your champion is priceless. 

If possible, ask your champion for an intro call with them on it, even just for 10 minutes. Get on with the new contact, have your champion confirm where things stand, and let the new person hear directly from their co-worker that this deal is worth continuing.

If you can't get a live call, ask for an intro email at minimum. Something that says "I've been working with {your name} on this, here's where things are."

At the same time, build a handoff doc. One page that covers what's been discussed, what's been agreed to, who else has been involved, where the deal stands, and what the next steps are. Send it to the new contact so they don't have to start from scratch. 

In a lot of cases, I’ve found that the new contact is just taking over in the interim until my champion’s replacement is hired. This is totally fine and still worth pursuing as much as possible.

When the replacement is finally hired, this interim contact will be the one introducing you, so put effort into this relationship, even if it feels temporary.

Depends on When You Find Out

Not every situation gives you the luxury of a clean transition. From my experience, most cases actually aren’t a clean handoff.

Here’s the 3 situations I see the most. 

They give you a week’s notice. This is the best case. You have time to get the intro call, build the doc, and even ask your champion to loop you into a meeting with other stakeholders before they leave. Use every day of that window.

They tell you on their last day. In this case, you have hours. Ask for the name and email of the best contact, and ask them to send a quick intro message before they log off. A two-line email from them to the new contact gives you a much better entry point compared to a cold email.

They already left, and you find out after. This is the toughest one. You send them an email and get hit with an auto-responder saying “Susie no longer works here”. When this happens, the first thing you should do is reach out to Susie on LinkedIn and ask what happened. It’s usually pretty easy to tell if they left by choice or if they were let go. Lead with asking if there’s anything you can do to help them now that they’re no longer there (intro to connections, job opportunities, references, etc.). Once you’ve got the small talk and offer of help out of the way, ask who's taken over their former responsibilities. aka, the person you should reach out to.

Make sure to treat it like they’re doing you a favor, because they are. There’s no incentive for them to do it.

The Proper Fix

All of the actions described above are reactive. But the correct way to survive a champion leaving is to make sure they're never your only contact.

It’s okay to have one main point of contact or one champion. In my experience, there’s usually one deal “champion” who drives it with multiple decision makers.

Build a close relationship with that champion, but don’t forget about the other decision makers.

During every deal, make it a habit to ask your champion to loop in other people. Every additional contact you build is insurance. If one leaves, you still have someone on the inside who knows your name and understands the value.

Oh, and one more thing... when your champion does leave, follow them to their next role. They already understand your product and believe in it. And now they're at a new company that might need exactly what you sell. That's one of the warmest leads you'll ever get.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Today is National Cheese Day. Most people don't know this, but the reason we call money "cheese" or "cheddar" goes back to the 1980s when the US government gave out blocks of surplus cheese in welfare packages. Getting the cheese literally meant getting paid by the government. Now let’s go get some cheese. (:

• Who’s at risk on the project? 🤔

• Your free AI Sales Agent kit 👀 

• The AI job apocalypse is BS 😬 

• 80% of Replit’s reps are hitting quota 🔬 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

The AI Agent Kit That Does Your Sales Homework

It’s easy to lose hours on meeting prep. Get the ready-to-use sales agents that handle the work before every call.

Here’s what’s inside:

• 3 ready-to-use AI agents for ICP definition, account selection, and meeting prep

• Quick start versions you can launch in minutes

• Prompts that work with Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM

• Fully customizable, no-code setup to help get you ready for calls

Set up agents that handle research and prep for you and start running smarter sales workflows today.

Find your kit here 👉️ 

The AI Job Apocalypse Is A Bunch of BS

If AI is about to replace salespeople, somebody forgot to tell the companies actually building the AI.

On a recent earnings call, Marc Benioff said that the only department still expanding at his company is sales. Engineering headcount has been flat for two years, but sales is growing because, in his words, "I need more capacity because we have more demand than ever."

He's not alone. All of the top private AI companies are rapidly growing their sales teams.

Remember, these are the companies that are building the AI models and tools that are supposed to replace salespeople like us. If AI could do the job of a sales rep, these are the companies that would know first.

Instead, they’re growing their sales teams as fast as they can, so they can sell more of their AI products. That gives you something to think about.

The Layoffs in the News Spread a Lot of Lies

Every few weeks, there's another headline about a tech company laying off thousands of employees and blaming AI. Most recently, Meta cut around 8,000 jobs, and the narrative online was: AI is replacing humans.

But when you dig a bit deeper, you learn that Zuck admitted the company overhired during the pandemic and has been downsizing ever since. These companies added tens of thousands of employees between 2020 and 2022, and they didn't need all of them. Now they’re correcting that mistake with these layoffs and using AI as the excuse.

Those roles were redundant. AI isn’t magically doing them now.

That distinction matters, especially in sales, where the job is all about building trust, reading people, and navigating complex deals.

AI can qualify a lead based on a checklist. It can draft an email. It can summarize a call. What it can't do is sit across from a VP of Operations, figure out what they actually care about versus what they say they care about, and close a six-figure deal with 10 stakeholders.

3 Things You Should Be Using AI For Right Now

Now that it’s clear AI isn’t going to replace you anytime soon, the real question is whether you're using it to get better at your job.

Here are 3 easy things that you should already be using it for.

Auto-log everything. Use an AI note-taker on every call. My favorite is Granola, but they all mostly do the same thing. Have it automatically log your calls and notes into your CRM. Then plug that data into a tool like Claude so you can pull from everything said across all your calls when writing follow up emails, prepping for meetings, or giving your manager an update. It's like having an assistant that’s pretty good at writing and remembers every conversation you've ever had.

Research before every call. Before you get on a call, spend 2 minutes using Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Claude to research the prospect and their company. It’s as simple as dropping their name and company into your favorite AI and saying “research this person and tell me everything I should know about them and their company before my sales call.” Even better if you can connect your AI to a sales data provider through an MCP (which is basically an API for AI but better). Now you have no excuse for not being prepared for a meeting.

Build proposals, decks, and emails faster. Create a project in your favorite AI setup (mine is Claude Cowork), and feed it your product offerings, pricing, sales assets, and call transcripts. Then use it as your own personal assistant to draft proposals, sales decks, pricing docs, and emails based on what was actually said in the conversation. The output still needs your voice and your judgment. So don’t just copy, paste, & send. But the first draft that used to take an hour can be done in two minutes.

If you use it right, AI feels like a superpower right now.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Welcome to June. It's starting to feel like summer, but we're still 19 days away from the official first day on June 21st. Conveniently, today is also National Leave Work Early Day. The bad news is your quota doesn't celebrate this holiday unless you’re already ahead for the quarter. In that case, well done. I’m jealous. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Run the temperature check 🤒 

• The easy way to write follow up emails ✍️ 

• You gotta ask for it 🗣️ 

• This sales team calls a lead 6 times in 1 minute 👀 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Be The Rep Who Actually Follows Up

You just got off a 45-minute discovery call. You scribbled some light notes.

You have another call in 3 minutes... That follow up email isn't getting sent.

Granola fixes that. It listens to your calls and turns them into short, clear summaries with next steps. And it can even write the follow up email for you.

Be that person who actually follows through.

Download Granola free and use code: THEFOLLOWUP for a free month.

Get a Free Month of Granola 👉️ 

The Single Thing You Can Do To Be a Better Sales Rep

Asking for what you want is uncomfortable. You don’t want someone to think you’re pushy or like you’re ‘salesy’.

But at some point in your sales career, you realize just how important it is.

Think about going on a great first date. The conversation flows, you're both laughing, and everything clicks. Then, at the end, you just shake hands in the parking lot, say thanks, and never ask to see them again.

That's basically what it looks like when a sales rep runs a great call and never asks for the sale.

And this concept applies way beyond sales. Interviews, partnerships, negotiations. The people who get what they want are the ones willing to ask for it directly.

So here’s my guide on how to correctly ask for the sale.

What Needs to Be True Before You Ask

This probably goes without saying, but you shouldn't ask for the sale out of nowhere.

If you haven't earned the right to ask, you're going to get a no, and that’s what you deserve.

Before you ask, three things should be true:

First, you've done enough discovery to understand their actual problem, and you've clearly shown them how your solution connects to it.

Second, you've answered their questions and concerns. Make sure you’ve covered their concerns about how something works, what the implementation looks like, or whether it fits their situation.

Third, you have some signal that they're a qualified buyer. You don't need every box checked on BANT. But you should have enough to know this is a real opportunity.

When all three are true, the ask should feel like the obvious next step. If it feels forced or premature, one of those three is likely missing. Go back and figure out which one.

How to Actually Say It

There's no magic phrase that’s going to change whether they say yes or no. But here are a few ways to deliver that I’ve seen work well:

The direct ask. Just say it. "Based on everything we've talked about, I think this is a strong fit. Are you ready to move forward?" Most prospects respect directness. They know you're a salesperson, so they expect you to ask.

The assumptive close. Skip past the yes or no and move to logistics. "Whose name goes on the contract?" or "When would you want to kick off implementation?" This works when the conversation has already been positive, and the prospect has been nodding along. You're treating the close like a formality because you know it’s a fit.

The timeline close. Tie the ask to their own deadline. "You mentioned wanting this live by Q3. To hit that timeline, we'd need to get the contract signed by the end of the month. Does that work on your end?"

I know… this isn’t rocket science. So choose the one that feels most natural to you and go for it.

The Same Goes For… Interviews.

Everything we just talked about above also applies to an interview for a sales job.

The interview is a live audition for whether you can actually sell. So the hiring manager is watching how you communicate and if you have the confidence to close. So do it!

Use trial closes throughout the interview. For example, after you walk through a relevant experience, check in with: "Is that the kind of approach you're looking for on this team?" or "Does that line up with what you'd want to see from someone in this role?"

Then, at the end of the interview, ask directly: "Based on everything we've talked about, do you see me as a good fit for this role?" Bar none, that’s the single best thing you can do to wrap up an interview. It's a bit uncomfortable and puts the hiring manager on the spot. Which is exactly why it works.

Show the hiring manager you can close.

Sales Meme of the Day

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley

Good Morning. A new BI article asked 3 career coaches how to correctly answer "tell me about yourself" in an interview, and they all basically said the same thing: keep it short and relevant to the role. Apparently, interviewers don't want to hear about your childhood, astrological sign, or the three years you spent "finding yourself." Their loss. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• What would kill this deal right now? 🤔

• 30 proven sales scripts that convert 👀 

• How to tell your prospect prices are going up 😬 

• OpenAI’s sales org decoded 🔬 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Master Every Sales Call with These 30 Ready-to-Use Scripts

Nail your next call with confidence using 30 proven templates built to convert. From first touch to upselling, these scripts are designed to keep you in control and ahead of the conversation:

• Templates for every stage of the sales process, from cold outreach to closing

• Customizable templates for phone, email, and voicemail

• Built-in conversation flows to help guide prospects toward “yes”

• Proven scripts that help you connect with leads, overcome objections, and close more deals

You’ve got the charm, now get the words. These scripts do the heavy lifting so you can focus on closing.

Get the Templates for Free 👉️ 

How to Tell Your Customer the Price Went Up

Price increases are part of the job.

Products get better, costs go up, and at some point, someone in leadership sends an email saying new rates go into effect next quarter.

And now it's on you to tell your customers.

A lot of reps end up handling this badly. They either apologize their way through the conversation and then try to offer a discount to soften the blow, or they avoid it entirely and hope the customer doesn't notice until the invoice hits. Both are wrong.

How you deliver a price increase sometimes matters more than the number itself. Customers rarely leave over a 10% or 15% bump, but they will leave if they feel like your company is shady or trying to take advantage of them.

Here’s how to deliver a price increase to a customer the right way.

Before You Say Anything, Ask Internally

The first conversation about a price increase should happen inside your company.

When leadership tells you prices are going up, push back and ask what specifically justifies the increase and what should be communicated to customers. You need real answers before you get on a call and start winging it.

Get specific with leadership. Here’s some typical reasons:

• New product development.

• Rising infrastructure or material costs.

• New features that didn't exist when the customer originally signed.

• Market price alignment.

You want to walk into every pricing conversation with a clear, honest reason you actually believe.

For Renewals: State It, Frame It, Move On

If you're an account manager renewing an existing customer, the biggest mistake is treating the price increase like bad news you need to break gently. If you apologize, you signal that the increase isn't justified. And that opens the door for the customer to negotiate it down or feel like they're ‘owed’ a better deal.

State the new price clearly, then frame it with the reason. Here's how that can sound in a few different situations:

Product development. "Since you signed on, we've shipped [new features]. The platform does significantly more than what you originally bought, and the pricing now reflects that."

New capabilities. This is especially relevant right now with AI. If your company has added AI-powered features, those cost real money to build and run. "We've introduced [feature], which gives you [specific benefit]. That's new since your last contract, and it's part of why the pricing has been updated."

Hard costs. If you sell anything with physical materials, raw materials go up, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Lumber, concrete, shipping. State it plainly. Customers understand this one intuitively because they see it in their own costs.

Market rates. "In order to keep investing in the product and retain the team that supports you, we periodically adjust pricing to stay competitive as a business."

After the framing, move forward. Ask about their renewal timeline. Talk about what's coming on the product roadmap. Keep the conversation going past the price increase so it doesn't become the entire meeting.

For Re-Engaged Prospects: Bridge the Gap

You talked to someone six months ago, gave them a quote, and now they're back. But now the price is higher than what you originally discussed.

The same rules apply here. State the new price, don't apologize, don't open it up for negotiation.

This situation gives you a natural urgency lever. The prospect already waited once, and the price went up. You can use that to your advantage. "Prices have gone up since we last talked, and that's above my pay grade. What I can tell you is that by signing now, you're locking in this rate. I can't guarantee it won't go up again."

That's honest, and it gives the prospect a reason to move forward today instead of pushing it another six months and paying even more. The price increase already happened. You can't undo it. But you can turn it into a reason to close.

One thing to avoid in both situations: never open the price increase as a discussion. You're informing, not negotiating. If the customer pushes back, listen to what they have to say. But the starting position is that this is the price, and here's a brief explanation of why.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Welcome back from the long weekend, at least for those of you in the US. Coming back after three days off is never fun, but on the bright side, you've got yourself a short week. On the not-so-bright side, the month isn't over yet, and your quota doesn't care if you have four working days or five. Time to get moving. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Pushing back on timing ⏳️ 

• The easy way to make a Sales Funnel 👀 

• Do this now if you ever want to be a founder 🧠 

• Anthropic’s inbound lead system 💻️ 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Streamline Your Sales Funnels With AI 

10+ AI-powered prompts that help you generate leads, nurture prospects, and close deals. From first touch to final close, here’s what’s inside to help you automate and accelerate every step:

• Step-by-step AI prompts to automate every stage of your sales funnel

• Lead generation strategies to attract the right audience

• AI-powered email templates for cold outreach, follow-ups, and re-engagement

• Essential AI tools to optimize and scale your sales process

See how small changes powered by AI can make a big impact on your process. Grab the kit and explore new ways to streamline your funnel.

Download the Free Guide 👉️ 

Sales Is the Best Training Ground for Future Founders

Mark Cuban worked in sales at a software store in Dallas before founding MicroSolutions.

Ray Kroc spent 16 years selling milkshake machines before he discovered McDonald's.

Michael Dell sold newspaper subscriptions at 16 and made $18K in his first year. Two years later, he founded Dell Computers.

There’s a pattern here.

Some of the most successful founders in the last 50 years started in sales.

It makes sense. First Round Capital found that 72% of successful B2B startups had their founders personally close the first million dollars in revenue.

The first thing a founder has to do is sell. The product to customers. The vision to investors. And the opportunity to early hires.

If you're in a sales role right now and you think you might want to start something one day, you're sitting on more opportunity than you realize.

Here's what you should be doing in your day job to set yourself up for your own venture.

Learn to Persuade, Not Just Sell

There's a big difference between selling a product everyone already knows they need and convincing someone to believe in something that doesn't exist yet.

If you’re willing to learn, sales will teach you both. But the second one is what sets founders apart from a typical sales rep.

If you're pitching investors, there's no product demo to fall back on. And when you're recruiting your first employee, there's no brand recognition or big salary to do your heavy lifting.

You're selling a vision. And in most cases, the only tool you have is your ability to frame a story, build trust, and make someone feel like your thing is worth betting on.

That's what persuasion is. Influencing someone’s beliefs, feelings, or actions. Reps who learn to do that, especially early in their career when nobody's heard of them or their company, are training the skill that founders need.

Learn How the Business Actually Works

A shocking number of people in a company don’t truly understand how revenue is generated. But sales reps do (or at least they should).

You’re on the front lines, so you get to see the full picture. What it takes to bring in money. And what needs to happen after a deal closes for the customer to actually succeed.

But you should also go beyond revenue. Figure out where the money goes after it comes in.

What does operations need to do in order to fulfill what you just sold?
How big is the support team, and why?
What does marketing spend to generate the leads you're calling?

If your company shares financials at an all hands, be the person asking questions. Then write the numbers down and do the backwards math. How does the company generate a profit? Or do they generate a profit?

Keep tabs on department sizes, headcount changes, and how cash gets allocated. Pay attention to which teams are growing and which ones are getting cut. Notice why certain employees love working there and why others quietly start interviewing.

Culture, morale, retention. All of this stuff matters when you're the one building a company from scratch, and you can learn for free while collecting a paycheck.

Do The Work No One Else Wants to

When your manager asks someone to build the onboarding playbook for new reps, do it.

When there's a new hire to train, be the one who runs their first week. When the team needs someone to sit in on interviews, volunteer. This is founder work.

Every early-stage company needs someone who can document a process, train new people, and figure out when it's time to bring on help. You can practice all of it right now with zero risk.

If you build a playbook and it's bad, your manager gives you feedback. If a founder builds a bad playbook, their company tanks and their first three hires quit.

Sara Blakely said that her 7 years of door-to-door fax machine sales gave her the rejection tolerance she needed to launch Spanx.

That part of sales skills transfers automatically. For the operational stuff, you have to go looking for it.

If you’re serious about being a founder one day, the best thing you can do right now is to treat your sales role like a paid apprenticeship in how to run a company.

It’s like college for founders, but you also get paid.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. Today is National Meditation Day. Take five seconds with me. Close your eyes. Breathe in. Let go of the deal that fell through last week. Breathe out. Let go of the prospect who said "take me off your list" last month. Open your eyes. Time to make calls. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Who’s gonna push back on this 🗣️ 

• Your follow up emails, done for you. 🎁 

• How to be a more curious person 🤔 

• How bullish are sales reps at top AI companies? 👀 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Stop forgetting what was said 5 minutes after the call ends.

You just got off a 45-minute discovery call. You scribbled some light notes.

You have another call in 3 minutes... That follow up email isn't getting sent.

Granola fixes that. It listens to your calls and turns them into short, clear summaries with next steps. And it can even write the follow up email for you.

Be that person who actually follows through.

Download Granola free and use code: THEFOLLOWUP for a free month.

Get a Free Month of Granola 👉️ 

How to Train Yourself to Be More Curious

The most successful salespeople people in the world are extremely curious.

I’ve noticed this trait in the best sales reps I’ve worked with. But you don’t have to just take my word for it.

Jeff Bezos spent his childhood turning his parents' garage into his personal lab, taking things apart just to figure out how they worked.

Then in his 2018 letter to Amazon shareholders, he dedicated an entire section to what he called "intuition, curiosity, and the power of wandering." He argued that some of Amazon's biggest wins came from people following their curiosity into places a spreadsheet would never take you.

Mark Cuban called curiosity one of the 3 most important soft skills for success.

A study of top reps found that 82% of them scored extremely high on curiosity. They wanted to learn more about their customers, their market, their competitors, and the buying process.

The one thing that keeps showing up across all of the most successful sellers is that they never stopped asking questions about how things work and why.

Good News: Curiosity Is a Muscle

Telling someone to be more curious is like telling someone to grow a few inches.

“Sure, no problem. I’ll just get a little taller. Thanks for the advice.”

Luckily, your curiosity is something you can improve naturally (unlike height).

Most people assume curiosity is a personality trait. You either have it, or you don't. Research says otherwise.

Dr. Todd Kashdan, one of the leading psychologists studying curiosity, argues that it operates like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. A 2021 study found that stimulating curiosity through guided questioning and exposure to new environments enhanced learning and long-term memory retention. Even people who started with low baseline curiosity got measurably more curious over time when they practiced it.

Just like going to the gym, when you train to be more curious, you become a more curious person.

This matters in sales more than you might think. Gong analyzed 1M+ sales calls and found that top performers ask 40% more questions during discovery than average reps. The sweet spot is 11 to 14 questions per call. Fewer than 11 and you're mostly getting surface level info. More than 14 and the buyer feels interrogated.

Curious reps land in that range because their curiosity makes them want to actually understand the problem. They're asking because they're genuinely trying to figure something out.

How to Train To Be More Curious

Here's where it gets practical.

Listen to understand, not to respond. Most reps are already thinking about what they're going to say next while the prospect is still talking. When you actually listen, real follow up questions come from what the prospect just told you, not from the list you had prepped in your head. That's where the best discoveries happen.

Talk to people outside your bubble. Grab lunch with someone in product, marketing, or customer success. Ask them how they got into the role, what problems they're trying to solve, how they view the sales team, etc. Some of the best sales insights come from understanding how the rest of the business thinks.

Be willing to look stupid. Ask the question you think is too basic. When you put yourself in a vulnerable position of trying to learn, people let their guard down and share more. Prospects can tell when you’re actually trying to understand their business versus running through a script. "If I’m being honest, I don't fully understand this yet, can you walk me through it?" opens more doors than a polished pitch.

When something works, ask why. A lot of reps celebrate a closed deal and move on. Curious ones will figure out what actually made it happen. Was it the timing? The champion? The way you framed the value? Figure out why you won so you can repeat it.

Use the "teach it back" test. After a call or a training, ask yourself: could I clearly explain this to my manager or a teammate right now? If the answer is no, you don't understand it well enough yet, and you should probably be asking more questions.

Stay curious, my friends. 🫡

Sales Meme of the Day

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley

Good Morning. I'm not much of a cat person, but I've been on plenty of calls where someone’s cat decides to walk across their keyboard mid-call. Good news, someone finally solved that problem. A new Mac app called Cats Lock automatically locks your keyboard the second your cat steps on it. Ben Franklin discovered electricity in 1752, so that 274 years later, we could build apps that stop a cat from typing during a video call. I’m sure that’s the dream he had in mind… Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Who cares about what? 🗣️ 

• Complete guide to Claude AI 👀 

• Sales job red flags 🚩 

• The legendary $4.1M commission check 🤑 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

The Complete Guide To Transform Your Workday With Claude

Supercharge your productivity with HubSpot's comprehensive guide. This free resource is your fast track to AI mastery:

• Executive assistant setup for meeting notes, follow-ups, and scheduling

• Quick setup guide to using Claude projects

• Step-by-step blueprint to scale AI across your team

• Frameworks for content creation and data analysis that turn complexity into clear direction

Plus, the strategies and AI tips to harness AI’s true potential. Start using Claude to offload those tasks you would rather delegate.

Find Your Guide Here 👉️ 

Red Flags to Look for Before You Accept a Sales Job

The sales job market is rough right now.

Some reps have been searching for months without getting a single offer. And when you've gone that long, it's easy to get desperate enough to take the first thing that comes along.

But taking a bad sales role can arguably be worse than having no role.

Especially if the comp plan is heavy on commission and the product sucks. On top of that, a failed 6 month stint in a bad role raises questions in every future interview you have and puts you right back where you started, except now you have to explain it.

So before you say yes to a new role, here's the red flags to watch out for:

The Red Flags to Watch For

Less than 50% of the team is hitting quota. This usually means the comp plan is unrealistic or there's not enough demand for the product. It obviously shouldn’t be 100% of reps hitting their number (unless it’s Anthropic, where the product sells itself). But you want a high percentage, because that's what tells you if the OTE is actually attainable. If most of the team can't hit it, I’d run.

No reps are exceeding quota. You want a team where top performers exist and a comp plan that rewards you for overperforming.

They talk badly about current or past reps. If management says their previous reps "just weren't good enough," that's usually a reflection of them, not the reps. They either hired wrong or they’re not a great manager. And when you eventually leave, you'll be the next rep they blame.

High turnover, especially in management. Some rep turnover is healthy. You want to work with A-players. But when half the team leaves in the first year, or there's been a new sales manager every six months, something is broken. Nobody has figured out how to make it work.

The team gets zero inbound leads. Your role might be purely outbound, and that's fine. But if the entire sales org gets nothing inbound, it usually means there's no strong pull or demand for the product. You'll be fighting a constant uphill battle.

They can't tell you their numbers. If the hiring manager doesn't know how many reps hit quota, what the average sales cycle looks like, or what the conversion rate is, that tells you that either: they don't track it (not good), or the numbers aren't great and they don't want to share them (very not good).

If You're Hiring (Or Want to Know What Managers Look For)

On the flip side, if you're a sales manager hiring reps, or you're a candidate who wants to know what the other side of the table is watching for, here are the signals that raise red flags in sales reps.

They didn't research the company. They don't know what you sell, who the competitors are, who the CEO is, or anything about the person interviewing them. Research and prospecting are a massive part of the job in sales. If they can't do it for their own interview, they're not going to do it for your prospects.

They've bounced from company to company. Moving to a new company for a better opportunity is fine. Six-month stints everywhere is bad. The most sought after reps on the market are the ones who worked somewhere long enough to build something and moved up while there.

They badmouth their last employer. This usually says more about the person than the company they're talking about. And when they eventually leave your team, they'll say the same things about you.

They don't have any questions. If they walk out of an interview without asking a single question, they either didn't prepare or they're not that invested. Half of sales is asking good questions. If they don’t ask any in the interview, it’s a bad sign.

This list isn't exhaustive. There are plenty of other signals on both sides of the table. But these are a few red flags I’ve personally seen throughout my career.

Give me another 10 years in sales, and this list likely gets longer. (:

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. New research says that the US is in a productivity boom right now, but it’s not because of AI. Apparently, the increase in productivity is because more people are working from home. Less commuting, fewer distractions, and more output. But I think they forgot to factor in vibes. There's nothing like being in a sales bullpen, ripping cold calls while the rep next to you closes a deal. Your kitchen table can't replicate that. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Ask what they’ve already tried 🗣️ 

• 75+ sales emails that convert ✍️ 

• The BDR → AE promotion 👀 

• Making 6-figures in sales is getting harder 😬 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

Turn Prospect Silence into Sales Opportunities

Fed up with emails that vanish into the void? Our collection of 75 field-tested templates delivers what others just promise: responses. No fluff, no jargon – just emails prospects actually read and reply to.

You'll get:

• 25 first-touch templates that spark real conversations

• 30 follow-up templates that keep deals moving

• 20 break-up templates that preserve future opportunities

These aren't theoretical best practices. They're battle-tested messages used by successful sales teams to land meetings and close deals. Each template is designed for quick customization – swap in your details and start seeing results.

Download Now 👉️ 

How to Navigate the Most Common (and Frustrating) Promotion in Sales

If you're a BDR right now, you've probably done the math.

There’s 20 BDRs on your team and maybe 2 AE spots opening up this year. The promotion path you were sold in the interview is starting to feel a lot less like a ‘for sure’ thing.

About 70% of SDRs eventually move into an AE role. In most orgs, the timeline is 12 to 18 months. But "eventually" and "guaranteed" are two very different things. And if you're not careful, the move you make to speed things up could be the one that sets you back.

Tenure Matters More Than You Think

The Bridge Group tracked SDR-to-AE promotions across hundreds of SaaS companies and found something that should make every BDR think twice about rushing the process.

SDRs who were promoted with 11 or fewer months of experience had a 55% failure rate as AEs. More than half of them lasted six months or less in the role before getting canned.

On the flip side, SDRs who had 16 or more months of experience had a 6% failure rate.

I like those odds a whole lot better. That's basically the difference between a coin flip and a near certainty, simply by staying in the BDR role for an extra 7 months.

The average tenure before a successful promotion is about 17.5 months.

But don’t take away the wrong lesson here… just because someone’s been at a company longer, doesn’t mean they’re going to be way better at sales. This data just shows that getting experience and a base set of skills is a major indicator of how successful someone will be as they move up.

The Jumping Ship Trap

I see this one a lot…

You're 10 months in. The AE spots at your company are filled. Another company reaches out with a BDR role, better base pay, and a recruiter who promises a "fast track to AE".

So you jump. And now you're back at zero. New company, new product, new team, new management. You have to rebuild every relationship, re-prove yourself, and earn trust from scratch. So that "fast promotion path" they promised is actually another 12 months before you're even in the conversation.

I've experienced this firsthand. In my first BDR role, I jumped to a different company when I was one of the next up for promotion to an SMB AE. My second BDR role ended up paying more in base and OTE than the AE role would have, and I met a lot of great people. No regrets, but I would have gotten to AE much quicker if I stayed.

In most cases, I'd tell any BDR to stick it out where you are. Get promoted there. Once you have AE on your resume, your options open up tenfold. You can go anywhere as an AE instead of starting over as a BDR at a new company and going straight to the back of the line.

How to Make Sure You're Next Up

If you're going to stay, make sure you're doing more than hitting quota and waiting.

Ask your manager directly what the promotion criteria are and when the next AE spot is expected to open. If they can't give you a clear answer to either question, that probably tells you something.

But by far, the biggest thing you can do is start doing the job before you have the title. Sit in on AE calls. Learn the full sales cycle, run discovery like an AE, and build relationships with AE managers.

During my time at Amazon, promotions worked this way by design. To move up, you had to show that you'd already been operating at the next level. The promotion was just the formality that got you a new title (and pay bump).

Most sales orgs work the same way, even if they don't say it out loud.

A study found that 56% of executives already knew who they wanted to promote before they evaluated all the candidates. The way you become that person is by making the promotion feel like a formality, because your manager already sees you doing AE-level work every day.

Sales Meme of the Day

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Good Morning. It's National "Ya Dig!" Day, so in honor of the holiday, here's a new cold call opener to try out: "Hey {Name}, it's {Your Name} over at {Your Company}. Can ya dig it?" Then say nothing. Just wait. Best case, they laugh and give you 30 seconds. Worst case, you get hung up on. Let me know how it goes. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

• Repeat it back! 🗣️ 

• This app makes us love sales calls. 🎁 

• Our guide on corporate politics 😃

• Finding a new sales job in 30 days 👀 

• Sales jobs & a meme 😂

Sponsor The Follow Up | Subscribe

This app might actually make you love sales calls.

You know that feeling when a meeting ends, and you already forgot what was said?

Yeah. Me too.

And you're so busy back-to-back all day that the follow up email just never happens.

Granola fixes that. It listens to your calls and turns them into short, clear summaries with next steps. And can even write the follow up email for you.

Be that person who actually follows through.

Download Granola free and use code: THEFOLLOWUP for a free month.

Try Granola for Free 👉️ 

How to Play the Corporate Politics Game.

When I was in my second BDR role, I sat down with one of our senior AEs to get his advice about moving up.

I wanted to know what it would take to get promoted to an AE.

That day, he gave me a hard dose of reality.

He asked me who I thought was the most well known BDR on the team. For the sake of this story, we'll call him Franky. Franky wasn't the best rep on the team and never worked the hardest. But he was loud, outgoing, and everyone in the sales org knew who he was. Management liked him.

The AE told me Franky would absolutely be the next one promoted. And it had nothing to do with his numbers, because his numbers sat right in the middle of the scoreboard.

That conversation changed how I thought about promotions forever.

So if you’re ready to play the corporate politics game, here’s what you should know. 

Your Numbers Are Table Stakes

In a lot of sales orgs, your performance isn't the most important factor in getting promoted. It matters, but it's the baseline. 

A Georgetown University study surveyed over 300 business execs and found that 56% of them already knew who they wanted to promote before they started evaluating candidates. And even after evaluating, 96% still promoted their favorite anyway.

That means in more than half of promotion decisions, the outcome was decided before anyone looked at the numbers. And roughly 90% of the executives in that study admitted that favoritism plays a role in how they decide to promote at their company.

Let’s clear things up though… this isn't an excuse to stop performing. If you're at the bottom of the board, nobody’s going to promote you, and your manager probably won’t like you.

But if you're anywhere in the middle or above, the thing that separates you from the next person could be whether the people making the decision know who you are.

Being Known Is a Skill

The reps who get promoted fastest are visible.

They speak up in team meetings. They share wins in Slack. They build relationships with managers and leaders outside their direct team. They volunteer for projects that put them in front of senior leadership.

You could call this kissing up. But it’s more about making sure the people who decide your career actually know what you bring to the table. If you put your head down, grind quietly, and expect your numbers to speak for themselves, you're playing a different game than the one being scored.

It would be like becoming the best musician in the world, but never promoting your music for people to find it. 

Franky understood this, and he was great at playing the game. He was the kind of person who made himself known, and when a spot on the AE team opened up, his name was the first one that came to mind.

Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game

You can spend your energy resenting the Frankys of the world, or you can learn from them.

The game has rules. They might not be the rules you want, but they're the ones that exist.

This doesn't mean you have to fake it and become someone you're not. You just need to understand that doing great work and making sure the right people know about it are two different skills. Most promotions require both.

Start small. Share something you learned on a call in the next team meeting. Send your manager a quick update when you close something worth mentioning. Grab coffee with someone a level or two above you that you don't usually talk to (although it can be awkward, this one is my favorite).

The best reps understand that selling internally is just as important as selling externally.

Sales Meme of the Day

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley