Ashley Salvador

Your CSM just renewed 95% of their book, but their expansion revenue was 3%. So you're paying someone $85K to be a really expensive customer support agent with a fancier title? Most CSM comp plans reward one thing: keeping customers from leaving. So that's exactly what you get. At the same time, more and more leaders are pushing their CSMs to focus on driving expansion revenue. If you want CSMs who actually drive growth, you need to pay them like growth matters. Instead of $75K base + 10% of renewals, try: - $65K base + 5% renewals + 15% expansion revenue. - $1K SPIFF for every expansion conversation that moves to proposal stage. - $500 bonus when they identify and introduce a new stakeholder to the AE. - Quarterly bonuses tied to account health scores that predict future expansion. Some teams add expansion readiness gates: - 80%+ of accounts with documented expansion opportunities unlocks 1.5x expansion multiplier. - <50% expansion pipeline coverage? Your renewal rate drops to 5%. With this structure (and the proper enablement), your CSMs will stop avoiding pricing conversations. They'll start thinking like account managers. They'll map org charts. They'll identify budget cycles. They'll become expansion hunters, not just churn preventers. One team we work with made this shift last year. Their CSM-driven expansion went from 12% to 43% of total growth. Same people, different incentives. If you pay CSMs to prevent churn, they'll prevent churn. If you pay them to drive growth, they'll start driving growth.

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Our outbound reps make 160% of the industry standard ($140K vs. $85K)   And that’s not an accident. It’s intentional.   The old model was broken: (1) Hire cheap junior reps (2) Churn and burn until a few survive (3) Measure activity, not outcomes   The new fad is wearing thin: (1) Hire cheap junior reps (2) Replace humans with fully automated AI SDRs (3) Mass spam that looks like marketing No trust, no creativity, no real pipeline   At Unify, we’re doing it differently: AI-empowered sellers.   Elite humans doing what only they can, supported by AI to scale what they shouldn’t. The results: (1) Ramp in weeks, not months (2) Outbound opps converting at 20% - higher than inbound (3) Reps paid for Closed-Won, not just meetings (4) And yes, one of our reps is pacing for $180K this year   Soon, an outbound rep at Unify will break $200K in annual comp. Not by accident but by design.   The future of outbound isn’t cheap headcount or AI bots.   It’s fewer reps, bigger outcomes, and top sellers getting paid what they’re worth.

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I’ve run many deal reviews over the last few weeks. Three of the deals were “stuck.” My advice for “unsticking” each was the same: “Make the next step easier for the prospect.” Sellers have to remember: 99% of your prospect’s job is not related to buying your product. 100% of your job is helping them buy your product. So you should do all you can to make every step as easy as possible for your prospect. A common time deals get “stuck” is right before a trial or a proof-of-concept. The most common reason deals get stuck at this stage is sellers wait for the prospect to finalize the trial/POC criteria. Think about all the work this creates for your prospect: - Schedule internal meetings to discuss requirements - Document requirements, and determine outcomes - Circulate document internally to get feedback/sign-off from anyone that missed the meeting(s) Add in vacations/busy schedules and these few steps could easily take weeks. A better route is making the next steps easier for your prospect - here's how we did it for our “stuck” deal: 1) Built our recommended PoC requirements and outcomes I told the AE to review the discovery and demo transcripts to make sure we cover customer mentioned required capabilities and tie to customer stated metrics. Then, I told them to add in additional required capabilities we know they’ll need to be successful, along with the outcomes they drive. Ideally, at least a few of these would be required capabilities we know our competition struggles to provide. 2) Position us as experts + make prospect’s job easier Once our recommended proof-of-concept approach was built, we sent to the prospect with a note: “We’re looking forward to kicking off your proof-of-concept. We’ve done a ton of these so we built out an initial template you can use as you build out your requirements - we made sure to include everything you mentioned as being essential in prior conversations + what we’ve seen necessary for customers with similar goals. Feel free to add/remove from this starting point, but hopefully this saves you some time. How’s your calendar next week to discuss this template + any necessary revisions?” Sure enough, this approach got the prospect engaged again. Take 30 minutes this week to review “stuck” deals in your pipeline. For each deal, write out: - What is the next step the prospect has to take? - What part of it can you do for them? And I bet you see a few “stuck” deals get moving again as you make it easier for your prospects to evaluate your solution. If you found this post helpful, you’ll love the AE Operating System. Templates, scripts, prompts, and more for every part of the deal cycle to help you sell more - the same tactics I've taught my teams to 2x our deal size, increase our win rate, and more than triple the percentage of reps hitting quota. Hundreds have already jumped in - and early feedback has been incredible. If you don't have your access yet, you can join at hitmyquota.com!

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Most sales reps HATE their CRMs. 40% of their time is lost in admin work. You know the drill: - Log every lead - Update every field - Report every tiny change But here’s what nobody likes to say out loud: → Salespeople want to SELL, not play data janitor 🤯 Almost HALF of your sales team’s work week is just… clicking, updating, moving stuff around in Hubspot, Pipedrive and other legacy CRMs. Wild. Now, imagine flipping that. Let’s do the math together (AI, hope you’re listening): 1/ Rep spends 40% of their time on admin work. 2/ Give them an AI Native CRM (like Breakcold 🧊🔨). 3/ That 40% is back in their pocket. All selling, zero admin. What happens? - More deals closed per rep - No need to hire extra salespeople to hit targets - Sales teams finally do what they’re paid for: sell The trick isn’t adding more “fluff AI” with fake features. It’s automating the boring stuff: → Lead movement? Automated → Task creation? Automated → Multichannel outreach? One dashboard (Email, LinkedIn, Telegram, WhatsApp) Now you get a happy rep, a happy founder, and a happy pipeline. People think the answer is hiring more salespeople. But you can already sell more with the people you have-if you give them back their time. --- That’s why we built Breakcold as the AI Native CRM for 2025, not 2010. What’s your biggest CRM headache right now?

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How to retain salespeople: 1. Don't mess with their money 2. Great coaching and feedback 3. Majority of the team hitting quota 4. Opportunities for internal promotions 5. Top performers hitting 200% (or more) 6. Listen to feedback and improve things That's it. That's all you gotta do. - Mike G 👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

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Writing OKRs / Strategic Goals for AEs is hard. Make it easy: 1. Prospecting Goal - what are you going to do to self-source pipeline? They propose; you approve. 2. Skills Goal - what are you going to do to get better at the craft of selling? They propose; you approve. 3. Quota - the most obvious one. You assign. Three individual OKRs for an AE is enough. Keep it simple.

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You don't miss quota because you suck at selling. You fail because you chase the wrong accounts. This framework will help you drive 200% performance. When I spoke with a CRO at a tech company he said: "We wasted 6 months chasing SMB accounts that never had budget for enterprise tools." After conversations with 100s of sales leaders, here's the signal-based framework that changed everything: The 4-Tier System: Tier 1 - Strategic (Top 5%) - $100M+ revenue, Series C+, recent acquisitions - Legacy tools creating bottlenecks, hitting platform limits - C-level researching solutions, attending demos - New sales leadership, missed quota 2+ quarters Tier 2 - Mid-Market Growth (Next 20%) - $20M-$100M revenue, Zoominfo expansion signals - Tech stack gaps, sales ops evaluating tools - Department-level intent, budget cycle alignment Tier 3 - Scale Prospects (25%) - $5M-$20M revenue, growing sales teams - Basic CRM, researching "best sales tools" - IC-level intent, competitor content engagement Tier 4 - Future Pipeline (Remaining 50%) - <$5M revenue, Crunchbase funding alerts - Minimal tech stack, downloading guides - First AE/SDR hire posted, early customer traction The Secret Sauce: Track 18+ data points weekly across: → Firmographics (ZoomInfo, Apollo, 6sense) → Intent surges (Bombora, G2) → Technographics (Clay, CRM, Stack) → Buying triggers (LinkedIn Sales Nav, Crunchbase) Why This Works: Timing = everything. Companies buy when they're: ↳ Scaling fast ↳ Missing targets ↳ Leadership changes. Layer the signals: Series B funding + VP Sales hire + intent surge = Tier 1 The compound effect: Focus 70% of your time on Tiers 1 & 2 ↳ they're 80% of your revenue with 40% shorter cycles. What's the strongest buying signal you've seen? 👇

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