Shane Walsh

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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Leading sales teams remotely isn't easy. Doing sales remotely is not easy either. One important thing I learned leading salespeople all over Europe over the last 5 years: You should schedule time together often. Here are a few regular sessions I usually put in our calendars: 1️⃣ Cold Calling Day (once a month): The whole team (SDRs, AEs, Operations) meets to call for one full day. Set a target for the day and see what the team can achieve together. We often booked > 25 meetings on one day. Helped us get closer to the revenue target. 2️⃣ Outreach / Cold Calling Sessions (2-3 hours, two times a week): The whole team focuses on outreach. These blockers are important for all salespeople to not losing focus on pipeline creation. You might as well be doing it with the whole team. At the beginning of the session, we usually do a warmup with some mock calls. The hardest part: Keep doing it over a long period of time. 3️⃣ Weekly Sales Team Meeting (1-1.5 hours): Everybody shares what they achieved last week (the most important advancements and new pipeline). There is usually a list of topics that need to be discussed. And knowledge should be shared (especially in early-stage companies). Everybody contributes. 4️⃣ Weekly Call Coachings (1 hour): A sales rep is sharing a recorded call with everyone beforehand. And the whole team is giving feedback on that call. By showing parts of the recording. 5️⃣ Weekly 1-on-1s with every sales rep (30 min) Agenda: 1. How are you doing? 2. What is going well / where do we have room for improvement? 3. What do you need help with? 4. Career & personal development 5. Other topics? 6️⃣ Weekly coaching on methodology with the whole sales team (60 min): Someone prepares a late-stage deal by answering the following questions: "What is the pain/ use case?" "What happens if they do not implement our solutions?" "Who is the Champion, and how do you know?" "What is their personal benefit of implementing the solution?" "Who else is involved? What does each care about? "Who is the Economic Buyer?/ Decision Board?" "What is their timeline?" "Do we understand the decision criteria for the people involved in the decision-making steps?" "What is the biggest risk of losing the deal?" Then, the team asks questions. Result: 2-3 immediate action items that help mitigate the risk of losing the deal. Learning and growing together. That is it. Anything else you are doing regularly with the whole team?

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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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One of the key sales metrics Miro’s Strategic Accounts team is laser focused on is our Walk in Conversion Rate: How much of the total $ value of pipeline we have on Day 1 ends up CW by EoQ. We’ve 3X’d this metric in the past 2 years, are now consistently delivering 40%+, and have gotten it north of 60% in a couple of quarters. We put these improvements down to focusing on 5 things: ➡ A Buyer Centric Sales Process: We redesigned our sales process to align more closely with how our customers make their buying decision and included customer verified exit criteria at each stage. We ‘win the stage’ by achieving a combination of MEDDPICC and customer oriented exit criteria and we don’t skip stages. Not skipping  = more qualified opportunities, fewer deals stalling between S2-S4, increased win rates, average deal sizes, and pipeline velocity. ➡ Customer Centric Deal Qualification: The exit criteria at S1 are designed to ensure the opportunity is anchored in solving a meaningful business problem for the buyer i.e., can we articulate a customer validated problem statement grounded in the 3 Whys and a solid “I”. This helps us qualify out early and often and ensure we don’t invest time in opportunities where a) Miro - as the premium/most sophisticated offering in the market - is not the best option for the buyer and/or b) we would be trying to solve a surface level customer pain. ➡ Tightening our Operating Rhythm: Two major changes we made: 1:Introducing thrice quarterly pipeline scrubs (Week 3, 6 & 10) helps ensure we walk into each quarter with solid pipeline hygiene and 2: Introducing a standing 2.5 hour weekly Deal Review Block on Tuesday mornings, alternating week to week between Top 5 CQ & Top 5 NQ Deals. ➡ Deepening our Partnership with Professional Services: We now involve our PS team from S2 on all opportunities tied to a significant deployment. In these deployments, we’re selling PS assisted workflow transformation vs licenses and - in CoM language - this team are experts in conveying “How We Do It” and “Where We’ve Done it Before”. They help us communicate the business outcomes a scaled Miro deployment can deliver (e.g., ~60% reductions in development cycles for physical and digital products), and increase customers’ confidence in our ability to deliver these outcomes for them. ➡ Decision & Paper Process: Partnering with our Champions to co-create a Mutual Go Live Plan that maps out the steps each side needs to take to deploy the solution by a certain date. This helps us build an accurate understanding of the various steps, stakeholders, and timelines in play, and reduce the chances of a late stage stick in the spokes. Related, Miro was just listed #18 in Forbes Cloud 100. If you’re interested in being part of what we’re building, check out our current openings (link in comments)

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I’m fanatical about pipeline generation and I think the phone is the best way to generate pipeline. But I still think “org-wide call targets” are stupid for 3 simple reasons: 1) Some reps have high connect rates, some are lower 2) Some reps set meetings with 20% of prospects they talk to, some are lower 3) Some reps convert most of their meetings to opportunities, some convert fewer So how would I set a call target relevant to everyone? Set it too low, and the low-converting reps have no chance to find success while they work on improving conversion. Set it too high, and the high-converting reps are annoyed AND their conversion likely decreases, making them less efficient. So I don’t set org-wide call targets. Instead, we set org-wide outcome targets (e.g., opportunities created), and then use data to inform individual input goals to reach out those outcomes. Some of my favorite “outcomes” to track: - Initial meetings set - Number of conversations - Discovery meetings converting to opportunities My favorite way to track priority outcomes is my “Good Day Framework.” It’s my most popular framework for improving pipeline generation, and you start generating more pipeline with it today here: https://lnkd.in/g879yrCK

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Selling into sales? Read this first. Most reps show up with a pitch. Top reps show up with context. Because selling to a CRO isn’t the same as selling to a VP of Sales. And what works for Enablement won’t land with RevOps. Each role has its own metrics, pressures, and priorities. If you don’t speak their language, they tune out fast. → Don’t pitch dashboards to CROs. → Don’t pitch templates to SDR managers. → Don’t talk “visibility” unless you can prove it. If you want to win the meeting, tailor the message. That’s why tools that start with context are becoming more valuable. I got early access to Lusha’s new AI Chat, and it flips how prospecting works. Instead of searching for CROs at 500-person companies, you start with the trends affecting your market. The AI reads the signals, connects the dots, and gives you a list of the people most likely to be impacted - fast and focused. It’s like prospecting, reversed. And it’s built for how top sellers actually think.

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To All Founders, CXOs, VPs, Decision Makers and Sales Leaders. Your company runs on revenue. And that revenue comes from sales. You do have a sales team too. And they’re out there every day, reaching out to other Founders, CXOs, and VPs just like you, trying to start real conversations. Let’s make a deal. We, the sales folks, will promise to stop the spam. No more spray and pray. No more cold calls without context. We’ll show up with smarter outreach, relevant messaging, and real intent. But in return, we’re asking for just one thing: Respect & Clarity. If a product doesn’t fit just say no. If you're evaluating, give a timeline. If it’s a maybe, don’t keep us hanging for weeks in internal loops. Give honest feedback. Not polite dodges. Too many good companies are pulling out of India. Not because India can’t afford great software. But because buying cycles are broken. Too many buyers: Ask for never-ending free trials Delay decisions for months Vanish at the finish line It’s hurting India’s reputation globally. We keep hearing: “Build in India, sell to the US.” “India-first doesn’t work. Go West.” Why? Because somewhere between the seller and the buyer, trust broke down, and yes, bad salespeople and bad sales processes have a lot to do with it. We can fix it, but only if both sides take responsibility. Let’s build in India. Let’s sell in India. Let’s make this a place where buyers respect sellers and sellers respect buyers. If you’re in a position of power, please make sure your organisation doesn’t waste a seller’s time. If you’re not buying, say no. If you're genuinely evaluating, give a clear process. And if you’re leading a sales team, teach them to respect a buyer’s time, too. No more random calls. No more lazy mass emails. No more desperate pitches. India deserves better. Let’s make it happen together. Because whether you're a seller or a buyer We’re all part of the same ecosystem. Let’s act like it.

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As Head of Sales Enablement at WSO2, I see firsthand how frameworks like MEDDPICC could help sales teams navigate complex and straightforward deals. It keeps us focused on what truly drives outcomes-measurable impact, clear decision criteria, strong champions, and knowing the competition. The result? Better forecast accuracy, faster deal cycles, and stronger win rates. #SalesEnablement #SalesExcellence #MEDDPICC #WSO2

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Back to basics tip #6: You are not customer support It's so easy to fall into the trap of chasing answers. And there will be times that this is the only option, but CSMs, hear me now... you've got to be ruthless with your time. If you're on the hook for renewals and/or upsells, doing support work won't get you to your number. You're not here to chase issues... you're here to drive outcomes. Your value isn't in how fast you respond; it's in how well you lead customers to ROI. Pull in the right resources. Use support for support. Product for product. Your job is to guide, not do it all yourself. I get it, it's hard to focus on outcomes when there are open issues. But you have to rise above the noise and lead with impact. In tech, there will always be bugs; there will always be some issue --- even with the most talented engineering team in the world! This will happen, so you cannot let it hold you back. And leaders, this only works if you create an environment where that's possible. Set the expectations. Create the toolkits and teams. Build the accountability. Then get out of the way. That is all. 

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Most sales enablement content never gets used.   Not because it’s bad. Because it’s not built for the people who need it most: sales reps in action. I spent months making a shiny playbook that barely got opened. The stuff that took off was quick, simple, and made with rep input from day one. Here’s what I learned: Reps don’t want a 40-page deck.   Or an hour long recording to re-watch. They need ~ 3 talking points for that tough objection that comes up every day. They don’t want a library with 50 resources.   They want a cheat sheet that’s easy to find when the prospect is on the line. They ignore content that feels like it was made by someone who’s never carried a quota.   But they share resources that sound like them, solve real problems, and make their job easier. Here’s what actually works: - Build with your reps, not just for them. Ask what they need, and use their words. - Keep it short. One page beats fifty. - Make it easy to find. If they can’t grab it in under a minute, it doesn’t exist. - Show real examples: what top reps actually say on calls, not jargon from marketing. Salespeople move fast. Enablement should too. Ever had a resource totally flop or totally crush?   What got your reps to actually use your stuff? PS - August is Fall. No one tell me otherwise 🍁

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