Liban Hussen

Salesloft and Clari announced a merger. I call it a surrender. The legacy SaaS Unicorns are dying. Creative mergers and cap table restructuring is what happens when you burn through $937m in venture money and cannot grow sustainably. The VCs are paying for their mistakes. Employees equity will be crushed. Welcome to the new era of SaaS Wealth Destruction. But don’t worry, there’s a silver lining on the other side … BACKGROUND: When Salesloft acquired Drift in early 2024, I wrote: “To me, this is a merger that marks the beginning of many such mergers across all VC and PE portfolios that will play out in the next 1-2 years.” The Clari + Salesloft merger is another signal that the current winner take all investment and operating model no longer works. Over-capitalization no longer justifies premium pricing. The biggest and loudest conference booths no longer guarantee margins. The game has changed. Expect few years of “Creative Mergers” just to survive what’s coming.  Let’s first review the merged company: Drift + Salesloft + Clari + 9 other smaller acquisitions raised a total of $937M in venture funding and at its peak it had a combined valuation of $6.2 billion. Since the cap table was restructured with this merger; Clari’s real valuation is likely far lower - meaning investors and employees on both sides took a big hit. This is both a warning shot and a beginning of what’s coming. AI is going to accelerate such creative mergers and associated SaaS wealth destruction. Many Unicorns have to undergo this process to stay relevant or slowly fail. Ironically, the smartest Unicorn founders will choose valuation-crushing deals & rush to merge with other Unicorns. While such mergers destroy wealth and indicative of surrender, they are healthy for the overall ecosystem moving forward. Roughly 350 unicorns raised capital in the last 5 years. Many need restructuring. Why Salesloft + Clari merger make sense for the future? The real battleground of the future is CAC. CAC has already exploded in the past few years (60% for large SaaS). A platform like Salesloft + Clari has the potential  to subsidize CAC across multiple solutions and platforms while premium end point solutions will find it hard to survive and justify the ever rising CAC. Buyers are moving away from “Best of Breed” to “All in One” platform purchases. This also helps with the rising CAC. Every vertical will see the rise of multiple MEGA platforms - often a result of combining multiple Unicorns. With Clari + Salesloft’s combined product portfolio, data exhaust and high-quality customer base, Clari has a good shot at positioning itself as one of the MEGA revenue platform of the future. I hope more Unicorn founders have the courage to admit their mistakes and restructure before the music stops. But in the meantime, buckle up and get ready. We will see many more deals like this in the next 12-18 months. Welcome to the era of SaaS Wealth Destruction.

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6 storytelling frameworks every SDR needs to know. (unless you want to be an SDR forever) Most SDRs get storytelling wrong. And it's costing them promotions and pay-rises. I've seen brilliant ideas die in in meetings. Watched prospects check their phones. Noticed colleagues peers eyes glaze over when they talk. Not because the ideas were bad. But because the story wasn't there. These 6 frameworks change everything: 1) Simon Sinek's Golden Circle ↳ Don't start with what you do. Start with WHY you do it. ↳ Then explain HOW you do it differently. ↳ Only then share WHAT you actually offer. When Airbnb pitches, they don't just say "we rent rooms." They start with "we create belonging." Lead with vision. 2) Minto's Pyramid Principle ↳ Hit them with your main point first. ↳ Support it with clear evidence. ↳ Add details only if they ask. Your busy prospects will love you for this. No more waiting until 15 minutes into your cold call for the punchline. 3) The Pixar Pitch ↳ "Once upon a time..." (set the scene) ↳ "Every day..." (show the problem) ↳ "Until one day..." (introduce your solution) ↳ "Because of that..." (share the impact) ↳ "Until finally..." (reveal the transformation) This structure is pure magic for showing your company's journey or vision and how your prospect can join you. It shifts their belief system and helps them take action. 4) StoryBrand Framework ↳ Your customer is Luke Skywalker ↳ You're Yoda, the guide ↳ Show them how to win Stop making your company the hero. It's not about you. It's about your prospects. 5) What, So What, Now What ↳ State the facts clearly ↳ Explain why anyone should care ↳ Define the next steps Perfect for turning QBR from sleep aids into action drivers. 6) ABT (And, But, Therefore) ↳ Set up what everyone agrees on ↳ Introduce the challenge ↳ Present your solution When you need to be quick and compelling, this is your go-to. Great for 1:1s with your manager. In today's world, the best story wins. It books the meetings. It closes the revenue. It wins the deals. Your dials deserve a story that matches it. Master these frameworks, and watch what happens to: Your quota. Your commission. Your career trajectory. P.S. What's your go-to storytelling framework? ♻️ Repost to help an SDR in your network. Follow Chris Ritson for more SDR content.

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Me: How many dials do your SDRs do every day? 50? 100? Emir Atli: 3,000-4,000. Me: WHAT?!?!? Me: That’s literally 30-40x best practices. Emir: Best practices are for people who want mediocre results. Me: Fair enough. Let’s break it down. How many reps do you have dialing? Emir: We have 5 outbound reps. All hitting 3-4k dials. Me: So 20k/day from a team of 5. That sounds like a SPAM cannon on steroids. Emir: Most founders are afraid of being pushy. We’d rather grow revenue than be polite. Me: Just … Wow. I’ve never heard of anything quite like that. How do you not burn through your TAM in a month? Emir: Most people view their TAM as fixed. I think that’s pure laziness. You can build product for TAM expansion. Most people are just afraid to do it. Me: Tell me more… Emir: We started out SMB SaaS. We expanded to mid-market and enterprise by building features for use cases that were different than SMB. Upmarket was our first TAM expansion. Our second was looking at SaaS and seeing what other verticals had a similar go-to-market motion, that we could service. It turns out that recruiting firms have a CRM and AEs, as do IT companies … and we were able to make some small changes and expand into both of those. Me: That’s incredible. Are you global? Emir: We’re mostly focused on US/UK/Europe/Aus/NZ. Me: What are the SDRs telling these people when they call? Emir: The first thing we’re telling them is that it’s a cold call. The second thing we’re telling them is the most acute pain that we know they all have. It’s like a 10/10 product-market fit in terms of the pain. And everybody has it. Me: What’s that pain? Emir: “Do you struggle with attribution on brand marketing spend?” Me: Oh man. I have that pain. Emir: Of course you do. Everybody is throwing money at all sorts of different things and they have no idea if it’s working. We just call them out on it. Me: How well is this outbound machine working? Emir: We’re generating $74m/yr in pipeline from outbound. Me: I would say that is working. Emir: Of course, and it’s because most Founders would rather sit around and wait for inbound than build a machine that makes 20,000 cold calls per day. Me: Which is why they’re stuck at $2m ARR! ——— The uncomfortable truth? While most SaaS founders are debating whether cold calling is "dead," Emir's team is generating $74M in pipeline … By simply doing MORE of what everyone else is too scared to do at all! Volume beats "best practices" every single time. But most of you reading this STILL won't pick up the phone. I only have one question for you … WHY NOT?!?! P.S. If you want a recording of the entire interview and Emir teaching us about his $74m outbound machine, put “outbound” in the comments and I’ll send it to you. Make sure we're connected.

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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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When you run cold calls, data quality is the most important thing you should look for! I’ve been saying it for a while now, and the latest test from Céan Greer and Mark Bangs only proves it again. They ran a head-to-head test: 100 contacts, same persona, same call block. Disclaimer: They are not affiliated with either company, and paid for the data themselves. Lusha - Easy list building directly from Linkedin + HubSpot integration But results included: retired people, landlines marked as mobiles, fax numbers, wrong geographies, inactive numbers… FullEnrich - Higher connect rate (and NEW Hubspot integration) Only “issue”: a few personal mobiles => still far more usable than dead numbers 👉 Conclusion: data quality >>> Integrations and convenience are nice, but if the data isn’t reliable, you’re just wasting time. And as of today, nothing beats FullEnrich on quality.

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The biggest benefit of building a sales automation tool is that pipeline is never a challenge for us - but something else is. Last 6 days, Valley alone has booked us 41 demos & we don't even have a single SDR in our team. Here's how we operate and the challenges we face. The simple checklist is this: We have 2 account managers who manage Valley. 1. Responsible for keeping all the campaigns fed and ensuring that all the LinkedIn accounts of team members are connected to the tool at all times. 2. Responsible for making sure that every prospect is responded to within 10 minutes. We build our list from four channels: - Sales Navigator export - Ensure that they have posted within the last 30 days - People who have engaged with my content or viewed my profile on LinkedIn. - Lists built using Exa websets - Scraping posts by popular thought leaders and competitors Most users have to worry about enriching all their contact details via a waterfall enrichment and then spending time putting them into complex CRM systems with formulas to qualify each lead to score them. We don't do any of it. > We just upload them to Valley, and it marks every lead as a high, medium, or a low fit > We delete every low and medium-fit, and only keep high-fit individuals > We follow up with every lead, which Valley automatically does that for us. We have a few one-pagers and Loom videos to answer basic questions about the product > Track all of this data, put it into ChatGPT, and it tells me what types of campaigns are performing best and which types of audiences we're getting the most meetings from. That decides what our next list is going to be The result is in the video you see below, this is the calendar of my founding AE Alex Nelson. My calendar looks similar. But as always, there are problems that we also face : -> We’re generally not that great at setting up sales systems and processes. That means our follow-ups are not on time, and no-show rates sometimes become a huge problem. -> We are sub-par at setting up our CRM and tracking a bunch of these metrics, including attribution of where a lead came from. -> So many sales calls reduce attention towards every prospect and hence reduce conversion rates. We are trying to solve a lot of this by a bunch of AI agents and any time automations. Let me know if you have any advice. Some other things we’re doing: - Looking into tools like RevenueHero and Surface Labs for better routing and qualification. - Have built an AI agent using n8n and ChatGPT that automatically qualifies every lead after researching their website and sends it on slack. - Have launched a new website that makes our positioning even more clear on exactly how we help. - I've created several circleback workflows that automatically calculate deal probability, source, and a review of every sales call, and send it on our Slack channel. Oh, and if you want your calendar to look like this, then just book a demo with Valley.

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Bad meetings kill more deals than good meetings close. Here's a breakdown of when you should cancel meetings (and why your prospects will thank you): Btw, these are just a few of the rules the illustrious Kemyell Rieves imparted on a room full of reps during our Sales Assembly course specifically on Communicating Next Steps earlier this week: 1. Wrong people in the room. If the economic buyer isn't there and you need a decision, you're wasting everyone's time. Cancel and reschedule when the real stakeholders can attend. 2. No agenda = no meeting. If you can't explain the purpose in two sentences, cancel it. Your prospects are drowning in purposeless meetings already. 3. It can be solved with a Slack message. Stop scheduling 30-minute meetings to share a document. Send it via email. Ask for questions. Move on. 4. You owe them deliverables. "Just checking in" when you haven't delivered what you promised? Cancel the meeting. Do the work first. 5. They need time to digest. Sent them a 47-slide deck yesterday and want to "walk through it" today? They haven't read it. Give them space to process. Look, we all know the cliches about how expensive meetings are, but it's worth reiterating here: - Average meeting cost = $338 (8 people x $75/hour x 30 minutes). - Value of a meeting without clear outcomes = $0. - Your credibility when you respect their time = Priceless. That very last line in the math breakdown is the most important. Stop scheduling meetings to feel productive. Start canceling meetings to ACTUALLY be productive. Your prospects will respect you for valuing their time. Your deals will move faster because of it.

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I turned 41 today. I’ve now been in sales for 20 years and managed 100s of AEs. Here are the 10 things I wish someone had told me on day one: 1. Sellers don’t close deals, buyers do. Obsess over buyers’ internal meetings as much as your sales meetings. Tie your actions to the tasks they need to build internal consensus - not to your playbook. Sales is about progressing the buying process. Nothing else matters. 2. Having all calls on the calendar ≠ control (!). It’s the illusion of control. If calls aren’t balanced with solid buyer enablement between meetings (building business cases, multi-threading), all you’re doing is having ‘feel good syncs.’ Deals don’t need obsessive control. They need obsessive facilitation. 3. If you want to truly master influence, earn the ‘project manager seat’ in your buyers’ minds. Sales process is great, but it only covers 5–17% of buying. If you become an extension of the buying team by managing their internal process, you’re now a top 1% seller with 6–20x more influence. 4. Budget is rarely a reason to qualify out. Nobody wakes up with a budget set aside for the thing you sell. "No budget" simply means they haven’t found a good enough reason to create one yet. Unless they’re too small - then why are you on the call? 5. Multithreading isn’t how many people are on your calls/emails. That’s vanity. It’s about building real influence with each key stakeholder - separately - to support their needs. That’s what moves the needle. 6. Structured deep discovery rarely works in executive calls. You have to lead with stories (what you’ve learned, a POV), teach them something new, and let a conversation develop. If you lead with questions, they’ll tune out. 7. You *cannot* run Outbound intro calls like it’s Inbound. Lead with discovery on the latter. Lead with insights on the first (like w/execs). It’s ok to use slides if they serve the discovery. It’s even OK to demo before you have all the pain points figured out. As long as it all serves the discovery. 8. Only in a perfect role-play can you get all disco done in an intro call. If you try too hard, you end up with angry prospects. Worry less about the letters in your framework, and more about having a meaningful conversation around ‘why do anything’, ‘why now’, and ‘why you’. The rest only helps you and can come later. 9. Nothing cuts down deal cycles like dictating a high rhythm of communication. Received an email? Answer from your phone right away. Talking next steps? Offer a call tomorrow. Discussed timelines/MAP? Recap that on every follow-up. It’s not a sales trick, it’s sociology, human nature. 10. Never begin a POC without exec alignment - on scope, success criteria, and the problem/priorities it addresses. Explain to your champion how getting execs involved helps get their voices heard before putting in all the resources that a POC requires. Make it about them, not you. —— What's missing? What hard-learned lessons would you give your younger self?

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

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Almost 4 out of 5 B2B sellers missed quota in H1*. Yet they will nearly all use a swiss army knife of sales tech tools, each promising to 'improve win rates', 'revenue success' and 'x10 pipeline velocity'. More tools, more AI, more time selling to the right prospects (in theory), but less quota attainment. The problem is not those tools. Many are great with strong ROI. But the ROI is capped by sales skill and competency. A more productive underperformer is still an underperformer. Investment in tech for productivity and insights comes easy. Improving skills? Coaching? "Isn't that our managers role?" How many organisations are already resigned to 2026 seeing stats like this? Budget planning conversations already planning to reduce organisation revenue goals, because the data says its harder. Tech has not solved underperformance and it won't in 2026 either. *77%, Ebsta (now part of Fullcast) and Guy Rubin's superb benchmark data. Follow if you're not already.

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There's 4 levels to next steps after a sales call. Most reps are stuck on Lvl 1. While Lvl 4 closes deals 30% faster. Here's the Lvl 4 progression guide: 𝗟v𝗹 𝟭: "What do you recommend as next steps?" Hands over control. Invites a non-committal response. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦: you often get, "We'll circle back internally." Momentum killed. 𝗟v𝗹 𝟮: "Can we meet next week to walk through the implementation plan?" Proposes a firm anchor and requires a clear yes/no. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦: If the prospect can't commit to a yes, you often don't know if they have lack of authority/intent or are genuinely busy. Often ends with a weak suggestion as an alternative. 𝗟v𝗹 𝟯: "At this stage, folks typically schedule a technical deep-dive with C-level stakeholders. Would you like to set that up?" Brings in your own experience with buyers like them rather than forcing it. If the prospect responds with a no, gives an easy way to ask, "what's blocking?" to surface unanswered questions. 𝗟v𝗹 𝟰: "As you mentioned earlier in this call, you typically move to a scoped evaluation. Did you want to set up some time for scoping next week?" Similar to Lvl 3, but the magic lies in anchoring to 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 buying process, not your sales process. This only works if you qualified for their buying process earlier in the call. "How do you typically buy software in Dept A at your company?" 𝗕𝗼𝗻𝘂𝘀: Embrace urgency. "I have a slot open tomorrow afternoon to get you set up. Does that work?" Leading the buyer isn't about pressure; it's about providing a clear path forward. Align your sales process with their buying process, and propose next steps that move things forward for both parties. P.S. Reps and leaders can track quality of next steps on Sybill and get a weekly report on coaching areas on this aspect. I'll share how in tomorrow's post.

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It’s finally here: The 2025 Top 50 SaaS Quota Attainment Report is officially live. This research from Lunar Research Labs digs into the state of SaaS sales performance across 50 leading VC-backed companies. Inside you’ll find: - Average quota attainment benchmarks across the industry - How GTM org design (BDRs, Demand Gen, RevOps, Enablement) impacts performance - Trends in ramp time, deal sizes, and quota stability Benchmarks to measure your own team against If you’re a Founder, CRO, GTM Exec, or a seller that wants to know what good looks like — this is built for you. 3 ways to access the full report: 1️⃣ Download it directly on our site (link in comments) 2️⃣ Comment below and I’ll DM it to you 3️⃣ DM me directly and I’ll send it over And when you read it - curious to hear your take on the findings. Which data points resonate most with your experience?

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