Attention

A great revenue leader once told me, your sales excellence depends on 3 things, and in this order: 🧠 Talent 🤝 Pipeline 📖 Enablement Hiring the right people is the single most important thing you need to focus on. I’ve been interviewing a ton of candidates, and here are 3 questions I ask to vet exceptional people: 1) Tell me about the 3 biggest mistakes or failures that you’ve had in your life, and how those pivotal moments led you to who you are today -> this helps me assess their level of honesty and ability to iterate and learn from mistakes. 2) Tell me about a time you hacked a system to your advantage (crediting YC) -> how scrappy are they? Can they detect arbitrage opportunities and take advantage of them? 3) Why didn’t you hit your target that month? -> Do they take ownership of their failures or do they put the blame on the org? And more importantly, do they have an abundance mindset or a scarcity mindset? Let me know your best interview questions in the comments! #sales #leadership #ai #interview #jobs

Bootstrapping vs. fundraising? 🔥 This has become a hot topic again recently, especially when you see RB2B bootstrapping their way to over $2m ARR in slightly over 20 weeks. So... We just dropped Episode 8 of Pay Attention! In this episode, I speak with Adam Robinson from RB2B about bootstrapping his business to those impressive numbers. A huge thank you to Adam, who shares his insights on topics such as: 💰 Bootstrapping versus fundraising for growing a business 📖 Content creation and UGC 🚀 The challenges of growth and churn in SaaS And more... P.S. If you love what you hear, hit that subscribe button - new episodes are released weekly! #Podcast #SalesLeadership #GrowthStrategies #TechSales #Entrepreneurship #PayAttention

Here’s how I booked three meetings in one cold call session… on the intro alone 😅 Seriously… I didn’t even talk about Attention. My opening line was: “I’m going to be totally honest with you, I am new to sales, and I have had some early luck cold calling sales leaders, any shot you wanna roll the dice on the quick shpiel?” The reactions were a mixed bag. A lot of people laughed at me, a lot just said no. For what it's worth, I got chewed out less than with other intros I’ve tried. But, whether it's because they appreciated my honesty, or wanted to help out a new guy, three people wanted to find a time to talk more…. Without even knowing what I was selling. This intro is obviously not “scalable,” as I will only be new to sales for so long. But the two important takeaways for me are 1) people always appreciate honesty, no one likes a sleazy salesperson and 2) it is critical to experiment + A/B test every day. Add me for other tips and tricks like this!

The result of two campaigns I launched last week: 1️⃣ 0 meetings - 145 emails, 32% open rate, and 0% reply rate (2 email in the sequence sent so far). 2️⃣ 6 meetings (2 via LinkedIn follow-up) - 75 emails sent, 60% open, and a 6.7% reply rate (1 email in the sequence sent so far). One was a highly personalized message going out to NYC sales execs within a narrowly defined ICP but with little relevance. The other called out the prospect's engagement on a post and inferred a problem they might be facing relevant to the post's content. I bet you can guess which was which (no meetings with anyone from NYC 😉 ) Moral of the story… Yes, inboxes are getting flooded with automation, but intentional, relevant messages are more likely to stand out now than ever. While micro-campaigns aren’t necessarily scalable (that’s kinda the point), you can build the systems to ship these types of campaigns efficiently. ps. comment if you want the clay workflow I built to run the higher-performing play.

Want a quick, easy way to increase your conversion? Play around with your font sizing. Font size MATTERS for conversion rates. At Attention, we've seen increases of up to 20% in conversions just by tweaking font sizes. Your fancy design means nothing if users bounce because they can't read it. Don't believe me? The New York Times boosted click-through rates by 20% just by increasing headline font size. Even Google saw a 15% bump in CTR by enlarging search result text. Accessibility isn't optional, it's essential. Larger, readable fonts aren't just good for conversions - they make your site usable for everyone. Screen readers, mobile users, and your grandma will thank you. For the first phase of any web project, we ask our designers to prioritize readability over "sleekness." Figure out your optimal sizes, test them, and then let's talk about making it pretty.

The death of the SDR… I cringe when I hear this. Someone recently told me that they would never hire any SDRs, because new AI tools in the market, managed by Growth or RevOps, should replace them. (Plus I had to be a therapist to Noah Kaye who overheard this on his first week of being an SDR) This is BS. 1) SDRs should be augmenting and complementing signal-led outbound. SDRs should be working with your growth team, do things that don’t scale, and communicate this success to them so they can figure out how to replicate it. At Attention, we ask SDRs not to do any automated outreach for their first 2-3 months. Figure out your own signals, your copy, and then let’s share all these learnings with the growth team. After that, we teach them how to use Clay, and get them to build workflows that tie to our general GTM engine. The role isn’t getting eliminated, it’s evolving to a more technical function. 2) Internal promotion is key. Last time I checked, being an SDR is still a great path to becoming a strong AE. Please prove me wrong :)

Best AI tools to improve your pipeline. 1) Attention : Sales assistant 2) Clay : Data enrichment 3) Instantly.ai : email outreach 4) lemlist : linkedIn outreach 5) RB2B : visitor identification 6) Unify : multi-channel outreach Give them a try for great results!

Here's how I booked a call with the CRO of a Series E company on week 2.... 1️⃣ I flipped the script. When he asked why he shouldn't stay with a competitor, I asked how he used the tool. Suddenly, he was telling me about his pain with it. 2️⃣ I centered the conversation around him. My intro was tailored towards a CRO, not a generic pitch. 3️⃣ I kept it concise. C-Suite execs are hard to get on the phone, let alone have a full conversation with. I made every second and every word count. The backstory is also worth sharing. When booking the meeting, he wanted to do it 30 minutes after we got off the phone. Rory and Jacob were unavailable, so I started to panic. Luckily Anis said, "you know what, I'll get back in the ring for a round." I then got to watch the sensei perform a discovery + demo in one call, and book a follow-up. Calling C-level employees is scary, but worth it :)

⚡️ We just dropped Episode 7 of Pay Attention! In this episode, I speak with Alex Vacca 🧠🛠️ from ColdIQ about best practices for succeeding at Top-of-Funnel. A huge thank you to Alex, who shares his insights on topics such as: 🔮 The future of AI in sales ⚙️ Sales automation best practices ✉️ Tips for a successful outbound strategy And more... Catch this episode LIVE NOW on Apple Music, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform (also linked in the comments). P.S. If you love what you hear, hit that subscribe button - new episodes with GTM legends are released weekly! #Podcast #SalesLeadership #GrowthStrategies #TechSales #AI #PayAttention