Phil O'Doherty

Gavin Walsh Regional VP of Zendesk, with some great advice for SDRs looking to step up into AE positions in our recent episode of Sales Unfiltered below ⬇️ The move from SDR to AE can be challenging, a lack of opportunities, a lack of experience, and fierce competition, but there are things you can control to give yourself the best chance of success. Check out the full episode here 🎥 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eUjTaUR6 🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eGhv44xM

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Companies say they want CSMs to "drive value, not just revenue." Then they turn around and pay them like glorified support reps. Here’s where the math ain’t mathing: You expect CSMs to own renewals, drive expansion, and increase product adoption… ...but you comp them like customer service agents with a small retention bonus. 🤷🏻‍♂️ That’s a fundamental misalignment. The best revenue leaders don’t just pay CSMs more. They pay them differently: - Base salaries at AE-level (or close). Treat them as revenue drivers, not cost centers. - Variable comp split: 50% retention, 50% expansion. Lagging (GRR/NRR) and leading (upsells, adoption). - Clear line between CSM & AM. CSM = Expansion & retention. AM = Negotiation & new product cross-sell. Too many companies lowball their CSMs, then wonder why: - Retention tanks. - Growth stalls. - Top CSMs quit to become AEs. If you want CSMs to act like revenue drivers, pay them like revenue drivers. It’s not a cost. It’s a growth strategy.

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Top Tip on Deal Updates in your CRM = Treat this like expenses. On the way back from a meeting log the travel, upload the receipt and you are done. No huge pile of receipts at the end of the month to sort through. For CRM, after every meeting or interaction update your deals. You are always up to date which means you never get chasers from you manager you avoid the 'update CRM admin session' and important information does not get lost. This behaviour also accelerates follow up time which also sets you apart. Give it a go... Sales Enablement Collective Matt Gallagher

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What does it take to go from writing code to leading customer conversations at scale? Josh Hicks, Senior Technical Sales Engineer at Jumpmind, joins us to talk: 🚀 Scaling to 70K databases and 20M changes/hour 🌧️ When data goes sideways (and how to fix it) 🔁 How to keep engineers engaged as companies grow 💼 What technical sales actually looks like From building SymmetricDS to supporting retailers like Petco and Build-A-Bear, Josh has done it all, and still finds time to write code. If you’ve ever asked "What’s next after dev?", this one’s for you. Links are in the comments section 👇

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In a renewal, you could be up against your competitors best AE.. how prepared are you? MEDDICC for Customer Teams - out today through Customer Growth Masterclasses, with the incredible Alister Tier and Libby Derbyshire. Learn how to find and build champions, when to navigate the EB conversation and the importance of pain and metrics. All tied up with a nice neat timeline on WHEN you should do these things ahead of renewal. #customergrowth #MEDDICC

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In SaaS, quoting is often the first critical step that ties your deal to downstream revenue. But most quoting systems weren’t built to carry that weight. They’re fast for Sales but disconnected from how Finance bills, how Legal governs, how RevOps plans for growth, and how customers experience your business. And every one of those disconnects adds friction you don’t always see… until it slows you down. 📣 Today, we’re launching Maxio CPQ: a smarter way to sell, structure, and scale deals across your entire revenue engine. Quotes are the contract Billing logic is embedded (no rework) Approvals and terms are structured, not scattered Forecasts reflect real revenue timing One system, one thread, one flow When quoting and billing live in one system: → Sales moves quickly and confidently → Finance doesn’t rebuild quotes manually → Legal doesn’t get dragged into every deal → RevOps gains real quote-to-cash visibility → Customers get invoices that make sense We believe quoting shouldn’t be the weak link in your revenue chain. It should be the foundation. 🟣 Maxio CPQ is live. 👉 Learn more about it here: https://lnkd.in/geK2TwBa

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Focus on your habits. 💪 Small gains = big wins over time. Especially in customer success. CS is critical right now. Not convinced? Listen to Marilee Bear, Chief Revenue Officer at Gainsight: Around 40% of SaaS revenue now comes from expansion. And CS teams are in the best position to identify and influence those opportunities. Think about that for a second... Nearly half your revenue comes from customers you already have. THAT is the power of great CS. According to our 2025 State of Customer Success Report, 67.3% of CS teams now track expansion revenue as a core KPI. That number was 52.1% just two years ago btw. The companies investing in their CS motion are seeing it pay off. Teams with structured daily habits report 34% higher net revenue retention compared to reactive CS orgs. Friendly reminder: Your CS team already has access to the customers. They know the pain points. They see the use cases. They understand where value lives. Make sure you INVEST in your CS team. CS is just as important as sales and marketing. Thx for coming to our TED talk ✌️ P.S. Agree? Repost to share

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Your CSM manages more revenue than your best AE. Nobody talks about this. The average AE carries a $1-2M quota. The average CSM is sitting on a $5-10M book. That's 3-5x the revenue impact. Every single day. And how does the org treat that? The AE closes a $500K deal. Gong. President's Club. Accelerators on every dollar. The CSM saves a $1.2M renewal that was walking out the door, expands it by $300K, and gets a Slack emoji. Same revenue. Completely different value signal. And we let this happen. CS leaders accepted the lesser comp structure because we were told "retention is its own reward." We stopped making the revenue case. We let finance call us a cost center and we adjusted to it instead of fighting it. We built the cage. Then we complained about being in it. You want to fix CS turnover? Fix the math. Comp on GRR and NRR impact. Celebrate saves like closed-won. Build a career path from CSM to GM — not from CSM to "be grateful." Because when your best CSM leaves, they don't just take their title. They take the relationships that keep your biggest accounts from picking up a competitor's call. 𝗖𝗦 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗦 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 — 𝘄𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. ⁉️ What's the total book value your CS team manages vs. your sales team's combined quota? Run the number. Then ask yourself why comp doesn't reflect it. #customersuccess #csleadership #saas #revenuegrowth #therevenueratio

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Sales mid-managers are at the biggest risk in 2026. ICs will still sell. VPs and Directors will own the numbers - and get blamed when they’re missed. So if you’re in the middle, and you’re not adding real value - why do they need you? The role has changed fast. You have to really know your people: who’s blocked, distracted, or quietly burning out. You have to understand your tools: how they connect, how they fail, how AI can actually fix problems. If you can’t navigate the systems your team uses every day, you can’t lead them. You have to understand how sales works as a system: pipeline, conversions, inbound and outbound flow. And you have to communicate clearly. No buzzwords, no corporate tone. Just clarity. The middle layer in sales is under pressure. If you’re not enabling, simplifying, or lifting the team - you’re optional.

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RevOps works when process, platform, and coaching line up. Starting point Manual workflows, limited CS visibility, and an underused HubSpot portal without clear practices. Finance data in Maxio wasn’t connected, so reporting lagged.  What we built Automated lead assignment, renewal and follow-up tasks, cleaner pipelines, customized dashboards, and lead scoring. Maxio was integrated for finance; Endpoint Usage data was connected for CS insights.  Results in 8 months • +30% ARR • +20% rep efficiency and productivity • +31% system utilization • CRM adoption from 64% to 95%  “On the first call, Set 2 Close showed us they were experts. That’s what we wanted.” — Niko Bielovich, COO, Airlock Digital  Read the full case: https://hubs.la/Q03CCZpN0 #RevOps #HubSpot #CRM #B2BSaaS #Cybersecurity

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One Simple Fix For Broken Sales → CS Handoffs We’ve all been there. A new customer shows up on the CS team’s radar like a mystery box. No context, no clarity, no idea why they bought or what they actually care about. - The result? - Repeated discovery - Awkward kickoff calls - Slower time-to-value - A CS team playing catch-up from day one It’s a terrible experience for the customer and sets the relationship off on the wrong foot Here’s one simple way to improve this: Leverage your Conversational Intelligence tool to generate automatic deal summaries with smart prompts. Instead of relying on reps to manually summarize every account (we know how that goes…), you can use AI to extract the actual voice of the customer directly from sales calls. Here’s how simple this can be: Ask your CI tool for some key questions and let the AI build out a deep overview of the sales engagement: 🧠 Prompt 1: “Summarize the top 3 business problems this customer is trying to solve.” 💡 Prompt 2: “What outcomes does the buyer care about most?” 📅 Prompt 3: “Highlight key stakeholders and any timing/urgency mentioned in this deal.” 🧭 Prompt 4: “List any risks, objections, or concerns raised during the sales process.” Then drop those summaries directly into your CRM and have a quick internal huddle with the AE to review. They aren’t on the hook to remember every detail and can add some key additional context for you. After that you are ready to create a much stronger kickoff with the customer. No more guessing. No more generic kickoffs. Just real context, straight from the customer’s own words.

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