Transcript for "All the way to President's Club: what actually separates top performers": And we are live. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. I see some attendees being there with us right on time, so it's perfect. I think we we always wait for the a couple of minutes for the the people finishing on time and joining us to to be there with us, and then we we kick start. So we have, like, I would say, like, two minutes ahead, if it's okay for Excited. everyone. Let's go. We were 140 people attending these events. So let's see. And yeah. the attendance rate generally, Remy? How many people do you think are showing up out of No. It's like I think. it's it's depending on the on the subject. It's range ranges between, I would say, like, 50 when it's, like, small team niche when we just cover, like, really hands on, topics to 500 when we talk about 11 laps complexity and we just drive more attendance. It really depends if it's inspirational or just hands on on on certain topics. So that's all. And, That's amazing. I think I think it's the it's what? It's the the fifth or the sixth that you're doing, since you joined the list. Yeah. Tell me. Exactly. Exactly. I think you count as well. I did couple of them. The first one, I did, like, in together with. We did perplexity with the DevRel Labs, and then I did it, myself. And I'm happy to cover certain type of topics. If I'm not the one well positioned to to be in front of the speaker, I I try to to go in the organization and find the the the best suited person. So that that's what we try to do. But I yeah. I've been running a few. We have, like, a few coming as well. So it's cool. to see these people. Yeah. That's, cool. hope. hopefully, after this call, you can say that this was one of your favorite. I will. Like, looking at the prep call we had, I can already say. Amazing. I think we can we can kick start, one more minute. We have, like, 14 k credits that I cannot use, Rizzo. Send me an email, remi,remi,@lempire.co, and I will try to handle that for you. That that's all I can say. Pardon this. I say hello to everyone. Where are you guys come from? I will start. See if you use properly the chats. Amsterdam. That's cool. Boston. Alright. We have people from from everywhere. Exactly. London. That's cool. I'm I'm actually from Belgium originally, but, living in Tel Aviv at the moment. Ah, there we go. Someone from bro Brussels. That's where I'm from. Hello, Edgar. Cool. Cool. I think we can we can start. So I'm super happy to welcome you, everyone. I'm super happy to host this webinar, this new webinar, with the great speaker we have today, John Atar. We will, like, follow a certain, certain, like, parts, like the the the president's club, story, the system, and then, like, what's got him there. I would like to speak about the agenda a bit later. But first, what I want to do with you, because I saw I saw you joining, is, like, ask you two questions, two question only, and just launch a poll. So I will do it now. The first one is this one. What got you here today? I want to I want you to hear what got you to this webinar. Is it because you want to hit president's club? That could be an an answer. Is it because you want to understand what's your best performance? Just curious or you want to roast John? I heard some people wanted to have you on the grill, so I want to see how many. I hope I hope a lot came to Rose. It's, it's always funny jokes after with a friend. That's cool. I think there is, like, at least two people trying to trying not trying yet, but willing to roast you. I see, like. I see I see one of my friends is already roasting me in the chat, so it's it's good to have him here. Nice. You see some some names, you know. Cool. So I see that the most most people want to understand, like, what's the very top performers. I think this this will be, like, the main topic we'll cover today. We'll try to cover this topic along all the the different parts, so bear with us. And if we do not if I do not cover this topic well enough, do not hesitate to jump in the chat. Do not hesitate to jump in the q and a and ask the question directly to to John that this is the ballpoint of a webinar. This has to be live. This has to be a conversation with with us altogether. As interactive as possible, yeah. please. Ex exactly. If not, it's boring as fuck. So let's go. I have a second question for you, and I think the most most answers were I want to understand what's for your top performers. Exactly. The second question question for you is and let me close this one. I open this one, and it is the polls have closed up. What is president club for you? Is it a trip to Hawaii close in the sand? Is the fat bonus on top of commission? Is it eternal recognition for your peers? Is it all of the above? Obviously. How do you feel about the p club? I will say, like, p club. I will say presence club during this, webinar, so bear with. me. Everybody calls it PC, p club, I see. president's club. You've got you've got a a lot of names, but it's all the same. Right? Nice recognition, and we'll talk about this, during the next forty forty, forty five minutes. we have together. And I feel like people, they they anticipate you saying it's all of the above, obviously. So I hope you went to Hawaii. I hope you had a fat bonus on top of your commission and it's another commission from your peers. We will see if it's if it's the case. This is, like, a topic we will cover together. So we have, like, mainly all of the above and then a bit of the rest. Let's start. I think we have the answers we wanted to to kick start. I think we we know a bit more, like, why. you're here, what you expect from the p club. Let me just, give you, the edge the agenda of today, what we had in mind for today. We had in mind to cover, like, three main topics. As I said a bit before, the real story, we want to hear John saying how we spend the two years back to back p club, what the numbers and the president's club looking like. This is the first part. We'll, like, have, like, ten to twelve minutes on it. Then the system, obviously, we want to and that's the question you're asking yourself. That's the poll you just answered. We want to know the system you put in place in order to do it, to make it, to the speaker, PC, whatever the name we we give we give it. The pipeline control, the energy education, the team sports is, like, topic we'll cover in the second part. And then third part will be, like, what most reps get wrong. This is not us knowing everything that the rep should do on the market. This is just us or John, here telling you, like, the mistakes he has he has seen and he he think could could cost President's Club, to just an extent. So we like to have this in the third parts, and I said at the end, final q and a, final greet time. You can ask the question whenever. We'll try to answer them. Most of the time, we'll try to cut the webinar we have altogether in three parts, and at the end of each part, answer Q and A. But at the end, we'll have also time to to grill John if this is what we want to do. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, that's why that's what a a good part of my friends are here for, so I'm looking forward to it. Should we should we get started? Let's go. Yeah. Let's go. Let's go. First part, Amazing. maybe, like, the first question for you is, like, John, introduce yourself. Tell us a bit more about you, and tell us something we don't know, we cannot see, maybe on your LinkedIn profile, something you shared with with us, like, during the prep call. Like, yeah, tell us. Yeah. Of course. I mean, first of all, I would say, as you can hear from the accent, French from Belgium originally. A lot of people think that I that I'm, you know, in Tel Aviv, Israeli, but, no, I'm I'm actually European. I I never planned to be in, in tech sales. I I studied the engineer for for six years, actually, electrical engineer. I thought that was gonna be one of the software engineer or hardware engineers. Actually, on the side, I even had a own business of myself that was heavily reliant on tourism. It was a luxury concierge. So that's why, instead of doing four years of study, I ended up doing six years because I needed the the time to run the business on the side. And the funny thing is, COVID is what made me get into tech sales, whereas a lot of people, you know, suddenly lost their job during the COVID period. My business fell kind of the to the ground. Right? Because it was fully reliant on on tourism. So with this engineering degree, I tried to kinda land that, that, that engineering job, but it was a funny cycle where they ask you for, a year, two years of experience. But if you don't have, a first job that gives you the entry, then you can never really get into it. And I was like, wait. But, I mean, you you were selling your in your own business. Right? So why not just look for a sales job, especially in the start up nation here in Tel Aviv? A lot of great companies coming out of here. And that's exactly what I did. I started reaching out to people, using my network. I got in, in touch with a VP sales at a company called dLocal. It's a it's a payment provider, in a in a in New York way, but they have few offices here in, in The Middle East. I started there for six months, and, actually, I was using Lucia to prospect. I fell in love with Lucia, and that's exactly what brought me to to, to start there. I did a couple interviews, got my first job, and that's how my real story in tech sales started, I would say. So you, the product, you fell in love with the product, and that's what made you, get in touch with the people running the product to to work with them for them. That's that's the the story behind this. Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, I you know, I was when I entered in tech sales, I I was, like, amazed that you can find phone numbers of from and emails from people. I didn't know there was such a thing. I was not in tech whatsoever. So I was like, hey. It's so easy to get the phone number. Before, it took me months to find the phone number of x y zed establishment that I wanted to reach out to. And I used it exactly to get the phone number of, hiring manager there at YuJa, and that's pretty much how I got my, foot in the door. That's cool. You forced this Nissan somehow, so that's pretty cool to hear. Yeah. That's a cool introduction, and that's that's that's cool to hear, like, something you cannot see truly on your profile, like, how much you ask yourself, like, the questions. So I I went to engineer, and then I I I switched launching my business. COVID happened and then went to a tech tech words, tech company, Lucia. That's really cool to hear that. If we switch to the real story of the president's club, and people just joined us to to hear about that, can you tell us so I anticipate the fact that it was said in the title it was at Lucia. But can you tell us when was it, and what got you there in terms of numbers? Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's start with the first year. Well, first of all, when I joined Lucia, I started as a as an SDR, and I think it's one of the most important thing when you want to get to president's club as an account executive. You need to do the the heavy lifting before, and it's what sets me apart in the org, back when I was there is that I really did the the heavy lifting of prospecting on a daily basis. And when I got to be account an account executive, you had those that were just very happy with the inbound leads. They were not prospecting, so you could directly see a big difference. But to your to your question, there were two years. The first one is 2024, and then just followed by 2025. Completely different stories, but the the same result. In 2024, I had a quota of 600 k SMB sales, very transactional, Average deal size of $10,000. I closed 1,200,000 that year, so nearly 200%. 118, 120 deals in total. So really big volume guy. As I said, it's transactional. And I won president's club for most logos, so the most amount of signed deals in 2024. And then in 2025, it got me this nice promotion to a mid market and enterprise. At that point, you know, it's more strategic deals. You're looking at longer sales cycle. You need to multithread. It's not a very transactional. Don't make that mistake. Target of $840,000 for the year. I pushed it to 1.1. So fewer, fewer deals, but bigger, bigger logos, I would say, bigger deals, more intentional. And, yeah, that was that that's that's the story. When we when we prepped this call, you were telling me about, an AE you were, like, rival with. I would put it that way. It's always like a a competition, a good one between people trying to end up in the same club, in the same p club. How how was it for you? How was, like, competing with others looking like? I think I think, you know, when you, I'm a big football fan. Right? So when you take, Messi and and Ronaldo, I don't think they would have been where they were if they didn't have each other to bounce from one another. Right? And I think that six I don't compare myself to Messi and or Ronaldo to be to be quite quite frank here. But what I'm saying is having someone that really pushes you and give you that competitive, mindset to say, hey. I mean, you just closed the 50 k deal, but you just closed the 61, and you just surpassed you. How can I do to go to the next step? And and the funny part is on those two years, I had, this guy, his name is Daniel, and we were always very close neck to neck. The first year, I mean, in terms of ARR, I closed 1.2. He won't closed 1.3, but he was already in mid market enterprise. So it was not really you can't really compare some apples to apples, but in the second year, meant to the tight risk. And and we're very different people. You know? I was more of the relationship builder, consultative, kind of selling. Right? Really creating that relation with the person, understanding the problem. How can I go understanding their world, how can I fix it? Right? Whereas he was just like a closer. I mean, he was sharp, very bold in the way he was speaking to customer in in a way that sometimes, I tell you honestly, made me feel uncomfortable when I was listening to some of those calls. But he he works. You know? He he he doesn't need to be one type of seller. It can be you can have your own personality. But if you do the small things right, then, I I believe you have a shot at, the president's club. That's fine how many different type of sellers I have seen in my carrier. Like, you have, like, the introvert, the extrovert, the analytical, the conversational, the one building relationship, the one relying on the on the external internal ecosystem they have in order to just leverage everyone to to build build up what they can they can do externally. So there's a different a lot of different type of people, but I understand by what you say that the environment is really helpful in how you can deliver and push yourself to to this president's club. Talking about the president's. Of course. yeah. Go for it. Just just just just on that. No. It's it's all good. And just on that, I think, you know, when you have so many different sellers at the end of the day, you can be you're a cert a certain way, but you also learn from others. Right? So if he was very bold in in a in a scenario where I wouldn't have been, I understand that I could potentially use this boldness in in a scenario when I need, where it means creating urgency, when I need this deal before the end of the month or before the end of the quarter. It's something that I wasn't feeling so comfortable, but I learned from his skills and from the way he was doing things to close. So that's why I say you bond from one another and though though this competitive, landscape, you know, environment, sorry, is is is crucial, Yeah. to perform well. Yeah. And talking about this this presence club, so we had the question at the beginning of this this webinar. What is presence club for you? What does it look like? Can you tell us what it was for you at Lucia? What it's not? Just to just, like, have, like, the reality behind the hype. Yeah. Of course. I mean, it it's it's a good question because when you scroll over LinkedIn, you'll see a lot of, pick lobbying, going to Aruba or to one of those beautiful places. But I have to say that, HubSpot, just went to the wire. hope. exactly. I just saw pictures today. It looked looked awesome. But I have to say that it's not the same thing everywhere. I see it I see it as an exclusive incentive for top performer, whether and we'll talk about what I got. Right? But whether it's a trip, a bonus, or whatever recognition, I feel like whenever you wherever you apply in the future, whenever you say you were president's club and you, of course, have proof to back it up if if it's requested. They look at you differently. You position your your your position in, interview process already has a bigger meaning. So so that's great. And and I was saying, like, not every company runs it the same way. And in fact, there's some people, some friends of mine, most of my friends are account executives. Some people don't even know what, what president's club is. But but, yeah, it's it's it's when you have it in an organization, it's great because you you push yourself to go above and beyond and get that, get that recognition. For us in Lucia, it was, I know a lot of people are waiting for this answer. For us, in Lucia, it was a big fat bonus on top of the paycheck that you can use however you'd like. And two years in a row, it was nice to get that that bonus for sure. That's really cool. That's really cool. Yeah. I I want to ask you the question if it opens doors, but I think you answered the question. So you put it on your LinkedIn. You have this discussion with the hiring man hiring managers, and it comes on the table. Like, have you done PickClub? What is even if they don't know PickClub, that's a recognition you have you have with you, and you can talk with them in order to make sure that they know you succeeded at the previous company. That doesn't mean that you will succeed at any company, but that means that what whatever you did before at Lucia, that was a a great time and a time you did well. Yeah. 100%. It's true what you say. Succeeding in one company doesn't necessarily mean that you will succeed in another. You have a lot of things around it. Right? You have the the the market and then so many other factors. But once we get into the system, I believe if we really apply those things properly, it doesn't matter where you work, Yeah. you'll always be one of the top performer. And we can dive into it. I know that's a subject you wanted. to go for it. Let's go for the system. Yeah. So we talked about the real story. Let me share my my screen again, real quick. So we just discussed, guys, about the first parts, the the story behind. We wanted to be quick on this. We want just wanted to be to know a bit more about, John, how we how we got there, and and just what's how he felt about the peak lab and what does it look like. But But the second part is the most important one, the system. So I stopped sharing my screen. Back to you. First question, I opened the questions willingly. Walk me through how you manage your day, how you manage your pipeline. Like, what are the the main things you put in place first in order to make it what was it? Okay. I mean, I think it it relies around three main things, and it might disappoint some people in the audience. It's not something that I invented. It's a lot it's things that most of you know or probably already do, but it's not done consistently enough over a long period of time. I think a lot of people have those spikes of motivation around those three topics that I'm gonna bring up. They do it for a couple weeks and then dies down, but it's it's very important to keep it, to keep it as consistent as possible. So the first thing is really and I I believe in this, is really the product obsession. So what I mean by product obsession is you're a seller. Alright? But there is so much going on behind you. You have your product team. You have your legal team. You have your solution engineers. You have your marketing. You have so many other, departments. And I would be talking to these guys nonstop because these guys appear in some of my sales cycle. Right? So whether I have a technical question, I need to bring in on another call a solution engineer. If it's something on the road map, I would need to bring my products, you know, my product manager on another call. So it's every time another an extra an extra an extra step. Whereas if you really obsess over, talking to these guys on a daily basis, understanding their work, what they're doing, you can always keep that small little step even when it comes to contracting. Understand your contract. Understand the clause. You don't need to be a a lawyer. And especially today with with the I didn't have ChargeGPT when I started. I mean, today is super useful or a clause, but I would read the contract and really try to understand what each and every word meant so that when I go on with a procurement or with any, you know, towards last stage, last stage deal last stage deal, it's it's much easier to, to, to finalize it yourself rather than depend on someone else and add another step on the call. And you always save the three, four, five days, that that are that are super useful, I believe. So that's the first point. And if I and stop me, Remy, if you have, any. question. I have I have a quick question. It's coming from the from the chat from Adam. He wants to know the mistake. You see new BDRs repeats that nobody warned them about. So I know the p club when you got to p club, to prison's club, you were AE already. Yeah. Two years back to back, you were not BDR, but you started BDR. Can we just roll back and see if you could answer the the question Adam is asking? Do you have any insight on this? Yeah. Yeah. I do. I I don't think it's it's a mistake per se, but it's being very proactive about about an action, which is, Adam, you're you're reaching out to prospects. You're booking those demos to, to your account executive, proactively ask to be part of those calls, proactively be ask to be part of the threads of the communication, ask for feedback, really send to the demo call. I mean, at the end of the day, you brought that prospect on a on a conversation. If your goal is to become an account executive, try to see your prospect not as a qualified meeting or however you're measured, but, how try to see it as how much revenue you're bringing to organ organization. Because at the end at the end of the day, if you want to become an account executive, that's what should be measured on on the revenue. So if you can already start looking at it this way as a BDR and SDR, I think it's super, super useful. And what to avoid? So you you talked about, like, what to do, in case your BDR, you want to evolve, like, along the sales cycle in order to become an AE. But what are the what are the mistakes that you could you're willing to avoid in order to perform in this role? Is there any mistakes you you did, like, for example, I don't know, spending too much time on something or whatever, like, just relationship you had generally? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I mean, I I haven't done BDR role in in a long time as things have changed with all those new tools and AI that saves you so much time. But I would say that today, really understand the the the mistake I would try to about to do is really first understand your ICP so you don't waste time on nonqualified, you know, on on things that are not super super qualified. Right? So that you told me. your focus your your times on on the right thing. I I I like to look at it on this good there's not so much mistake you can do if you already do all the good stuff. Right? If you go a meeting with the account executive and you understand how he runs the cycle, it's gonna give you an idea of, hey. I mean, this is how it works. This is how I should reach out to my prospect. This is the the kind of, USPs that I can use when I reach out to, to new contacts. That that's the way, I see it. Excellent. If we go back to to what you were saying, so what got you to p club, you were saying first that it's really important to know the the people internally, the internal stakeholders that could help you move the needle, move a deal from early stage to a close week one, stages. What are the. So the other parts. of the system? to to go back into it, so, yeah, the product obsession. So as I say, really talk to everyone in your organization, understand their world so you rely less on them and can go and you can run faster. The the second thing is the same obsession, but on the other side, right? Obsess over your your buyer, understand their day to day, what they're being measured on. Right? How do they buy? What's it affecting? Is it affecting their their their team? Is it affecting their own target, meaning their money in their pocket? Each and everyone will have a certain, influence on the decision as far as their, their impact. Right? So if you're talking to a director of sales, if you're not helping him sort of x y zed, his salary might be lower. I want to understand that. You know? I wanna be able to talk to that to that guy where it can hurt. So this would be the second line. Really understand your ICP, not just the pain, you know, your USP that the your product is is solving. So you you would start with the product, and then with your markets, with your ICP, you wouldn't start the way around. I'm asking the question because I I had a discussion with Clea Clegoire, team lead sales head of sales like France at Lemlist, and he said, I do not want people to go for the features the first weeks. I want people to go for prospect, for clients to understand the needs they have before they they, grow interest into what we can deliver. So they start by the market, and then they. go to the product. agree I agree with that. I so that's what I'm saying. Really obsessed over the the buyer, their day to day, your ICP. So if you I believe you guys sell also to similar, personas in Lucia. Right? So rev ops, rev ops people, salespeople, BDRs, you know, this this kind of of of persona really understand their day to day and obsess over what works for them and then tie it to your product. So if I was starting a new job tomorrow, that's the first thing that I'll try to understand. I'll talk to my VP sales, to the CEO, to CRO, whoever has sold something already in that organization and and ask them, who who am I speaking with? Who is the person in front of me? Right? And why are they talking to us? What can bring them? What kind of what kind of day to day issue can they can they face challenge can they face that they come and talk to us? That's what I want to understand. And then it's it's very easy. I mean, we are all very tech savvy. Right? You go on your your your platform. If someone tells you, yeah, I have a hard time finding a phone number for x for that reason, it's easy to tie it to your product and how you can make it so much faster. We have a question on on on, like, how you disqualify, how you give up if there's no response. But just before that, and I think it's part of the system you won't talk about, but just before that, did you see anyone in Trusha coming and sitting next to you in order to learn from you because they knew you were performing? They knew you were a pick up, and they wanted to to get all the the essence from what you were doing? Yeah. We had this, we had this program called the body program where whenever you have a new guy coming in or a new new girl, a new new rep, you would, you need to to train them. And I was the one always training the the new guys and, actually, not just in our office, but globally. So we have we open over time offices in The UK and in Australia. These guy these people, flew in in Tel Aviv. Very fun. We we went out and all that stuff. But besides this, we we sat down hours and really went over, everything. And the and the first thing that I put up front, is always the buyer. Right? Understand the buyer, and then it's easy to tie to what we do. That's that's the the way I I see it. And really to to close the the system, I would say that the third thing, and it's really not, not magical for anyone, is consistently, prospecting. Like, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. And, I'll I'll talk about this in a few minutes after. Well, it doesn't matter how long you can do that today, but do it. Even if it's thirty minutes because you're you have a very busy day, packed day, whatever that is, do it. If your if your if your team allows you to do time blocks, because you don't rely on so much inbound, that's amazing. So time block even longer and prospect, religiously, I would say. The longer you do it, it's like investing. It compounds over time. I think there's I think we'll get back to to this this part as well. Like, but you had also and I think it's links to the questions that we I see are asked in the chat. You had also a point on the pipeline control, how much you control the pipeline, how much you reverse engineer your target, how much you go from what you need to deliver as quota, and then you go back to whatever you need to do to achieve it. Maybe can you can you walk us through this, and can you tell us Yeah. how you how you disqualify also, like, bad prospect you don't want to talk to anymore? So that's the question Ariel is asking, Doctor is asking. So when when do you stop? Yeah. You know? Thanks for for asking, guys. It's super useful. What I'll talk quickly about the reverse engineer, of the target, which was always very, very helpful for for me. I'm very old school in that way. At the end of every quarter, every month, doesn't matter, you know, how you're you're measured, I take a piece of paper, write my my target, plug in my win rate so I understand, you know, how many of my deals I win and my average deal size, and I reverse engineer. So let let's let's take let's take a quick example. Right? Let's say my target was 100 k per month, alright, to make it, to make it quite easy. And I know that my win rate is 25%. So in order to arrive at 100 k, I need four times my target in pipeline. Right? If if it's 25%. So that's exactly what I would do. And once you understand that, it's very easy to say, alright. If that's the amount of of money that I need in my of a of a potential ARR that I have in my in my pipeline, This is how much I need to target. This is the type of accounts I need to target. Especially if you know that your deal size is high, low, doesn't matter what. And then you can really play around. Okay. I need x amount of quick wins. I need this amount of big whales. You know? And it's very easy to track and and and and to celebrate those small wins that will keep giving you those push of motivation. Or ask people that's okay. I have a target of a 100 k. How do I get there? You know? I think I think it makes it much simpler to, to fathom once once you really break it down into those numbers. And imagine you so I think you know quickly how much you can do in inbound and how much you have to do outbound, also be versed in during these targets. So talking about outbound, you said, like, you need to outbound people every day, prospect every day. Answering the question from ILNDR, like, when you outbound someone, when you prospect someone, when do you stop? I think I have an answer, but you might have one. When do you stop? When you start telling yourself, okay. I give up. This is not for this time. Maybe this is for later. Yeah. I mean, I try to to use whatever channels I have at my disposal before saying it's it's it's a waste of my time. So when I think of channels, phone, email, LinkedIn, I honestly speaking today, emails, I I personally don't believe that it's working anymore with, you know, all those, AI tools that are massively sending emails, unless you're already in contact with the person. I would really use all these channels as much as I can. When I say as much as I can, it's really three to four touch on all of those channels. And if after that, it doesn't work, I mean, there is so many other potential companies you can go after, that I I I will let I will let it go. If that's if that's the question, I hope I hope that that answers it. Yeah. I think we we also have, like, new channels, like, still not burned, I would say, but that you have to be really careful about, like WhatsApp, text message. We have also, like, different type of conversation you can have on LinkedIn. It. You can send, like, text. You can send voice message. You can send so it's also like a matter when, I say LinkedIn sorry. Sorry. I'll cut you. When I say LinkedIn, no. it's it's it's you're it's amazing that you're saying that because on LinkedIn, most people will just go and just write a message. Right? But it's true that a lot of people are are are missing out on the videos that you can send, the voice note. Every time I sent a voice note, every time I'm pushing it, but a good amount of time that I sent a voice note, I've I've gotten at least a response, of someone telling me yes or no. Right? Or even a a a video. It's not something that I do often, but the few times that I've done it is your response rate is is higher. And, you know, you need to be creative as well. Right? On top of the the typical advice that you see on LinkedIn, which is relevant, timing, and all that kind of stuff, use, you know, a final small gift that's gonna make the person laugh. You know, be be a bit playful, be a bit more casual, I guess. The the when I wrote to someone on LinkedIn today, actually, that when I outreach someone, I try to do it from my phone rather than from my computer, especially when it's an account that I really want. Because it feels like I'm I'm texting a friend at that point rather than, you know, working. And it feels more casual for me, and it works a lot. I I suggest you guys give it a try. Yeah. I think it's a question from Gilles. Like you say, like, what triggers you to send voice notes, videos? Is that not a bit hard and uncomfortable? Let me just before you answer, John, let me answer, like, let me tell you, like, what I did this week. So this week, I outrigged a guy, head of head of, head of at the HubSpot, and I sent him a voice note. I didn't send him a voice note out of the blue. I discussed with the guy at HubSpot, introduced me to this head off. He told me, like, to contact him. So I had something to tell him. That's something which was based on a signal, based on the go between, which was not a go between made, but, you know, I've been told to to outreach the guy. So the voice note in this scenario worked. We had the meeting and introduced me to other people as well at HubSpot. So that's that's how I use voice notes. It's depending on the amount of context, the signal, the go between, how much I spoke with the account before, how close I am with them, what I have to say, in my voice notes. That's how how I do. Maybe, John, you have a different answer with voice notes. How do you feel about them? I'll I'll answer actually the second part of his of his question, Okay. Gilles, if it's not odd or uncomfortable. And I think one of Remy's question at the end of the the webinar will be for people that wanna get to PC, to president's club, what you can or shouldn't do. And the answer is this. If you wanna get to, like, the accounts are not gonna answer you, you need to do things that are uncomfortable. You need to get out of your way, out of the comfort zone. That's the that's the only way that you're gonna get answers of accounts that you wouldn't believe would answer. That that's the way that's the way I look at it. There are a lot of accounts that I managed to get a hold of after trying for months and months and just a voice note or a video or a small GIF, managed to get them to answer, and a conversation started from there. But, yeah, you need you need to sync differently. That's that's the way I I see it. So if we go back, John, to the to the system, you talked about outreaching people every day. You talked about the team sports. You talked team sports meaning, like, you have to have a good environment, complex environment, but also know the internal stakeholders. We talked about pipeline control, reverse engineering targets. I think you have, like, other part of the system that you want to to cover. Is there any. There there there is one that's extremely important, and it actually ties to how much time you would be able to to prospect. It's your energy the energy that you allocate to to deals. Right? One thing one mistake that I did when I started in 2023, mid twenty twenty three, is that I believe that all deals that came through my pipeline, every person that I managed to book deserved my time. And and it's the biggest mistake you can do because then you really break your head in trying to understand why someone didn't answer. And instead, you could just disqualify early, understand that it's not the right case, and just move on to prospect more for right people. Right? For people that will actually, be worth your time. So I think that's also very important, and it's amazing that a lot of reps do when they start is to really be able to understand, okay, this is when it's a no go. This is when it's not interesting for me to waste my time and know when to get out of a of a dirty deal, as I like to call them. What was it for you? The the criteria that made you say it's a no go? Do you have them in mind still? It's I mean, I left I left the organization for a while. Right? But I wanna understand first of all, the person that I'm speaking with, if this person is unwillingly unwilling to provide the information that I need to be able to say see whether we're a fit or not, why would you gatekeep information to begin with? This is already something that would be a red flag for me. Right? So you you ask I. said earlier, You have no answer. Discovery is not doing well, and you know that's the red flag. You know that's going further. It's a waste of your time. yeah, as I said earlier, I'm I'm the more the consultative relationship building kind of guy. Right? So if I come in and and I'm rarely talking about my features in the first call unless being asked by the customer. I always try to tie it to the in the conversation. But if I'm unable to get, you know, the basic information, I mean, why would I waste my time? I would kindly say that this may not be the right fit, understand the vibe from the person. If I feel the person is getting on the defensive, understand, okay. So I I would need x y z to be able to to take us further. Right? It helped me more than I can imagine because then you lose you move those deals away, and you really have time to prospect, the the accounts that actually are worth your time. And I think that answers, like, Ayat's question. So we we answered the question about the outbound. So when do you stop? When do you get out of a relationship you you try to build and no one is answering at the other end of the phone? But there is also a question about, like, how do you create a relationship that's coming inbound to you, but you don't want to pursue because there is no green flags, to go for it. And I think that's I think that's answering part of the questions or the questions. So I'll tell us if you're right about this. actually I'll actually add one more thing to what Ariel is, is saying. Actually, I I know Ariel quite quite well. It's one of those friend that came to to roast me, I think. But I I'll say this. There are more channels than just inbound. I I know some companies are heavily reliant on inbound, and and any rep would love to be those kind of company. But you have also a full graveyard of of closed lost, right, that are just sitting there. And I would say that part of my outbound efforts, a good 50%, and I'm not, minimizing this number, came from the closed loss. Whether it was an actual account sitting in the closed loss or competitors of these accounts saying, if this company evaluated us back in 2022, 2021, whatever the the time was, These are their competitor. If they had an interest, they should have an interest in in us as well, and that reach out to them. Right? And that gives you again another another full list of accounts that you can try and and revive. Closed loss for me is really a a gold graveyard that a lot of reps should just go and and target as soon as they can. That's true. What about the the energy? You said, like, the energy on a deal, but what about the energy on the year? So we are kind of go coming to the end of not the end, but, like, it's May, June, the '1. You know, we know energy is up and down for sales. Is there a way that you manage your energy in order to make it through the year as a rep? That's says there is that's is less system or tactics. It's more like, you know, your energy, your mindsets, and how much you do, you know, to stay, like, just high as much as you can. you know, I mean, I have I have my I believe that it's important to have routine outside, you know. I mean, you're not defined by what you do at work. You are going to be. you are going to be rostered for the routine. Let's let's go for the routine. Yeah. No. I mean, you need to have a routine. I have mine, and it works for me. Some people might have something else, but find things that make you happy. You know, see friends, see family, go eat good food, travel a little bit if you if you can if you can do that. Especially when you're in Europe, it's quite easy to travel around, or in The US, there are beautiful places, just a drive away. I think it's important to disconnect. A hard thing in sales is to feel like because you disconnect, your pipeline is is dying. So what I would suggest is take, you know, a few days here, a few days there instead of, you know, just not taking any time off, arriving. As you said, we are here May, June and being already super tired of your year because you haven't had any time to to breathe. It's something it's something that my wife actually brought to me because I was that kind of person that would just work, work, work, work, work. But it it's it's it's super helpful at the end of the day. You you take your time off. You do all different things. And then when you come back, you're you're kind of high energy to to prospect once again. I see a new question that just came in. Go for it. How do you plan you pipeline, so that even if you take a week off, it's not dead when you come back? I mean, hey. It's it's it's a good question. I try to manage expectations as well. It's if you have a strong deal, right, that needs your attention, taking a week off, I I I mean, when I say off, it says you're never really off. You might open your email here and there, but I mean just booking your calendar, not prospecting. When I was off, I would I would still be high touch. You know? But that's where and we can talk about this after. Have a good relationship with your managers and your peers, and the more you do for them when they're onboard, when they need your help, they will bring that back to you. I I was lucky I was really lucky to work with people that the few times that I was off, even during my my honeymoon, I was off for for nearly a month. I had peers that, that were just behind me and and taking some of my calls. But when we're talking about just a week, you know, prep your prep your your peer, prep your manager, give him all the information, all the metric, everything you can you can. think of. Give the the format of the deal to the the person so they can take take, take take charge of it. I don't think a week, if you have a strong deal, is gonna is gonna kill that that opportunity, is is this is saying. and I know, like, you're answering, like, based on the fact that you have been an AE, an AE reaching this president's club. But also when you're a BDR, it's true that you cannot go for these calls that you are used to, in a week off. You are not going to call call any people, any prospect in order to generate this revenue, but you can still, like, run multichannel, outbound, have emails, have LinkedIns run, like, run automatically that you have set up based on the signal, based on the timing, based on something a copy that you find interesting with the the prospect to be read. Lemnist Lemnist is great for that. not trying to sell anything, but I I've seen, for example, like, some people at our company, whenever they are not here, I cannot I can feel that we cannot sync together, but in a way, they are, like, still posting on LinkedIn, still, like, active on on the outbound parts. And I I didn't know how, and then I understood that they had, like, this sequence built before they they go in order to to have them run, even if they're not the presence, See, behind it. that that's what I was that's what I was saying, Remi, earlier. Today, you have I I I I still prospect, and I have a team of four SDRs now under me that I help. Maybe Lemnisk could be a great add to our to our tech tech stack that you mentioned that. But but, yeah, now with all those tools that you have out there, it it became easier. I do understand that taking time off, may affect the pipeline, but I try to see it the the other way. If you don't take time off, it will affect your pipeline anyway. Right? That's that's the way I see it because eventually, you need you need to breathe, and I'd rather come back stronger, have more energy, and really be determined to to succeed rather than than not take that time off. I see a new question came in as well. Yeah. Before taking these questions, maybe, like, we have a part dedicated to what the reps are doing wrong, mistakes they do that you feel they shouldn't in order to reach peak club. Is there anything we missed that you didn't share, or you think we shared everything during the session? Yeah. There is one more thing that I will, that will share. Still a problem for me today. As sellers, very often, we act as lone wolf. I had, when I was in Lucia, total of four different managers. It's a feedback that just came back and back and back that I, do things alone at times. But, over time and the example of me taking off and, you know, delegating some of of of my deals to to my peers and manager has helped me understand this, is be proactive of feedback. Be proactive of seeking help. If you don't, then you're gonna re you're gonna arrive at some point at a late stage deal where you need someone's help, and it's not gonna come as fast as you expect. It's gonna frustrate you, and you you don't have the same energy for the next one. That's that I think is something that's very, very important. Really use your manager, to to help you in your in your deal. There's a lot to be, to be learned from from these guys that have more experience than this. Yeah. What I hear is not that you were lone wolf compared to the other people horizontally or in other division on your peers being sales reps, but that you were lone wolf sometimes with your manager, that you didn't, like, went for his help didn't go for his help. Sorry. And that's what the feedback coming like, it's also like something happening to me that you want to have ownership and full ownership over a deal. You don't want to have any help on the on the outside, and that's why you tend to be a lone wolf with your manager vertically. That's why you're here. Is this is. it correct? Yeah. No. That that that's exactly that's exact exactly what I mean. But more often time, but not once I I practically did reach out for for help, deal where smoother, things look better. You know, at the end of the day, if you need your your small discounts because it's the end of the month or the end of the quarter, always easier to have your manager looped in, instead of having to reexplain everything that just happened over the last few months. So that's something that I strongly strongly suggest. That's cool. I know you're out of sales, so you know that you have to put it put this in place. Yeah. Yeah. But so see think I see it with my SDRs as well. So there are a sent a sentence that, I use at any at at the end of every one of my colleagues. If there is anything else that I can do to help, you have my WhatsApp, my Slack, my LinkedIn, my email. You have every out. channel. Don't make the same mistakes. I did reach out. And, honestly, they're doing they're doing quite well, so I'm, I'm happy. I'm new I'm new to this gig of you know, I'm I'm doing a boss manager and and selling at the same time. Okay. So I'm learning a lot about myself and, and the capabilities that I have in in leading, you know, a group of people. That's cool. I think this is time for q and a. We have a question from Gilles, and and I think you can read it. Maybe I can scroll and see if we forgot any. So Gilles was saying, like, what CRM tools are you using? They start with the, and he wants to grasp, but he didn't fully grasp the best how to best manage an overview notes. Is there is there any recommendation you have on the on the stack, the CRM? I mean, I've used I've used a few. I've used the Salesforce. I've used HubSpot. I've used Zoho. I think I think they're they're all pretty much the same. Don't, Jean, if you're still with us. Yeah. I I'm I'm sure, actually, I've never heard of of them. I I don't know. Maybe maybe it's a trick one. Maybe it's not. Don't focus so much on this. Really focus on what you can control. Prospect as much as you can. Show up correctly with the customers, and, and you'll be happy this way. If I can recommend. any other CRM tools, or any tech stack that you can, help with that you can help yourself with, feel free to reach out. I just select time for q and a. Is there any questions coming from your way, the audience? We have, like, like, a lot of people with us. Tell us if you have questions. I'll I will let you time to write something. You can even send this is the time this is the time for my friend. Now if you have a few questions, you can say I love you to join. You can say what can you say? I don't know. There is six, seven everywhere. I hate this. the biggest mistake I made, in life or as an account executive because that's a different answer. No. The biggest mistakes I both. The biggest mistakes I I I've made as as an account executive, I guess, is a good question, on the spot. Tough tough to answer, but Like, just take take a a minute if you want to, like, thinking. about, Yeah. like, I might you have to lean on, I, what. you did in your life and the mistakes you did. There is obviously, like, some. You cannot say, like, there's. none. The the the no. There there is plenty. Just trying to find the one that will, that will make me less, embarrassed. No. No. More more more seriously is I I think one of the biggest mistakes I've made, as an account executive when I started is really focusing on all and and, you know, Lucia, it's not like all other companies. It was very, inbound related. So the first six months, of course, as I was learning, I spent a lot of time on on those deals. And I was kind of a of a perfectionist trying to move really all deals towards the end. So I I know that's not that's not maybe the the best answer, but on top of my head, this is what I will say once again is, I mean, you you you have deals coming your way. You manage to bring deals in your pipeline. If it's not the right one, move on to the next. Right? That's that's something that that, I've made the the mistake thinking that I was the one that was not right. That was not, that was not good enough. You know, we were talking about this with Remi the other day. There is this imposter syndrome, that I still that I still have nowadays, talking, you know, a lot on those webinars and talking with a lot of people about about sales, about my experience. But, yeah, just just do what you can control and and think would work out for the best. That's a cool one. I wanted you to give a mistake you did in life, but I won't I don't want to push you too much. No. No. Please don't. There's there's a I know a few friends here. questions. I'll keep, that. like, take the three three more minutes for the questions. Tips for selling in The US, cold calling them. I have to tell you, Michael, we discussed a lot with, for example. Like, this is a guy close to. We have, like, five to 6% of, people answering the phone in The US. We have tried Lemnist to reach out to The US. We have tried, call calling them. It's not working that much because it has to be volume. The answering rates are really low, and we are trying to move the strategy to call from call to emails and LinkedIn. That's what we try to do based on signals and, and relevance and timing, the everything that you know already. So that's that's why I can answer you. I don't know if you want to add anything more on top, I I I didn't do much, prospecting John. in in. The US. It was mess mostly Europe and, and APAC. Just a little bit, you know, once a deal was already ongoing, you had a decision maker in The US, but I've never prospected in The US itself. No? Yeah. I see Pritika as a pretty good question. Did we have a. book of, like, a book of business? Actually, the book of business, we we did, but it's not like in a lot of organization where, you would be given one. It's something that you'd build yourself. So as I said earlier, understand my I don't know if you were with us pretty good, but really understand my ICP to the core. And it took me time, of course, to to create this this book of business. I would have prioritized it by, you know, if you use, Lemnless, then you can find all those those signals to, to know how to prioritize. Not trying to place any product, but just so you know. But yeah. So really trying to find signals before before even Lemnitz posted the picture for me. New people tracking my champions moving from one job to another, any type of funding. Those are all things that I was looking at all the time. You know, funding means they have money. They're trying to grow. It's it's become too generic over time. But back when I was there, this was very, very useful tool to prioritize those those accounts. That's really cool. I think we are reaching the end of the of the session. There is a question from Gill setting outside your own country. Gilles, you can add John maybe on on LinkedIn, and you can ask him the question directly. We were really happy to have you all. I think I put your LinkedIn, John, here. You know, I created a nice query call. Look at this. Very nice. If. people want to to to reach out feel free to reach out. I'm happy to to talk a little more with, with anyone that's interested. And I'm very glad that I was, part of this conversation with you, Remi. Thanks for for having me today. It was a really a pleasure. I see questions, scan the credit card, ask the questions to John directly, ask the questions to me. I'll be happy to answer them. It was really a pleasure to have you all. We will have an on demand page for the people, like, having missed parts of this webinar, So I do not, hesitate to to, relate to it. And we have a next webinar coming. John, I have to say it. We have Webflow coming next week. Lisa, Nice. she's our manager at Webflow. She'll be, talking about leading sellers at the edge of AI, so it's it's really a good one coming as well. I hope it will be as good as you, at the at the job you did, done with us today. I appreciate I appreciate you having me here. And, guys, thank you very much for all the question, and for everyone that joined. I appreciate the time. Thank you very much. I appreciate the live as well. Bye bye. See everyone. Take care.