It's the final episode. We're signing off after 200 episodes and celebrating the journey of the show together.

As we approach episode 200, we're reflecting on the growth of the show to date. Nick is in the hotseat! Morgan throws him challenging questions and they reflect together on more than 2.5 years of the show – and what lessons Nick learned from hosting and recording hundreds of episodes.

As we approach episode 200, we're reflecting on the growth of the show to date. Morgan is in the hotseat! Nick throws him challenging questions and they reflect together on more than 2.5 years of the show – and how they grew from a 30-minute live show called #InSyncTV into a podcast with tens of thousands of downloads.

Early in my career, I failed quite miserably because I didn’t know how to structure my days to get the right results. Instead, I started working longer and harder, which—if you know my story—didn’t end on a high note.

After my all-inclusive 30-day hospital visit fighting for my life, I realized a sustainable schedule didn’t exist. In Sales, it was either feast or famine. That didn’t sit well with me since I saw parents, people with extreme hobbies, and even people who left work early who were consistently putting great numbers on the board without dedicating their lives to their jobs.

The difference between them and the rest was almost unbelievable: they set limits. They purposely restricted their time, energy, or output to measure the impact: Did it work the way they thought it would? Do they need more or less time? Should they get help?

They broke their days into four core themes:

1. How do they generate demand?
2. How do they run their prospect experience?
3. How do they manage their pipeline?
4. How do they manage their book for retention and growth?

The other big surprise is that they worked backwards. New business and prospects weren’t as important as existing business. They would drop everything for a paying customer, but not prospects. They structured their days the same way: Account management, pipeline management, prospecting, and marketing.

This is how I started, but it soon evolved with buyer preferences to fully leverage the tactics and tools I was using. I moved prospecting to the start so that I could “plant my seeds” quickly using asynchronous outreach: Commenting on influencer posts, posting my own content, doing my strategic outreach. This allowed time for those seeds to grow while I was working on client delivery, then pipeline management. At the end of the day, I would circle back to check on my prospecting efforts to see what bore fruit.

I realized that time could be an asset for growth and productivity.

Here are the three base schedules I currently have in rotation with the specific reasons I use them vs. the others:

Full Workday Schedule 8am-3pm

This is my standard work schedule that gives me more flexibility with my work/life balance. I highly recommend adding in 30-60 minutes of exercise as well.

8:00am-8:30am: Preparation Time

• Go over the day's plan
• Review priorities
• Prepare for meetings and tasks

8:30am-10:00am: Prospecting

• Combine market development with sales development
• Work in order of priority:

  1. Champions

  2. RIA

  3. Icebreaker

  4. Market development (for new reps; optional)

10:00am-10:30am: Short Break

10:30am-1:00pm: Pipeline Management

Focus on the deals and accounts, working in order of priority:

• Implementation/realization (completed deals in their first 90 days)
• Commit (deals past the proposal stage)
• Mobilize (new opportunities, discovery/demo)

Use any remaining time for:

• Account management
• Prospecting meetings with director or higher seniority
• Referral earning and account growth opportunities

1:00pm-1:30pm: Lunch Break

1:30pm-2:30pm: Administrative & Urgent Tasks

• Handle any administrative tasks
• Address any urgent tasks that popped up throughout the day
• Work on creating assets

2:30pm-3pm: Reflection & Planning

• Reflect on the day's work, noting successes and areas for improvement
• Plan for the next day or the week ahead, ensuring priorities are clear

Long Workday Schedule 8am-6pm

This is a great schedule to use if you want to take time off and need to put in extra time before or after to make sure you stay on track

8:00am-9:00am: Preparation Time

• Go over the day's plan
• Review priorities
• Prepare for meetings and tasks

9:00am-11:00am: Prospecting

• Combine market development with sales development
• Work in order of priority:

  1. Champions

  2. RIA

  3. Icebreaker

  4. Market development (for new reps; optional)

11:00am-12:00pm: Lunch Break

12:00pm-4:00pm: Pipeline Management

Focus on the deals and accounts, working in order of priority:

• Implementation/realization (completed deals in their first 90 days)
• Commit (deals past the proposal stage)
• Mobilize (new opportunities, discovery/demo)

Use any remaining time for:

• Account management
• Prospecting meetings with director or higher seniority
• Referral earning and account growth opportunities

4:00pm-5:00pm: Administrative & Urgent Tasks

• Handle any administrative tasks
• Address any urgent tasks that popped up throughout the day
• Work on creating assets

5:00pm-6:00pm: Reflection & Planning

• Reflect on the day's work, noting successes and areas for improvement
• Plan for the next day or the week ahead, ensuring priorities are clear

Half Workday Schedule 8am-1pm

This is a bit longer than the standard half day, but I find the extra time allows me to get everything done so I don’t bring work home with me.

8:00am-8:30am: Preparation Time

• Go over the day's plan
• Review priorities
• Prepare for meetings and tasks

8:30am-10:00am: Prospecting

• Combine market development with sales development
• Work in order of priority:

  1. Champions

  2. RIA

  3. Icebreaker

  4. Market development (for new reps; optional)

10:00am-11:00am: Pipeline Management

Focus on the deals and accounts, working in order of priority:

• Implementation/realization (completed deals in their first 90 days)
• Commit (deals past the proposal stage)
• Mobilize (new opportunities, discovery/demo)

11:00am-11:30am: Administrative & Urgent Tasks

• Handle any administrative tasks
• Address any urgent tasks that popped up

11:30am-12:00pm: Break / Snack Time

12:00pm-1:00pm: Reflection, Planning & Additional Prospecting

• Reflect on the morning's work
• Plan for the next day or week
• If any time remains, use it for additional prospecting or catching up on any missed tasks

I use these schedules as a template that I move around based on my priorities and life's curveballs. I started creating rules for making changes and started scheduling time for planning and reflection to create opportunities for improvement. This meant that prospects could only schedule in the time blocks I allotted, which were typically afternoons on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The schedule is flexible up until the day before in which I lock it in before I finish work for the day.

If you want to dive deeper into creating your rules based on your value, read Indistractable by Nir Eyal.

If you want to go even further into productivity through time management, read Get Things Done or Deep Work by Cal Newport.

An episode so good we had to play it twice.

Do you want to perform at the highest level of enterprise sales? What if you could learn the exact skillset, mind frame, and framework it takes to accomplish your goals right from a podcast episode?

On this episode of the B2B Power Hour, we talk to Ian Koniak. He's the founder of Ian Koniak Sales Coaching Inc. and former strategic account director at Salesforce, where he managed some of its largest enterprise accounts.

We break down exactly what it takes to make it in enterprise sales, from how to set achievable goals to seeking agents of change within your target organizations. Plus, Ian gives us an exclusive look at his brand-new PREDICT framework for qualifying enterprise prospects and effectively sealing the deal.

You'll hear how Ian went from door-to-door copier sales (yes, really) to closing multi-million dollar deals.

An episode so good, we had to play it twice.

Morgan sits down with Breezy Beaumont, former Head of Growth & Marketing at Correlated, to discuss product qualified leads (PQLs) and how they transform a product-led growth strategy.

They dive into building revenue intelligence, PQL vs. MQL vs. SQL, how sales changes in a product-led company, and building the revenue teams of the future. Get ready for a serious knowledge drop from one of the leaders in product-led revenue.

An episode so good, we had to play it twice.

Most sales professionals force themselves to work for free because they didn’t invest in their list. They end up gambling for meetings, getting few responses, and the few demos that do get scheduled don’t turn into sales. Dialing in an account list is the biggest leverage point to make every activity count. Time to bust through quota

✨ Join us for this B2B Power Hour workshop on:

✅ How to map out your total addressable market

✅ How to conduct a win-loss analysis

✅ How to dial in a list

✅ How to refine the list as you’re learning ...and more!

Between identifying the best accounts to using your insights for better approaches, we’re diving deep into building an effective list.

Prospecting stands as one of the most pivotal skills in a salesperson's arsenal, integral to the triumph of a sales operation. However, in this era marked by the proliferation of diverse selling channels, formerly dependable prospecting tactics have lost their effectiveness.

The era of simply picking up the phone to secure a sale has faded into the past. To excel in prospecting in 2023, top-tier sales professionals must hone their proficiency in social selling.

In this edition of B2B Power Hour, Morgan and Nick, join B2B consultant Jonathan Fischer, the Founder of Bridgeview, in collaboration with the Evolved Sales Leader to explore the adoption of social selling as a potent prospecting strategy and offer a practical blueprint for achieving social selling success in 2023.

Join us as we delve into:

• Embracing the nuances of social selling.
• Dispelling three prevalent myths surrounding social selling.
• Crafting a prosperous social selling blueprint.
• Identifying and leveraging your unique sales strengths in the year 2023.

Follow Morgan Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjsmith/

Follow Nicholas Thickett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasthickett/

Follow Jonathan Fischer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanpfischer/

Join the 1Up Club to power up your prospecting. Get access to power plays, special briefings, and even DIY enablement docs that help you prospect better. Learn more at b2bpowerhour.com/join.

Are traditional job-hunting strategies still effective in today's competitive global talent market? In this episode, career strategist and founder at Win Every Interview, Sarah Filipiak challenges traditional job-hunting strategies and emphasizes the need to redefine success in the current job market.

From understanding one's own value to aligning personal values with company values, Sarah provides practical advice for job seekers to stand out, create meaningful connections, and find career fulfillment.

• Redefining your understanding of success based on personal values and fulfillment, rather than external factors like titles and prestige.
• The importance of building long-term relationships with employers who advocate for growth and support personal development.  
• How to transform  interviews into conversations, by providing real-world examples and context to showcase abilities, rather than relying solely on metrics and data.
• Demonstrating enthusiasm, understanding, and a strategic approach can leave a lasting impression on interviewers.
• Instead of trying to fit into every job description, job seekers are advised to focus on their unique qualifications and value.
• Highlighting thought leadership, digital sophistication, and alignment with a company's mission and values can set candidates apart in a competitive global talent pool.

Follow Morgan Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjsmith/

Follow Sarah Filipiak on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahflip/

An episode so good we decided to play it twice.

Jump back in with another replay episode as we dig through some of our best and topics to bring back to light!

It might sound strange, but did you know sales reps aren't actually the ones who close deals? Buyers. Close. Deals. Not sales reps.

On this episode of B2B Power Hour, we talk to Nate Nasralla, the founder of Fluint. He shares how to close more deals even when you aren't in the room, ways to identify and equip your champion, and the best way to communicate with your prospect's organizations.

Listen in as we discuss:

• How all companies (or at least sales managers) focus on a two-step plan for a stronger selling process and higher close rates. The most commonly overlooked aspects of buyer messaging and how to overcome them.
• Learning how to make your sales materials blend in as internal documents can be a huge win.  
• How using language that shows you're empathetic and perceptive towards someone’s pain points, they're going to gravitate towards you.  

Follow Nicholas Thickett on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nicholasthickett

Follow Nate Nasralla on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natenasralla/

Join the 1Up Club to power up your prospecting. Get access to power plays, special briefings, and even DIY enablement docs that help you prospect better. Learn more at b2bpowerhour.com/join.

If your prospects are on LinkedIn, you should be on LinkedIn.

But if your LinkedIn profile makes you look like you’re in sales, you may be making your prospects even colder than if you’d never connected at all.

Mandy McEwen shares this wisdom in Episode 169 of B2B Power Hour.

“Don’t look like an SDR or BDR,” she says. “I can teach you all the amazing Sales Navigator tactics that exist, but if your profile is crap and you look like a salesperson and it’s lacking value… then your efforts are not gonna work out.”

So how exactly do you craft a LinkedIn profile that warms up your prospects instead of scaring them away?

Your headline is your first impression

If your headline is “BDR at X Company,” all that tells people is that you’re trying to sell them something.

But we’re not saying you should make up a title like Technology Consultant or Business Accelerator.

There’s a simple formula for your LinkedIn headline. Start with the pain you solve and who you can help. Then add a bit of personal flair.

Jason Bay is in sales, but he doesn’t start his headline with his job title. He leads with *how* he can help (turn complete strangers into paying customers), then *who* (B2B reps & sales teams). Then he adds a personal element with his nickname.

Maria Bross also shares *who* she helps (elite GTM teams) and *how* (AI). Plus, she proves her credibility by adding that she’s a LinkedIn Top Sales Voice and adds a personal touch by sharing that she’s mom to a toddler.

Everything above the fold needs to be gold

Pretend your LinkedIn profile is your website. Assume that no one will scroll unless convinced.

According to Mandy McEwen, your LinkedIn profile needs to be a landing page that shares the pains your prospects have and the solutions you can offer.

That means you need to optimize the elements at the top of the page: banner, hashtags, link. You need to make it clear which problems you solve and why you’re the most credible person to solve them.

LinkedIn influencer Sam McKenna makes it clear who she serves with hashtags like #sdr, #saas, and #sales. She also makes it clear what problems she solves with #linkedintips and a list of services in her banner. Plus, she brings immense credibility with logos like Google, Salesforce, Outreach—even LinkedIn.

Your About section blends experience with how you can help

If your headline, your banner, and everything else at the top of your LinkedIn profile is enticing enough, you may just get a prospect to read (or at least skim) your About section.

Not to sound like a broken record, but again, make it about them. While the section is quite literally about *you* that doesn’t mean you can’t focus the narrative on who you help: your prospects.

It’s also a great place to include stories that will give you credibility. This can include struggles you’ve overcome, big wins you’ve earned, and people you’ve helped.

Stephanie White starts her About section with who she helps and with what. Then she includes a CTA to connect with her on LinkedIn.

Riley Blaisdell’s About section is much more personal and vulnerable. It shows his experience closing 6- and 7-figure deals, getting laid off, then transitioning to tech sales. And it shows how building a personal brand on LinkedIn helped him increase his job interviews and eventually land a role he loves.

Your content seals the deal

You know that Dave Gerhardt quote: Copywriting is sales at scale.

Well, the same can be true of all your content.

Your content works around the clock to sell your message.

That includes all the posts you share on LinkedIn—and all the comments you add to existing conversations.

Melissa Gaglione highlights her video content on her profile. Video prospecting is her specialty so she puts her videos front and center.

Caspian Lewke, notoriously half-man, half-meme, posts lots of humorous content about his life in sales. And that works because he’s a seller selling into a sales audience. If you’re not so lucky, though, you can still use humor in your content. Just make the content about your prospect’s problems rather than yours.

How does your LinkedIn profile stack up?

Take a look at your own LinkedIn profile. Are you focusing on your prospects’ pains? Or is it all about you? Are you sharing content? Or just lurking?

The best time to improve your profile is yesterday, but today is great too.

If you need any more help with your LinkedIn profile, call the Sales Support line: +1 (303) 578-8581.

A great sales leader is like a conductor of an orchestra. They guide each individual instrument, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and has positioned their players for the success of the composition.

As a sales conductor, do you know your orchestra? Or do you leave each day crossing your fingers for a successful opening night?

In this episode, Matt Green – CRO at Sales Assembly – shares insights on effective communication, understanding individual motivations, and creating a successful team culture. From the importance of transparent communication and empathy to the challenges of transitioning from founder-led sales to a sales organization, Matt offers practical advice for sales leaders looking to build and motivate high-performing teams.

Listen in as we discuss:

The importance of overcommunicating rather than undercommunicating, especially in the remote or hybrid team environment. Transparent communication reduces anxiety, builds employee confidence, and boosts productivity.

Three key factors that influence motivation - money, mission, and recognition. Successful sales leaders tailor their coaching and interactions based on each team member's unique combination of these factors.

Challenges sales leaders face, such as developing effective communication skills, balancing multiple responsibilities, and transitioning from founder-led sales to a true sales organization.

Follow Morgan Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjsmith/

Follow Matt Green on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewcorneliusgreen/

Join the 1Up Club to power up your prospecting. Get access to power plays, special briefings, and even DIY enablement docs that help you prospect better. Learn more at b2bpowerhour.com/join.

The point of research is to build assumptions that you can use in your outreach. For larger accounts, it's assumptions about their specific situation and the potential value of your solution. For personas or more broad-based campaigns, it's assumptions about their shared challenges and the potential value of your solution.

But where should you focus your attention & energy?

What do you need to know about target leads and accounts before launching your campaign?

And, what do you need to learn as you conduct your outreach?

This is a very simple tool offered by Alex Newmann in Episode 43.

Searchable vs. Non-Searchable

Simply: what is publicly available? What isn't?

Individual vs. Business

In B2B, we sell to both. We need to know the individual we're reaching out to and the business we're trying to sell to.

Filling in the Grid

Searchable + Individual. This is data publicly available about the specific individual you're planning on reaching out to. Data enrichment tools can offer phone numbers and emails. LinkedIn can show you how long they've been at the company. A Google search can yield their exact job description or one very similar. They might even have podcast interviews or news articles with input if they're an executive.

Searchable + Business. This is data publicly available about the specific company you're planning on reaching out to. If they're public, this is information contained in their 8-K filings or their annual reports. Whether they're public or private, it also includes information on their website, inside LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and on news sites.

Non-Searchable + Individual. These are things to ID upfront, but that you won't know until you talk to the person. This includes their specific time-sensitive challenges in their role, their motivations in their job and their career, and their top priorities for the next 12 months.

Non-Searchable + Business. These are also things to ID upfront, but that you won't know until you talk to multiple people at the account or across the industry (see more on personas below). This includes the specific internal politics at that company, but also include the challenges the company faces in their competitive environment, their top internal priorities, and what leadership is pushing over the next 12 months.

Putting it Into Practice

Validating Non-Searchable Information in a Campaign

Let's start with the scenario of a sales campaign. This is where you're targeting multiple firms across a market segment, instead of just one large enterprise account. While the top-line goal of this campaign is to sell something, it's also to learn and validate the "non-searchable" assumptions across different firms.

If you tackle one market segment at a time (i.e. only financial services companies below 50 employees) over 2-4 weeks, it makes this process much much easier.

1. Generate a list of target accounts in the market segment that meet general criteria of headcount, revenue, and industry
2. Create a list of target individuals at those accounts that meet general ICP criteria of job titles and time in role
3. Then, create assumptions regarding the challenges those target accounts face in the current market that would prompt them to be interested in your solution
4. Then, create assumptions regarding the challenges those ICP personas face across all of your target accounts

The goal of your outreach is, in part, to validate those assumptions and create actual target personas you can use.  

• If I'm selling attribution software to performance marketers, I can pull a list of target accounts and leads at those accounts. As a part of my outreach, I'm looking to use cold call openers and cold email openers that try and prompt a response so I can learn something about my assumptions in the "non-searchable" categories. That way, the more I do outreach, the smarter I get! The more knowledgeable I get about the people I sell to and the actual challenges that they face.

So even though I'm running an outbound campaign with the primary goal to book meetings that close deals, my secondary goal is to learn something about my target audience.

After 60 days, you can review your information and see what you've learned about your target market. What did you learn in the "non-searchable" squares that is generally applicable across the entire market segment? That is uniquely valuable insight you can use when selling to new accounts in the same market segment.

Validating Non-Searchable Information in Account-Based Sales

This is closely related to Mapping the Earthquake. The goal of account-based sales is to validate the specific non-searchable information at that account.

In enterprise sales, there will be generally applicable information (like what you learn in the sales campaign example) that you can use when starting conversations at other enterprise accounts in the same market segment. However, there will also be specific information that isn't applicable to other accounts. Consider a few examples:

• Specific CEO/CIO-led initiatives for digital transformation that require $X in investment over the next 3-5 years
• Specific policies about job titles or job title inflation that means, at that account, one role has more influence even though that's not normally the case
• Specific procurement procedures or other internal processes that have a specific impact on the deal

These are usually in the non-searchable + business square. The specifics of the business matter a lot when trying to break into an enterprise account and there will be plenty of assumptions you need to validate as a part of your prospecting and discovery efforts.

All of this information can be documented inside your CRM, inside a personal Google Doc, an Apple Note, or even pen & paper.

What's important is that you can review this information across multiple individuals and accounts after 60-90 days so you can identify patterns and similarities in the market segment. It will help you get better at prospecting as you go.

An episode so good we decided to play it twice.

Jump back in with our first replay episode as we dig through some of our best and topics to bring back to light!

Running sequences on LinkedIn seems time-intensive. Obnoxious. Manual. Have you seen Sales Nav's inbox?! You're probably thinking a sequence is based off profile views, DMs, and InMails over days and weeks. And companies then try to automate this for scale. (Obviously... it fails every time)

Here's the secret: nurturing leads is actually the easiest to scale with little to no software at all on LinkedIn. You just need to focus on the right activities.

Join us for this B2B Power Hour workshop on:

✅  Using Sales Navigator to identify and track leads

✅  How comments can change your booking rate

✅  Why content is the salesperson's best friend

✅  Timing your outreach to leads Join us to learn how to nurture leads on LinkedIn without buying new software or becoming a professional scroller.

Follow Nicholas Thickett on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nicholasthickett Follow Morgan Smith on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/morganjsmith

Join the 1Up Club to power up your prospecting. Get access to power plays, special briefings, and even DIY enablement docs that help you prospect better. Learn more at b2bpowerhour.com/join.

If you take a glance at some existing resources for account planning (say, HubSpot), you'll notice that building an account plan for an enterprise deal is often about knowledge gathering and research.

Most account plans for B2B enterprise prospecting take the approach of "general to specific":

• Start with general business objectives like corporate strategy, finance, size, and who they sell to
• Narrow in on key business priorities like a CEO's public initiative or a major product line strategy
• Map out power & influence in the organization by creating org structure charts and identifying key titles or personas in the account
• Link back an assumed challenge (or potential challenge) the company is experiencing based upon your research to a solution you offer – i.e. the value you provide in your product or service.

And then... go and try to sell it to the people you identified in the org chart by validating the assumptions you made based on your research. In theory, this works great as long as your research lines up with what they're actually experiencing.

What happens in reality? Most sellers go directly for the VP or product owner and get ignored.

The primary reason they ignore you isn't that your messaging is bad. It could be bad, but the more likely cause is that everyone else is doing this too. Back in 2014, it was a very novel approach to set up a nurture sequence for a product owner at a target company. People weren't overwhelmed by the number of emails they get and the world was a different place.

It's different today. We need to adapt the way we build our account plan and conduct our research, because it will change the way we approach and message our offer.

The Earthquake

The Earthquake is a very simple exercise to identify the right people and the right areas for research. It builds a much more comprehensive and useful account plan. It looks like this:

Circle 1: The Person Who's Really in Trouble

This is the epicenter of the earthquake. This person or team are the end-users of your product.

Identifying this circle should be fairly straightforward. Who benefits the most from your solution? Remember: this person is likely not the buyer of your solution especially in an enterprise deal. They are further down the food chain in the organization.

Consider a few examples:

• At Alignd, we sell a LinkedIn implementation service to help teams integrate Sales Nav into their existing sales processes. The person who's in trouble without that? The poor individual account executive (AE).
• A client of ours works in healthcare IT. One product line is an analysis tool for big data sets, specifically designed for health insurance companies. The person who's in trouble without that? The poor manager who has to compile reports for their executive team.
• A company I know sells software & managed services to help hire internationally while staying compliant with laws and taxes. The person who's in trouble without that? Potentially a couple – but at the very least the poor HR team responsible for hiring.

Here's the hat trick: that person or team already has a workflow. Instead of a CRM, they're using an excel spreadsheet. Instead of a big data analysis tool, they're using a "frankenstack" that's super expensive and time-consuming to run. Instead of X, they're doing Y.

That workflow is broken (they're in trouble, after all, without your solution). And that broken workflow ripples out into the rest of the company. Mapping the earthquake becomes mapping the flow of pain inside the company.

Circle 2: Who They Report To + Who Hands Work to Them

Now we take one step outside the center of the problem.

Who do they report to? This is their boss. That boss cares about the outcomes of their work. Their current workflow allows them to accomplish the job "well enough" that the boss isn't angry at them, but they likely see (or hear) the pain of things not going well. A sales manager will notice underperforming sales reps. A product owner will notice a development team who's running behind. A marketing director will notice delayed campaign launches.

Who hands work to them? This is about identifying other teams or managers who influence their work. An easy example? Marketing hands off work to sales teams (inbound leads). Market research teams hand off work to product teams (new product features). Product teams hand off work to operations teams (new data sets need to be integrated).

The idea here is to identify the centers of the company that are directly impacted by the broken workflow.

• Let's say you sell attribution software. If a B2B performance marketer cannot correctly attribute lead sources, they can't generate accurate reports to optimize their lead funnel (Circle 1). Their boss might not notice because she's too busy with other things. But the sales ops team and sales managers absolutely will – marketing keeps on handing unqualified leads to sales to qualify. So sales ops will hand work back to them to try and get more targeted on who they're trying to reach (Circle 2).
• Let's say you sell cybersecurity monitoring in high-tech manufacturing. If that individual security analyst cannot get real-time monitoring, they cannot respond effectively to a cyber threat (Circle 1). Their boss is obviously going to care about this. But the plant managers and the digital transformation team leads will too – they hand-off work to the cybersecurity team to ensure plants are run efficiently without any major interruption (Circle 2).

Circle 3: Executives with Signing Authority + Who Reports to Them

This is where most account plans usually start. The problem is these executives are too far removed from the broken workflow to truly understand the consequence. This is why you're struggling to break in. Chances are, that executive sees your email and thinks "oh great another product pitch," because they are too removed from the day-to-day pain to truly understand it.

It's important to identify these executives because they're the buyers. They approve the budget. They sign off on the deal. They need to understand the real challenge as it relates to the overall business use case.

Additionally, who reports to them? Focus your attention on the other teams identified in Circle 2. Does everyone report up to the same executive? Or, do you have multiple executives involved?

• Back to the attribution software example, the B2B performance marketer in Circle 1 gets handed work from the sales ops team. But, that sales ops team might report up to a VP of Sales or a CEO, depending upon the company. Selling attribution software might only require the sign-off of the CMO but it will influence outcomes elsewhere in the organization, so those other executives might have input.
• Back to the cybersecurity monitoring example, the security analyst might report up into the overall Chief Information Officer arm of the company. But so does the digital transformation team that hands them work. Yet the plant managers report up to the COO of the company.

It's important to include these now – or create some assumptions based on publicly available information that you validate later – because these stakeholders will have some influence on the overall deal.

Circle 4: Other Decision-Makers

Finance and legal are obvious candidates for Circle 4, in particular the CFO. These are stakeholders extremely removed from the central workflow problem inside the company. They don't know much about what you sell, the problem you solve, or why the company should purchase the solution (unless you sell into finance or legal, that is).

But they will influence the outcome of the deal. In larger enterprises, these are the various stakeholders that can serve as "blockers" to the deal.

• Back to the attribution software example, that software will have to incorporate multiple internal, sensitive data sources. IT will definitely have a say here if the company is large enough.
• Back to the cybersecurity example, real-time monitoring interfaces with multiple layers of IT software in different divisions of the company. But it's also possible that DevSecOps or an internal software development team might have a say in what platform is selected.

Putting the Earthquake into Practice

By this point, you should have a document that answers:

• Who is in the center of the earthquake?
• Who do they report to? Who hands them work?
• Which executives will sign off on this deal? Who reports to them?
• Who else will influence the outcome of this deal?

Most of this is educated guesswork. You should be pretty confident about who is in the center of the earthquake and who they report to, as this dovetails neatly with any ICP or persona information your company hands you. Everything else is a first attempt that you then are validating during your prospecting.

Demand vs. Activation

Putting this account plan into action requires a shift in thinking from traditional selling. It's the difference between creating demand and activating accounts.

• Demand: Create a list of qualified accounts to be prioritized & activated
• Activation: Take a prioritized account and convert them into an opportunity

Creating demand means generating qualified leads, taking them from general awareness into consideration. Activation takes them from consideration through the sales process to a completed solution. In outbound enterprise sales, very few accounts are ready to be activated. They're not in a buying motion (and frankly if they are in the RFP stage, you're too late).

Our goal is to discover whether the account is qualified or not. That's it. Prospecting is research in action. It starts with an insight and ends with a champion. If you do not have a champion, it is not a qualified opportunity. It is not an activated deal.

Putting the Earthquake into practice helps us discover whether or not the account is qualified. Throw out all of your previous lingo about "routing in bottom-up" or "middle out" or however else you have thought about enterprise sales. We're going to route in through the flow of pain in the company.

Direct Outreach to the Center of the Earthquake

An individual account executive is a lot easier to get a hold of than the VP of Sales. An individual analyst is a lot easier to get a hold of than the CIO.

But! This individual who's in trouble is not usually your buyer. So can you pitch them? Nope. Can you talk about your product? No, they really don't care about it. Can you get them to book a 15 minute meeting to discuss their current challenges? Probably not.

What you can do: connect with them over a shared challenge. Gather intel. Validate assumptions about your Earthquake Map.  

Hey Nick, noticed that your entire team is on Sales Nav. I've connected with a lot of sellers recently who say they got it from their company with zero training... sound familiar?? Haha, anyway, would love to connect.

Hey Morgan, noticed you all are running a bunch of LinkedIn ad campaigns! Talked with a bunch of performance marketers lately and a bunch are struggling to connect persona data back to CRM reports. Any pointers I could share?

Hey Nick, didn't know if this would be relevant, but I saw your company is spinning up some new plants (big initiative!) and can only imagine the security headache this is causing. Saw this article and thought of your work: {3rd party link}

These are just some example outreach messages you could send in an email or a LinkedIn DM. You might imagine how obeying the Vampire Sales Rule can transform these conversations with the primary end user (especially on message #2, which risks being a bait-and-switch). It gets you a lot of intel, you can ask honest questions – and get honest responses!

The primary goal is to uncover whether the company could be a good fit. Is their existing workflow what you expected? When you bring up alternative approaches, what's their response? Do they actually report to who you thought they did?

And most powerful of all: is there a situation similar to another that your company has already solved? Explore your case study library and see if there is a customer story that is similar to the situation they're experiencing.

Building Out the Rest of the Business Case

Visa's founder Dee Hock said "judgement is only developed when used." Said another way: you might screw this up the first few times. That's okay!

There is no cut-and-dry method for routing elsewhere in the account. You can take this intel and go directly to Circles 2 and 3 to continue the conversation. If you developed strong rapport with the individual, you could ask for a referral elsewhere to continue exploring the account.

The primary goal is to continue building the business case. Nate Nasraslla from Fluint has an excellent guide (here) about building this written narrative and how to structure it.

Since we're still prospecting, the goal of building this business case isn't to share it around (just yet). It's to gather together insights, information, and assumptions into a format that you can eventually share with your champion. The Earthquake serves as your guide about who to talk to and what to validate. The business case becomes why they need to solve the broken workflow – and how (your solution).

Having these conversations with multiple members inside the Earthquake allows you to gather the right, validated intel to include inside the business case. You're working multiple angles and bringing together a compelling narrative to the executive buyer (Circle 3).

The secondary goal is to identify the top risks to be managed or mitigated for the sale to be successful.

These can vary depending upon what you're trying to sell. However, there are three very common ones:

1. Leadership sponsorship. If you sell sales training and the existing VP of Sales has brought in your competitor 10 months ago, it's very likely they won't sponsor the sale. This risks slowing down the deal or stopping it dead in its tracks.
2. Culture of the team. If you sell a project management tool for developers, it needs to be integrated into their workflow. Is the culture willing to change? How much executive sponsorship will be required to get the team on board to a new tool? Cultural resistance to change risks a slow deal or buying by committee.
3. Management of the project. In enterprise sales, you're not selling a $20/mo subscription. The implementation of your solution is critical. Has the prospective company ever implemented something like your solution before? Has your buying committee ever purchased something in this industry before? Concerns and confusion about implementation presents the risk that an executive buyer doesn't understand what they're buying in the first place... and risks a slow deal or a deal that doesn't ever happen.

Identifying these risks up front allows you to effectively qualify the deal. If you actually do sell sales training and the VP of Sales brought in your competitor 10 months ago, maybe it's not a qualified opportunity!

Meanwhile, a deal with a buyer who hasn't bought something from your industry but has implemented a large transformation effort recently is a great indicator they could see value from what you sell. It helps when the CIO is probably on board too. That sounds like a qualified opportunity once you identify a champion for the deal.

Closing In on a Champion

Your champion might be the end user! It depends upon the political capital they hold inside the organization and what you're selling.

More often than not, it's somebody in that Circle 2 or Circle 3. An executive might buy-in to the vision you're selling and mobilize internal resources. A division director might immediately connect the dots and start making introductions to the rest of the organization. A manager sees the potential of what you're trying to sell.

Once you've gotten your champion, prospecting is over and you have a qualified opportunity.

This is where you transition out of exploring the earthquake and into buyer enablement. Nate Nasralla's episode 75 is an excellent exploration of how to do this properly

Mapping the earthquake is the easiest way to break into enterprise accounts. In practice, you'll notice that your messaging doesn't need to be 100% dead-on in order to have good conversations. Over time, you'll be able to take intel from the ground floor up to executives. They'll lean in, wonder how you got that information, and become impressed by your knowledge of the business. Centering your entire outbound motion on the pain they're experiencing, its consequences to the overall business, and how your solution provides direct value means much more meaningful conversations... and much quicker deal cycles.