Mark Bradley’s Post

The Mountain of Sales: Why “More Leads” Isn’t Always the Answer One of the most common phrases I hear from founders and business leaders is this: 👉 “We need more leads!” But here’s the uncomfortable truth — leads are not the problem. In fact, more leads can often make the cracks in your sales system even more visible. The image above, “The Mountain of Sales,” is a reminder that what everyone wants — revenue growth, more clients, closed deals, referrals, and strong brand presence — sits at the very top of the mountain. That’s the surface level. But the real work that drives these results happens beneath the surface. This is where most organizations either win or lose. 🔹 Middle Layer (Execution Work): Things like social selling, follow-ups, sales scripts, objection handling, and role plays. This is where your sales reps sharpen their skills and learn how to consistently move conversations forward. 🔹 Deeper Layer (The Foundation): This is where most teams fail because it’s not glamorous. It involves defining your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), tightening your value proposition, crafting unique selling points, clarifying your offer, building structured processes, and conducting real customer research. And yet, this foundation is what sustains growth. Without it, your sales reps will be chasing leads without clarity, wasting time on the wrong prospects, and converting at painfully low rates. Here’s the reality: If you don’t know your ICP, your leads are just random names. If your value proposition is weak, no script will save you. If your processes aren’t disciplined, growth won’t be repeatable. The companies and sales teams that consistently grow aren’t the ones shouting the loudest for leads, they’re the ones who have invested in structure, discipline, and process. When leads come in, they already know who to target, what to say, and how to convert. So the next time you catch yourself saying, “We just need more leads,” pause and ask: 👉 Do we have the foundation in place to handle the leads we already have? Because more leads won’t fix a broken system. They’ll only expose it. Sales growth isn’t about climbing faster — it’s about climbing smarter, with the right foundation beneath you. 💬 I’d love to hear your thoughts: Which layer of the sales mountain do you think most teams need to strengthen right now? hashtag #SalesLeadership hashtag #B2BSales hashtag #SalesStrategy hashtag #BusinessGrowth hashtag #RevenueGrowth hashtag #SalesEnablement hashtag #LeadGeneration hashtag #SalesExecution hashtag #GoToMarket hashtag #SalesProcesses

Your CEO's name is criminally underused in revenue acceleration. Most sales teams are very comfortable doing the easy things the hard way. 1️⃣ Former champion in new account: Add them to an AI sequence. 2️⃣ A VP-level buyer in a high-intent account: Add them to an AI sequence. 3️⃣ An upcoming renewal: Chase down the Economic Buyer (EB) for a meeting. If you're selling enterprise software, your relationships should be the first stop before going cold. 1/ Your CEO's brand = everything (unless it breaks) Your CEO should be the first one to message important prospects. Former champion at a new company? Champion got promoted? Customer gets acquired? Your CEO should reach out—via text, email, or LinkedIn. Yes, others should too, but your champion wants to hear from your CEO. For example, if you are a Salesforce shop but your new job is MS Dynamics—wouldn't you like Mr. Benioff to reach out to you? 2/ Your executives' and board's network = first line of defense Everyone in SLT or ELT says, "How can we help you?" and the best reps are really good at making these people work for them. But for most others, the thought process is: "Should I ask my CRO?" or, "What if my CEO doesn't like me InMailing a board member?" But in many cases, your VP-level buyer went to school with your customer champion or knows a board member from their previous job. And they would love to hear from you. 3/ Context is king We are all too afraid to antagonize our bosses and are very comfortable not making the ask. So we resort to low-hanging fruit: power dials, InMails, and personalized emails. If we have the context, we can get the executives to work for us! We completed 42 meetings this quarter (so far, with two more weeks to go and these are with Sr. and above in 300+ employee companies), and three-fourths of them are through referrals. One hundred percent of our new deals won had an advisor / board member multi-thread into a CXO—all of this while running a seed-stage company! All with a total of two people in sales (and I have shut down all ABM ads for new business acquisition, saving thousands of dollars every month). Comment "boomai" and I will share our exact playbook that worked.

Hitting your Q4 sales target is a strong goal, especially with year-end pressures and opportunities. Here are practical, actionable tips to help you achieve (or exceed) your Q4 sales target: 🔑 1. Start with a Solid Plan • Break down your target into monthly, weekly, and daily goals. • Identify your highest-converting products/services and prioritize selling those. • Review what worked well in Q3 or past Q4s — reuse winning tactics. 📈 2. Focus on High-Value Leads • Prioritize prospects that are most likely to close by year-end (warm leads, past customers, big accounts). • Use the 80/20 rule: 80% of results often come from 20% of clients. • Segment your CRM and work smarter, not harder. 🤝 3. Reconnect with Existing Customers • Reach out to past clients — they’re easier to convert than new ones. • Offer year-end promotions, loyalty bonuses, or cross-sell complementary products. • Ask for referrals — people trust recommendations. 📅 4. Leverage Q4 Urgency • Use seasonal urgency (“budget resets,” “limited holiday offers,” “end-of-year discounts”). • Help clients use their remaining budgets before they lose them. • Promote time-sensitive incentives (e.g., “Sign by Oct 31 and get 10% off”). 📞 5. Increase Your Outreach • Double down on calls, emails, social selling, and in-person visits (if applicable). • Use video pitches — they stand out in crowded inboxes. • Aim for daily activity goals: e.g., 20 calls, 10 emails, 3 demos per day. 🚀 6. Sharpen Your Sales Skills • Practice your pitch, handle objections, and tighten your closing techniques. • Get feedback from a manager or top performer on your team. 📊 7. Track Progress & Adjust Quickly • Use dashboards to monitor where you are vs. your target. • If something isn’t working by mid-October, pivot fast. • Celebrate small wins to stay motivated. Give it shot !!!

My new VP Sales just blew up how we stage our deals... ...And I love it. See, for years, we used the standard linear pipeline: Discovery → Demo → Validate → Negotiate → Close. Clean. Logical. And completely disconnected from reality. Here's what was actually happening: A deal would be in "Validate" stage, but the prospect ghosted us three weeks ago. Another deal in "Negotiate" stage? They asked for another demo. So what do we do in the CRM? Nothing. We just leave it where it is because moving it backward feels like failure. The result: Our pipeline was full of lies. We had no idea what was really happening with our deals at the executive level. See, buyers are not linear, which means sales isn't leaner. It's fluid. Prospects move forward, backward, sideways. They get excited, then go cold, then come back. Traditional CRM stages force you to pretend deals progress in a straight line. What Evan Santa changed: He replaced our linear stages with three fluid stages based on one thing - alignment with the prospect: Stage 1 - Meeting booked: Nothing stays in stage 1, it either moves to the pipeline or it goes to No show (and gets nurtured) or No opportunity (because we literally can't sell to them). Stage 2 - Still Working: Low enthusiasm, no next steps scheduled, but not dead yet. (Cold) Stage 3 - Ongoing/Progressing: Conversation is happening, but no commitment to next steps. (Warm) Stage 4 - Advancing Forward: Strong alignment, next meeting booked or clearly defined next steps. You want all of your deals here, ideally. (Hot) Deals move fluidly between these stages based on what's actually happening in a given week. The framework shift: During every interaction, you ask yourself one question: "Where is this deal going in my pipeline after this call?" If they ghost your follow-up? Move from Stage 4 to Stage 3. If they suddenly re-engage and book a meeting? Back to Stage 4. Why this works better: The CRM finally reflects reality. You know exactly where every deal stands at any given moment. No more "let me check my notes" when someone asks about a deal. One glance at your pipeline tells you: 20 deals with strong alignment, 15 that need nurturing, 8 going cold. You can actually manage high-velocity sales. When you're handling 40+ deals instead of 18, organization beats talent every time. This system lets you instantly see which deals need action this week. It fights against your archenemy, the MAYBE. When prospects lose momentum, the system forces you to acknowledge it and either reignite the conversation or close it out. No more dead deals sitting in your pipeline for months. If most of your pipeline is stuck in one stage, your staging system is broken. It's the number one indicator you've lost visibility into what's actually happening with your opportunities. Sales are fluid. Your pipeline staging should be too.

The longest deal I ever closed taught me the most about sales velocity.   £200K. Salesflow's largest customer at the time. I was 23.   ⤷ Found them through LinkedIn prospecting. ⤷ Expected sales cycle: 2-3 months ⤷ Actual timeline: Over a year to fully expand   Here's what that deal taught me:   When you're displacing an existing solution, nothing moves fast.   They had a cheaper tool already that worked well enough   We weren't just selling features, we were asking them to change a core part of their workflow   That's not a product sale, that's a trust sale.   The 3 Things That Got It Over The Line:   1️⃣ Vision > Features   They didn't buy because we had better features They bought because they could see fully automating their client work through outreach   👉 When you're more expensive than the competition, you need a bigger vision.   2️⃣ Patience is part of the process   Most sellers see a long sales cycle as a problem - not always   👉 When you're displacing a core workflow, speed kills trust. Patience builds it.   3️⃣ Trust compounds, pressure destroys   Every time I pushed for speed, I felt resistance. Every time I focused on building trust, things moved forward. The initial close took 2-3 months. The full expansion took a year.   That wasn't slow. That was strategic.   What this means for your deals:   Sales velocity isn't about how fast you close, It's about removing the right friction at the right time   ⚬ Early stage friction: Getting the meeting ⚬ Middle stage friction: Building trust ⚬ Late stage friction: Getting to yes   When you're selling against a cheaper competitor: → Don't compete on price → Compete on vision → Build trust faster than they build objections   When you're displacing core workflows: → Patience isn't slow → It's strategic → Trust compounds over time   That £200K deal took a year, but it taught me lessons I still use years later at The Playbook Agency   Not fast, not slow. Just right.   What's the biggest lesson a long deal taught you? ________ Leo Branica | Founder, The Playbook Agency We solve 1 major problem via AI & Automation: Too many of your reps doing too little selling to too few good prospects (Pipeline death!) Supporting $2.4+ billion in SaaS revenue since 2023

Most sales teams are drowning in their own complexity. We had a 7-stage funnel that looked impressive on paper. Marketing loved it. Sales managers felt smart explaining it. But our deals were dying in bureaucracy. 47 days to close a deal. Prospects going cold between stages 3 and 4. Revenue stuck at the same ceiling for 8 months straight. The market tells you more stages mean better qualification. More touchpoints equal higher conversion. More data points create predictable revenue. Here's what actually happens: every extra step is a leak waiting to happen. Your best prospects bail out because you're making buying harder than rocket science. The real problem isn't your conversion rates. It's decision paralysis disguised as process optimization. The hidden cost? Every additional stage cuts your velocity by 15-20%. Your team spends more time updating CRM than closing deals. The real villain isn't bad leads or market conditions. It's process worship. We confuse activity with productivity and complexity with sophistication. Companies scaling fast operate differently. They build frictionless paths to purchase, not obstacle courses. Here's the truth: Simple scales. Complex breaks. What we cut and why it worked: ✅ Killed the "demo scheduling" stage ↳ prospects book directly from initial call ✅ Eliminated separate "discovery" meetings ↳ qualification happens in first 15 minutes ✅ Removed the "proposal review" step ↳ pricing discussed live, decisions made real-time ✅ Ditched "stakeholder alignment" calls ↳ we only meet with decision makers ✅ Scrapped "contract negotiation" phase ↳ standard terms, take it or leave it ❌ Stopped asking "when's a good time to follow up" ❌ Quit sending "just checking in" emails ❌ Stopped scheduling meetings to schedule meetings Result: 9-day average sales cycle. 67% close rate on qualified opportunities. Revenue doubled in 60 days because we focused on velocity over vanity metrics. Your funnel isn't a museum piece. It's a highway to revenue. The faster prospects move through it, the more money you make. Comment VELOCITY if you're ready to audit your sales process for hidden friction points.

We used to chase every lead that walked through our door. Then we realized something was broken. Our two sales reps were drowning in 1,200 open deals. Most hadn't moved in months. The real problem wasn't missing opportunities. It was burning out our best people on dead-end prospects. Here's what we discovered when we connected ProspectAIze to our CRM: Not all leads are created equal. The system scores each prospect based on engagement patterns, company signals, and behavioral data from our multi-channel campaigns. Our reps now focus on the top 20% of scored opportunities. The rest get automated nurturing sequences until they show real buying intent. The results after 90 days: Deal velocity increased 40%. Our reps closed more deals in less time. Stress levels dropped dramatically. But here's the unexpected benefit: this systematic approach to lead qualification became a measurable intangible asset. When investors evaluate our sales process, they see predictable revenue generation backed by data. That's VCRE in action - turning operational efficiency into enterprise value. The truth is: More opportunities don't equal more revenue. Better qualification does. Stop drowning your team in unqualified prospects. Start scoring what matters. Want to see how ProspectAIze transforms your pipeline? Book a 4-minute demo.

I talk to a lot of business owners who say the same thing: “We need more customers.” The truth is, growth doesn’t just happen. It starts with lead generation & sales outreach - the process of consistently attracting and engaging the right prospects. Without it, sales teams end up chasing unqualified contacts or waiting for opportunities that never arrive. With it, you create a predictable pipeline that fuels long-term growth. #Sales #LeadGeneration

So many sales teams are hitting a quiet problem in the last few years. It’s not obvious at first: The marketing team is running ads. The sales team is setting meetings. Deals seem like they are moving. But when you zoom out, there's a pattern: - Close rates are dropping - Buyers are slipping away without a clear reason - No one really knows how sales is performing and where the bottleneck is - The sales team feels like they’re working harder—but winning less. If you're experiencing this... It’s not your team’s fault. It’s not even your competitors. The game has changed. But chances are your approach hasn’t. Here’s the new reality that shifts the approach so profoundly: These days, 80% of your buyer’s decision is made BEFORE your sales team even speaks to them. So... by the time you receive that "NEW DISCOVERY CALL BOOKED" notification, they’ve already: - Watched your competitors’ videos and learned from their thought leadership - Researched reviews and understood pricing - Read LinkedIn deep dives - Attended Disco calls with your competition The dynamics of sales have reversed. Your buyers are now ahead of you. So you can't be selling them like it’s 2017 (that "golden era" of sales is over). In 2025, marketing & sales have merged. Most of your sales process IS your marketing. That means you'll need to make some important shifts: 1️⃣ Your CRM should one of your biggest differentiators, silently optimising the business every month: When it's set up right, You know where your highest-converting leads come from. You know exactly what marketing is working. You know what content and what messaging attracts them. You know where you should focus energy and attention. And every prospect is taken through a buyer's journey that makes it near impossible to choose the competition. 2️⃣ Your sales team needs to be on video. Like, yesterday. If your salespeople aren’t visible on your prospects' newsfeeds while the competition's salespeople are... you're really making it hard for them to ring that sales bell. Sales-led video content has potential buyers already knowing, liking, and trusting your team before the first conversation. 3️⃣ Sales calls should be a "masterminding session", not a pitch No more sales scripts. B2B decision-makers have heard (and used!) every sales play before. So every time you "pace their objection" then plough through with your objection-handle... It creates MORE friction. Instead, turn your sales calls into a collaborative process. Screen-share some slides where you take notes in front of them. Make the call a masterminding session, not just another sales pitch. 4️⃣ Follow up persistently but professionally. Instead of your templatised "Just checking in" email... -> Run remarketing video ads so they keep seeing your insights. -> Keep your CRM updated so you can make highly relevant follow-ups for months and years to come Have you updated your sales approach since 2017?

**Fortune 500 companies cut their sales funnel by 5 stages while competitors still waste 3 months per deal.** Most sales teams think longer funnels mean better qualification. Wrong. They're just burning cash and losing momentum. The market believes complex sales processes show professionalism. The reality: prospects get bored, competitors move faster, and deals die in endless "nurturing" phases. **What should happen:** Quick qualification, direct conversations, fast decisions. **What actually happens:** 12 touchpoints, 4 discovery calls, endless email sequences, and prospects who ghost after week 2. The real problem isn't your leads or your product. It's the invisible cost of friction. Every extra step costs you 23% more prospects and adds 18 days to your cycle. The real villain? The myth that "relationship building" requires time-wasting. Professional buyers want solutions, not pen pals. Elite companies operate differently. They diagnose fast, propose faster, and close while competitors are still "building rapport." **Core lesson:** Speed beats perfection in modern sales. Velocity kills complexity. Here's what actually works: ✅ One qualification call → immediate proposal ✅ 48-hour response rule across all stages ✅ Binary decisions: move forward or cut loose ↳ No "maybe" prospects in pipeline ❌ Multiple discovery phases ❌ Endless email nurture sequences ❌ "Let me think about it" in your CRM The opportunity is massive. Companies cutting funnel fat see 340% faster close rates and 67% higher win percentages within 90 days. Your move: audit your sales process this week. Count every stage. Cut the dead weight. **Drop VELOCITY in the comments if you're ready to speed up your sales game.**