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At the end of the year, Peter and Alex look back on what Peter's learned coaching startups and three places he's changed his mind.

They cover: 

• Peter's new thoughts on BANT and MEDDIC as discovery and sales qualification frameworks. (Originally discussed in the BANT and MEDDIC episode from December of 2022)
• Why Salesforce may not be the best CRM to start with if you're an early stage founder (originally discussed in in the CRM 101 episode from 2021)
• The changing archetype of what makes a great first sales hire (from the The First Sales Hire episode, also from 2021!)

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Having all worked together on Dropbox for Business, Tido, Alex, and Peter share a special bond and respect for building the foundational elements of enterprise sales at Dropbox when it was still seen as a consumer brand. 

Now, as founder and CEO of Koala (getkoala.com), Tido shares his learnings, obstacles and opportunities that all founders who are learning enterprise sales for the first time should tune into. 

They discuss: 

• Early challenges Tido faced learning to sell Koala during the early days
• When is the right time to shift from founder-led sales to sales led sales?
• Hiring “builders” to lead GTM in the early days
• How to think about “jobs to be done” when building out GTM JD’s
• How to master and think through demand generation and demand capture when going outbound

About Tido: 

• Tido is a Co-Founder @ Koala, is an end-to-end pipeline generation engine. Prior to Koala, he was Chief Product Officer at Segment from early days through its $3.2B acquisition by Twilio. Prior to that, he worked with Alex & Peter at Dropbox and was an early engineer on the Facebook Ads team. Follow Tido on LinkedIn and visit Koala here! 

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Peter and Alex discuss founder-led sales mistake #2: Spending too much time on bad-fit leads. 

They dive into:

• What makes a bad-fit lead? 
• How do you qualify for fit and what questions can you ask to get clarity around this?
• When are some examples you may continue working with non-ICP customers? 
• How do you know when to eject out of a deal midstream?

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!

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Peter and Alex discuss one of the most common founder-led sales mistakes he's seen early stage founders make: assuming they have a brand when initiating outbound sales. 

They dive into: 

• Why establishing a digital footprint ahead of going outbound is important
• The value of offering lead magnets and thought leadership content ahead of asking for a meeting
• Why personalization may not be what it once was
• How to get your digital brand started and tips to start posting on LinkedIn

For the next episode they'll dive into Founder-Led Sales Mistake #2 so stay tuned for that discussion!

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!

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Peter and Alex discuss the state of sales at large companies and what it means to scale authentic sales. They explore the following questions and topics:

• Can startup sales be relevant at large companies?
• Why sales training isn't working for large sales teams 
• What Toyota's innovation with building cars has to do with sales
• What leaders at public companies can do to reimagine what sales means for their growth and brand

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!

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Peter and Alex review the elements of an effective pitch:

• The elevator pitch and leaning into your origin story (regardless of what VCs will tell you)
• What makes a compelling pitch deck and how not to bore your prospect with deckware
• Teasing a demo to sell the second meeting

Other episodes referenced: 

• Episode 32: BANT and MEDDIC
• Episode 3: Call Leadership

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!

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• Standing out in a hyper competitive environment
• The importance of establishing founder branding
• Multi-stakeholder sales in today's environment
• The role of AI in sales

• Victor Hunt, Ava
• Julian Park, Bezi
• Ashu Dubey, Gleen.ai
• Animesh Koratana, PlayerZero.ai

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!

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Every day you're presented with moments where you can decide whether to take what's offered, or you can negotiate. Most of us take what's offered because it's comfortable and easy, but are you leaving something on the table? Peter and Alex share expert strategy for mastering negotiations with vendors, sales staff, contractors, and even friends. Learn to build stronger relationships, reach win-win outcomes and secure fairer deals for everyone, while also sharpening your your negotiation chops for those big ticket items. Learn actionable tactics, powerful phrases, and the key mindset to build your negotiation skill in everyday life and never feel taken advantage of again.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Salesroom who are building a video conferencing platform specifically for AE's and their buyers to build strong relationships in the virtual world. Built from the ground up specifically for sales interactions with video note-taking, real-time transcription and question detection, and AI-based recommendations, every feature of the platform is meant to help build rapport and trust. Go to salesroom.com to get access!

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!

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BANT and MEDDIC are two popular sales methodologies. Learn what each of them are for, how to apply them, and how they help you create a more effective sales process.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Salesroom who are building a video conferencing platform specifically for AE's and their buyers to build strong relationships in the virtual world. Built from the ground up specifically for sales interactions with video note-taking, real-time transcription and question detection, and AI-based recommendations, every feature of the platform is meant to help build rapport and trust. Go to salesroom.com to get access!

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!

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 Sales and marketing teams need to be able to reach out to prospects cold. But prospects hate getting bombarded by irrelevant messages. What do you do with this necessary channel for building awareness for your company? Peter and Alex debate what makes cold outreach emails bad, what makes them effective, and look for common ground on what you should do if you want to make cold outreach emails that prospects don't hate.

For more on outbound and how to be successful with cold outreach and cold calling, visit Belal Batrawy's #deathtofluff resource hub 

To get more sales advice from Peter, check out Peter Ahn Sales School and subscribe to his newsletter for bi-weekly coaching nuggets!