My playbook for crafting a customer experience strategy that actually works
I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count. A company launches a product with slick marketing and a dedicated support team. But behind the scenes, the departments barely talk to each other. The result is a disjointed customer experience, and it taught me a critical lesson early in my career: a great product…
Sales email vs. cold call: When to use each, according to data
Sales is about getting the right message in front of the right prospect. It’s as simple as it sounds, but over my career I’ve seen a substantial and accelerating evolution in the methodologies salespeople employ to accomplish that goal. Despite that change, one thing has remained the same in my mind: Successful cold outreach is…
How to start a business: A startup playbook for entrepreneurs [template]
I was 19, broke, and had no business being in business. My laptop was secondhand, my savings account had $200, and I was convinced that starting a company required connections I didn‘t have and money I’d never see. The whole thing felt impossible. But I learned something important: you don’t need a trust fund or…
HubSpot’s 2025 State of Sales Report: What 1,000+ sales pros say about AI, buyer behavior, and growth
Every sales pro I talk to mentions the same challenges: inflation, rising interest rates, and pricing instability are making it harder to get deals across the finish line. Budgets are tighter, and buyers are more cautious about where they put their money. While that sounds daunting, there are still serious buyers out there, and they’re…
How to create a sales process that drives results, directly from a sales pro
Sales used to feel like a blank canvas every time I picked up the phone. No map, no rhythm, just intuition and hustle. That might work in the short term, but if you’re trying to scale, guessing isn’t a strategy. I learned that the hard way. The turning point came when I built my first…
AI meets customer experience: Mapping journeys with machine learning
As a customer experience professional, I’m hyper-focused on finding ways to improve the customer journey, and I’m always looking for tools to help me analyze customer insights. For me, AI tools are at the intersection of those two initiatives, especially when it comes to building out or improving the customer journey. I started looking into…
15 crucial questions to ask prospects throughout the buyer’s journey, according to HubSpot’s former sales director
If you’re still ignoring buyer journey questions, it’s time to pause and rewind. I say so because sales is now an increasingly consultative profession. Success today is less about “always closing” and more about “always helping” as a knowledgeable, reliable person that buyers can trust. Genuinely helping prospects demands providing them helpful and specific resources…
Inside the MEDDIC sales qualification process: My step-by-step approach for B2B reps
There are several different approaches and frameworks used in the sales qualification process. Given the various ways to discover the best lead, I think any approach could be effective, depending on the sales process context. For me, as a SDR in B2B sales, I used the BANT framework, as well as the Challenger Sale methodology.…
Boost B2B Sales by Focusing on Win Rate First
Yesterday, we looked at the hidden cost of low win rates: lost revenue, higher customer acquisition cost (CAC), wasted sales effort, low morale, damaged reputation, longer time to goals, and missed commissions.
Why Win Rates Are Collapsing And How to Fix Yours
Research shows average sales win rates hover around 21%, meaning nearly four out of five opportunities are lost. In enterprise sales, win rates can fall to 5–10%, leaving 90% of the pipeline dead or dying before it ever produces revenue.
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