Denis Acia

Co-Founder at SaasFluence | B2B Influencer Marketing for SaaS Brands

I’m Denis, Co-Founder of SaasFluence

We’re an influencer marketing agency helping B2B tech brands drive demand and visibility by partnering with LinkedIn influencers.

Currently — with over 200 influencers, we manage influencer marketing programs for B2B sales tech companies like Maildoso, Icypeas, Saleshandy, Fowla, and others.

Why We Started SaasFluence

Before SaasFluence, I ran an outbound agency, Applus Leads. Through that experience, we worked with some incredible B2B tech brands — companies with fantastic products and real value to offer. But despite outbound efforts (cold calls and cold emails), they weren’t getting the traction they deserved.

A big reason?

Their LinkedIn presence and engagement were minimal. Most had only a few hundred page followers and very little visibility in the market.

That lack of recognition made it hard to convert cold leads. Without social proof or brand mentions, prospects were hesitant to engage — especially in the highly competitive sales tech space.
What they really needed was a new approach — one that would:

1. Build credibility
2. Earn trust
3. And drive demand by establishing them as trusted solutions in the market.

That’s where SaasFluence comes in.

Our mission;
To help B2B tech brands leverage influencer marketing to drive demand, increase sales, and grow.

How We Can Help

☑ If you’re a B2B tech founder or business leader with an influencer marketing budget of at least $10K/month,
 ☑ And you don’t have the time to run campaigns or manage influencer partnerships,
We’ll handle it for you.

We’ve launched thousands of LinkedIn-sponsored campaigns, and our clients are seeing exceptional ROI.

If you’re curious, DM me and I’ll share a few of our client case studies so you can learn more about our systems and results.

Or, visit our website to explore further:
 👉 www.saasfluence.co

Lead Generation Partner - Outbound

If my team replies to my Slack messages in 30 seconds I get a little bit worried about our work.

In most agencies everybody feels a pressure to stay active so the boss thinks they are working hard. 

You feel like if you do not answer a DM immediately you might look like you are slacking off. 

But I think that culture is a mistake.

If you are answering me in 30 seconds it means you were not in the zone. You were just waiting to be interrupted. 

A brain cannot do its best work if it is getting interrupted every few minutes.

Tell your team to turn off notifications for a few hours and disappear. Go do hard stuff that requires deep thinking. 

I would much rather wait two hours for a brilliant strategy than get a "On it!" in three seconds.

Remember that you hired adults because you trust them to do the job. You do not need to watch their status bubble to see if they are sitting at their desk.

If your team is answering too fast they might be losing the chance to do their best work.

Fast reply or good work - what matters more to you?

Don't follow up with your prospects today. Trust me on this.

It is the first week of January. Everyone just got back to their desks. I know for a fact their inboxes are a total war zone right now. They have 300 unread emails. Maybe 500. 

They are stressed and they are just trying to survive the morning.

If you send them an email right now saying "just bubbling this up," you are not being a good salesperson. You are just annoyance number 301. 

I like to give people what I call Grace Week. Just give them some room to breathe. Let them delete all the junk and get back to normal life.

I am waiting until next Tuesday. When I reach out, I will tell them I waited because I knew their inbox was probably a mess. 

It shows you have some empathy. It shows you care about their sanity more than your quota.

People appreciate it when you don't act like a robot chasing a number.

Are you sending emails today or are you waiting?

I spent 3 months sending emails to SaaS founders who didn’t have a budget until I found this.

I used to spend a lot of my outbound efforts guessing. I would find a SaaS company through Sales Nav, find the CEO, and send them a pitch for our influencer services. 

Sometimes they replied. Most of the time they didn't. 

Then Matthew from Prospeo.io showed me what they built for their V2 update. It was crazy. 

I finally stopped searching for "companies" and started searching for "signals."

Here is how I use it now for Saasfluence:

→ I set a filter to only show me SaaS companies hiring for marketing roles.
→ I check the "Technographics" to see if they already use tools like HubSpot.
→ I also check "Intent Signals" to see companies that are researching Linkedin marketing.

This changes the whole game for me.

If a company is hiring a marketing leader (or other related roles), I know three things for sure:

1. They have a massive problem they need to solve.
2. They have the budget to pay for a solution.
3. My timing is perfect because they are already thinking about growth.

The data is refreshed every 7 days and 98% of the emails are verified. I don't even scrub the list anymore!

I’m moving almost all our internal searches over to Prospeo.io now because it saves me so much time on cleaning CSV files.

Swipe through the carousel to see how I set this up and the exact email template I use.

I’ll put a link in the comments if you want to try Prospeo.io yourself.

Signal based outreach

Is work-life balance just a lie we tell people so they don’t quit?

I have been looking at my own life lately and I see a pattern that makes me a bit angry. 

Every single time Saasfluence is winning and we are managing MORE clients, my health automatically goes into low priority mode.

I skip the gym and I eat whatever is near me because my brain is always on the next meeting.

Then I get tired of feeling slow and I focus on my fitness. I spend more effort on my health and I eat clean. 

And what happens? My to-do list piles up. I am not pushing the business as hard because my energy is somewhere else.

I'm starting to think you can't have every area of your life in the green at the same moment.

I see these influencers on Linkedin say "My work is my life.” If you spend 14 hours every day building a company, doesn't something else need to die?

Maybe it is your relationship with your kids or your physical health. You only have so much energy in the tank.

Does anybody here have it all figured out? Are you winning at health, money, family, and work at the same time? 

Or are we all just choosing which part of our life we are going to neglect this week?

(Please no AI comments below. I want to hear from humans.)

I used to spend 4 hours a day on LinkedIn trying to grow. Now I use these 4 tools to do it in 45 minutes:

Trigify.io → I use this to find social signals. I don't message random people anymore because that is a waste of time. 

I find people who are leaving comments on my favorite niche thought leaders. These people are already interested in what I'm interested in. Higher chances of converting them.

Extrovert → I used to spend forever thinking of what to say on 20 different posts every day. This tool helps me stay active in the comments. 

It keeps my name visible where my customers are hanging out and I don't lose my mind doing it.

MagicPost → When my brain feels like a dry sponge and I have no ideas, I open this. I don't let it write for me. That is a mistake. 

I use it to kickstart my drafts. I can get a post done in 30 minutes instead of an hour of staring at a blank screen.

Aimfox → This is the heavy lifter for the DMs. Once the other three tools have warmed up my profile and people recognize my name, I use Aimfox. 

It handles outreach at a scale I could never do by hand.

The point is not to use bots to manage my Linkedin. These tools just let me be more human faster. 

I spend less time on boring stuff and more time talking to people who can grow the business.

How much time do you spend on LinkedIn every day?

I have a confession: I am not passionate about B2B influencer marketing.

Do not get me wrong. I love my team and our clients say we do great work…

But I do not wake up every morning dreaming about creator briefs or looking at invoices for software.

I think gurus tell founders a big lie. They say you must be obsessed with your product. 

You must live and breathe your niche every second and I think that’s totally unnecessary.

What I am obsessed with is getting our clients a win. I like when a founder tells me their sales calls are finally converting because of the work we did.

I love the game of building a company. I love finding great people and making a plan and seeing it succeed. The "thing" we sell is just the car we drive to get to the goal.

It is okay to not be in love with the tool. It’s okay to just be in love with the results you get for people.

We shame founders who are not obsessed with their specific niche and it just makes people feel like they are doing it wrong. It’s fine to just love the win.

Are you in love with the product or are you in love with the game?

I found a way to stop the "Day 1" onboarding chaos with one single link.

Do you send an email asking for your client's logo? Then another email with a Google Form? Then another one asking them to book a kickoff call?

The client is already overwhelmed and you haven't even started the work yet.

We stopped doing that. We use a tool called Flowla and we create one "Onboarding Room" for everything.

Here is exactly what we put inside:

→ A 30-second welcome video:

Record it right there in the room. Say "Welcome! Everything you need to get started is right here."

→ A checklist:

They see a list of what they need to do and what we are doing. They know exactly what is happening next so you never have to send "just checking in" emails.

→ An intake form:

We embed a form in the page. No PDFs to download. They fill in their KPIs and their target audience and we get it instantly.

→ A calendar link:

Our Cal(dot)com link is sitting at the bottom. They book the kickoff call as the final step.

→ An upload section:

We ask them to drag and drop everything into the room. It keeps our inbox clean.

We send one link. 

The client feels like they hired a professional team instead of a messy freelancer. It sets the tone for the whole relationship.

Do you have a smooth onboarding process or is it a mess of emails?

fix your onboarding

Why does a lead from a creator close 3x faster than a cold lead?

It’s because of "Distance to Trust."

When you get a cold lead the distance is very long.

Path A:

It starts with a Stranger. Then you send a cold email. They feel scepticism. 

You have to do 3 demo calls to prove you can solve their problem. You earn trust and you close.

That path takes a lot of time.

The distance shrinks when you try to convert a lead from a trusted creator’s post.

Path B:

It starts with a stranger. But then they see a creator's post. The creator hands their trust over to you. 

The prospect comes to you already believing in the product. You do 1 discovery call and you close.

Influence is a shortcut.

Do you want the long path or the shortcut?

I think most of us on LinkedIn are aiming at the wrong target and here’s why…

We look at viral posts and think "I need to post about how to get 10k followers."

Or we post generic advice about "how to be a better leader."

We are fighting for attention at the very top of the pyramid.

It is crowded there and honestly, there is not much money in it.

The "money" is hidden at the bottom of the pyramid.

It is where people are looking for boring solutions to boring business problems.

A post about "How to get 100 likes" might get you a dopamine hit. But a post about "How to fix a messy CRM so your sales team stops quitting" might get you 10 likes.

But 3 of those likes are from CEOs who have that exact problem right now. And they have a budget to fix it.

If you want to be a famous creator, stay at the top. If you want to build a business, go to the bottom and solve a boring problem.

Do you post for likes or for leads?

If you are a SaaS founder, here is how you make one creator post last for months...

I see this all the time. A brand pays a lot of money for a creator to post. The post goes live, it gets some likes for a day, and then it is gone.

This makes the math very hard for your business because you paid a lot for something that only lasted 24 hours.

You need to turn that one post into a content engine. Try using this playbook:

Day 1: 

You do the obvious stuff. The creator answers every comment. You share it to your company page. You make sure everyone sees it.

Day 7: 

Take the main lesson from that post and put it in your email to your users. Tell them a story about why this creator uses your tool. It feels more human than a standard marketing email.

Day 14: 

You take the video or the image from the creator. You run it as a paid ad.

It looks like a friendly recommendation instead of a boring commercial. Usually your cost per click goes down.

Day 30: 

When someone books a demo on your site, show them that creator's video on the thank you page. Tell them "While you wait for our call, see how this person uses us." 

Day 40:

Write a simple blog post on your site. Title it "How [Creator Name] solved this big problem using our tool." You are just telling their story again.

You paid for the post once. But now you are getting value for more time, and you can repeat this playbook for all creator posts.

Are you reusing your creator content?

Creator marketing tactics

Before I started my influencer marketing agency, I did cold emails for SaaS clients.

And I found one framework that worked for pretty much any tool I was selling.

Here is the exact structure I used to book hundreds of meetings:

1. Salutation

"Hey [Name]" is fine. 

2. Relevant Personalization

This is where everyone messes up. Do not just say "I saw you went to X college." That is weird. You need to connect the observation to the problem you solve.

Example: "I noticed you run a pay-per-meeting model at your agency. That means you cannot afford to waste credits on bad data, right?"

See? I am proving I understand their business model.

3. The Offer

Connect it right back to the personalization. Tell them why you are emailing them now.

Example: "Asking because we just launched a new verification feature at [Tool Name]. It helps you find verified emails without burning your credits on the wrong people."

4. Social Proof

Give them a reason to trust you. A number or a name works best.

Example: "We are already helping 50 other lead gen agencies keep their bounce rates under 1%."

5. CTA

Do not ask for marriage. Just ask if the topic is relevant.

Example: "Would this be relevant to you right now?"

That is it. 

What is your go-to cold email framework?

I haven't used this tool yet, but I'm obsessed with the idea behind it.

When one of our creators puts out a post, we see the likes and comments. But we have to spend hours reading through hundreds of comments just to see if people like the price or if they like feature X.

I saw Trigify.io and it looks like it can fix this mess. 

One thing I want to do is sentiment analysis. I want the tool to tell me if everyone is complaining about a specific part of the dashboard. 

Instead of me guessing, I can get a clear report on what the market hates. That is pure gold for a product team.

The other part is even more crazy. They say they can connect social signals to your pipeline. 

If I can show a client that a single comment from a prospect led to a closed deal in their CRM... that is holy grail.

Right now, the link between a LinkedIn comment and a dollar is very blurry. I think this might be the tool that finally makes it clear. 

Do you track the sentiment of your comments or count the likes?

Sending a cold connection request to a stranger is just weird.

If a random person stops you on a dark street you get nervous. Most LinkedIn requests feel like that. 

You get a notification from a face you never saw before and you probably hit delete because you have zero clue who they are.

We use a method I call the Shadow Strategy. We use a tool called Extrovert for it and it has changed everything for our team.

→ I pick 50 people I want to work with.
→ I add their names into Extrovert.
→ Every time they post anything the tool sends me a notification.
→ I leave a helpful comment within the first hour of them posting.

I do this about three times in two weeks. I'm not trying to sell them anything yet. I'm just sharing my thoughts on their ideas.

When I finally send the connection request they already know who I am. 

They see my name and they think 'hey this guy has been leaving some good comments'. It is not a cold request anymore.

Our acceptance rate is about 60 percent (for prospects).

You spend 15 minutes a day doing this and your outreach stops being an intrusion.

Do you message strangers or do you let them get to know you first?

Growth Strategy Advisor | Business Development | B2B Start-ups SaaS | Conversational AI & LLM | GTM Strategy

I never thought I would end up in Sales & GTM.
I graduated as a Chinese philologist, orientalist, and explorer of Eastern countries.

After graduation, I worked as a Chinese translator for doctors and as a teacher.
Later, I realised I wanted a more dynamic path that allowed me to work across countries and markets.

Over the past 10+ years, I moved from languages to GTM and Sales leadership for AI & B2B SaaS:

– Scaled 8 startups as head of Sales/GTM for across 35+ countries
– Took a biotech startup from $0 → $1.5M ARR in 9 months with no marketing budget (solo sales)
– Built cross-border e-commerce at Yandex for 100M+ users, turning P&L from −20% → +5%
– Led 60+ AI/data projects with enterprise clients including IBM, Dell, KPMG across APAC, EU, and LATAM
– Helped raise $1M+ and ship production-ready genAI products

Most founders, CEOs, and sales leaders don’t lose deals on the sales call.

They lose them long before it.

Usually at the moment buyers start researching and silently comparing vendors.

Two things most teams underestimate:

– 85% of mid-market and enterprise buyers research vendors 3–6 months before contacting sales
– 94% of winning deals were already on the Day-1 shortlist before any sales conversation happened

By the time you’re on a discovery call, the real decision is often already made.

More outbound. Best AI GTM stack. Cleaner decks.
None of that fixes being excluded early.

I work on the part most teams never touch:
how buyers frame the decision before sales ever speak.

I design:
– Strategic positioning & competitive analysis that removes competition 
– LinkedIn content that puts you top-of-mind during research
– GTM systems that turn early visibility into signed deals

If deals stall after “interest”, it’s because the decision was already lost.

If you want to be the default choice before the first call, book a conversation or DM me.

For roles or collaboration: m.tanevskiy@gmail.com

Maxim Tanevskiy

I don’t use Clay.
I don’t even have 50k followers on LinkedIn.

Some posts get 15 likes.
Yet I book calls almost every day.

(this is NOT a “hack your way to booked calls” post)

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth:

* everyone uses Lemlist for emails
* everyone uses Clay for outbound
* everyone uses LinkedIn for visibility

Your competitors?
Same stack.
Same tools.
Same playbooks.

You’re not losing because of tooling.

You’re losing because buyers decide BEFORE the call.

95% of deals die b-e-f-o-r-e sales ever speaks.

And no G-T-M stack fixes that.

Here’s what most founders get wrong:

They think:

* more outbound = more $$$
* more sequences = more pipe
* more automation = more leverage

So they copy what “works” for TENS of THOUSANDS of others.

Result?

→ more noise
→ colder buyers
→ harder calls

Because when everyone runs the same stack,
the stack stops being the edge.

Your real edge is this:

positioning that converts (!!) before the call.

When buyers hit your profile, your site, your content:

* they should immediately know who you’re for
* what you believe
* and why you’re different

If that’s unclear, outbound just accelerates rejection.

That’s why I focus on:

* visibility to stay present during research
* outbound to trigger conversations
* positioning to win before sales

📢:
Less volume.
More conviction.

question for you:

are you trying to out-send your competitors
or out-position them before buyers ever reply?

Be the obvious choice before the first sales call | GTM Leader for AI & B2B SaaS | 8 GTM launches | 0 → $1.5M ARR in 9 mo

I have a (VERY) personal confession to make 

I was in Oman on holiday, 🌴🥾
halfway through a hike to Jebel Shams.  
(the highest point in the country, a.k.a. the *Grand Canyon of Arabia*)

with my family. on the top of the mountain. higher than the sky.

sweaty. offline. focused.

and a prospect texts me.

not a random one.
a founder. entrepreneur.
claims to run DOZENS of businesses (!).

for context:

* launching a new venture
* wants quick lead gen
* “just to test the market”

not my favourite gig.
but fine.

I tell him immediately:

→ $1,500 upfront
→ extra if you want help closing

his response?

> “that’s EXPENSIVE.
> I haven’t even launched yet.”

so I replied:

> “If you want to launch a business,
> you need to invest in it.”

then it got better.

He asked for (guarantees). 😲 

* x% reply rate
* y% conversion
* “proof it will work”

what kind of sh*t is that???

you’re building something new.
there is no data.
no history.
no certainty.

and yet you want guarantees?

I disqualified him on the spot.

not because of the money.
because of the mindset.

I don’t work with people who:

* want free labor disguised as “testing”
* confuse risk with incompetence
* think quality work starts AFTER results

here’s the truth most founders avoid:

* no upfront investment = no seriousness
* guarantees don’t exist in early-stage anything
* if you want certainty, don’t start a business

client–money relationships tell you everything.

and I’d rather lose a deal
than work with someone who doesn’t get that.

TL;DR

if you want quality, you pay upfront.
if you want guarantees, don’t build startups.

📢 p.s. be honest
have you ever tried to get certainty
in a game that’s built on uncertainty?

“I’m so d*mn TIRED of interviews pretending to be smart.” 😩😩

That’s the best way to describe my interview experience in 2025.

I’ve done interviews last year across:

* startups
* fintech
* VP-level roles
* advisory conversations

And I’m not exaggerating when I say this:

Some of the questions were straight-up I-N-S-A-N-E.

Here are the (WEIRDEST) ones I got in 2025:

* Founder:
 “If you’re negotiating with Chinese partners, can you outdrink them?”

* Recruiter:
 “Hitler. A good person?”
 Me: No.
 Recruiter: “But he built the autobahns.”

* 4 × 4 to the 17th power?

* How many time zones do we have?
 Me: Where is ‘we’?
 Founder: Well… in the US
 Me: But we're in the UAE....😲 

* Tell me the cruising speed of Airbus vs Boeing.

* What’s your nationality?
 Ah, OK, that won’t be a problem.
 (Next day)
 “We can’t hire you because of your passport.”

At some point I stopped answering
and just started observing.

Because what exactly are we testing here?

* Leadership?
* Judgment?
* Ability to memorise trivia?
* Or how much nonsense someone is willing to tolerate?

This isn’t “raising the bar”.
This is people cosplaying as intelligent interviewers.

And then companies wonder why:

* hiring feels broken
* great candidates disengage
* roles stay open for months

If your interview process rewards:

* random trivia
* offensive hypotheticals
* irrelevant math
* or thinly-veiled discrimination

you’re not filtering for excellence.

You’re filtering for compliance.

TL;DR

If an interview feels like a pub quiz mixed with a philosophy exam,
something is deeply wrong.

📢 Honest question:

what’s the MOST ABSURD interview question you’ve ever been asked?

The only education you need?


Keep trying.  
Keep pushing.  
Keep experimenting.

That’s it.

You can collect degrees like Pokémon cards.  
You can buy courses like vitamins.  
You can highlight books until your bookshelf looks like a crime scene.

And still be useless.

Because the market doesn’t reward “knowledge.”

It rewards reps.

One successful entrepreneur said it best:

**Startups are like sharks. If they stop swimming, they die.**

Same with your career.  
Same with your brand.  
Same with your sales.

If you stop moving, you don’t “rest.”

You rot.

People love the idea of learning.

They hate the part where learning requires:
- shipping something ugly  
- getting ignored  
- being wrong in public  
- rewriting the thing 12 times  
- looking stupid for a while

That’s the tuition.

So here’s my curriculum:

Build.  
Ship.  
Get punched by reality.  
Adjust.  
Repeat.

No professor can give you that.

No certificate can replace that.

The only education that matters is the one where you pay with ego.

Don’t stop fucking around.

Because the moment you do…

Someone else keeps swimming.  
And eats your lunch.

The brutal truth about “just add AI” to your GTM?
It’s wildly OVERRATED. 👇

Founders think an AI feature will create demand.
They don’t need it.
It won’t save them.

Me and Hlib Storchak have seen dozens of startups struggle with GTM. 

Look at what’s actually happening:

Over 70% of B2B SaaS tools now claim to be “AI-powered.”
Yet pipeline efficiency keeps dropping.
Outbound response rates are down 30–50% YoY across most categories.

So why doesn’t AI magically fix GTM?

Because demand doesn’t come from features.

Same pattern everywhere:

* Most AI sales tools didn’t invent a category
* Most AI GTM stacks didn’t change buyer behavior
* Most “AI-powered” launches spike curiosity, then flatline

They didn’t fail because the tech was bad.
They failed because the GAME didn’t change.

Here’s what AI doesn’t do:

1. It doesn’t create urgency
2. It doesn’t clarify “why now”
3. It doesn’t frame the problem better than competitors
4. It doesn’t build trust during 3–6 months of buyer research

Buyers still decide without you.
Still compare silently.
Still shortlist 2–3 vendors max.

AI can speed execution.
It can’t create D-E-M-A-N-D.

Modern GTM isn’t “bolt on AI and scale faster.”
It’s “own the narrative so buyers choose you before tools matter.”

If your GTM depends on an AI label to work,
you don’t have a demand problem.

You have a positioning problem.

Be honest:

Is AI doing the selling for you
or just hiding the fact that buyers don’t care yet?

Last year I learned the MOST expensive lesson about attention and money.

One of my posts early in 2025:

* 400k impressions
* 1,700 likes
* 1,000 followers 

But ZERO leads. 

The real issue was simple. 

That post had (nothing) to do with my services.

It was interesting.
It was shareable.
It made people agree.

But it didn’t make the RIGHT people think:
“This is someone I should talk to about X.”

So all that attention did exactly what it was designed to do. Create engagement, but not RELEVANCE. 

Fast forward.

Recently, I published a post that got:

* 1.2k impressions
* no viral spike
* no comment storm

And it booked 2 calls.

No DMs.
No follow-ups.
No “let’s chat” CTA.

Just straightforward calls without any prior conversations. 

What changed?

The post was about the problem I actually solve.
The way I see it. Why it’s important to me and why for the buyer. 

That’s it.

Agreement is cheap.
Relevance is not.

No alternative text description for this image

Outbound is pointless when nobody trusts you.


You can send 10,000 emails.
If buyers don’t trust you, all you did was remind them you exist… in the “ignore” folder.

Founders keep asking:
“How do we scale outbound?”

Wrong question.

If people don’t trust you, outbound just scales the problem.

Trust doesn’t start in the inbox.
It starts *before* the first message.

If I were rebuilding from zero, I’d do one thing first:

Build a proof ladder that works without you in the room.

Most SaaS/AI startups have:

* a generic deck
* a landing page
* maybe one dusty case study

Then they wonder why nothing moves after the first call.

Here’s what actually builds trust:

1️⃣ One flagship case study
Not “we did a great job.”
But: “We helped X go from A → B in 90 days. Here’s the KPI. Here’s the before/after.”

2️⃣ One teardown or benchmark
Show how you think.
Pick a real problem in your market, what’s broken, what you’d fix, and the result you’d expect.
This is what your champion forwards to their boss.

3️⃣ One live asset buyers can feel
A short Loom. A demo recording. A 10-slide “how this works in your stack.”
Something that answers: “Will this work here?”

Now outbound changes:

You’re not begging for 15 minutes.
You’re pointing people to proof they can share, replay, and argue about internally.

Outbound isn’t dead.
But outbound without trust is just expensive noise.

If your pipeline is full of “interested” leads and zero movement, you don’t need more volume.
You need a proof ladder.

DM me TRUST if you want help building one your buyers actually send up the chain.

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VP GTM & Sales (fractional)

Startup Mentor

Course Instructor

Chief Business Officer

I turn founders into the obvious choice before the first sales call

Chinese (Simplified)

English

Today I’m revealing the REAL reason 95% of deals fail
(spoiler: it’s NOT pricing, demos, or sales skills 🤯)

It’s the same problem that kills (!!) pipeline quietly
before sales ever gets a chance

The one most founders COMPLETELY ignore
(and then blame outbound, reps, or the market)

But understanding this single thing:

1. Changed how I build pipeline
  → fewer calls
  → higher close rates

2. Changed how my clients win deals
  → from “good conversations, no decisions”
  → to being shortlisted before the call
  → deals closing faster, with less pushback

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

95% (ninety five!!) of deals fail BEFORE the 1st call

Not because sales said the wrong thing
but because buyers ALREADY made up their MIND

The concept is simple.

And once you see it, it will help you:

* STOP competing on features
* STOP being compared on price
* STOP losing deals you never even knew existed

Because positioning doesn’t happen on the call
it happens while buyers are researching
scrolling
comparing
and forming opinions in silence

Outbound can’t fix that
Better decks can’t fix that
More meetings won’t fix that

Only correct positioning BEFORE the call does (!)

If you want to finish 2025 with real pipeline
and enter 2026 as the obvious choice in your category

this is the shift you need to make

📢 question for you:

where do you think your deals are really lost
during the call
or long before sales ever speaks?

"The perfect life plan guarantees success."

Biggest myth ever.

And I’ve never believed in it.

What I did believe in was momentum.
Doing things.
Seeing what breaks.
Adjusting fast.

(this is NOT a “trust the process” post)

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Most people don’t fail because they chose the wrong path.
They fail because they waited too long to choose *any* path.

I’ve failed to relocate 3 times.
I refused several offers from well-known international startups.

On paper?
Bad moves.

In reality:

* I still show up on LinkedIn
* I’m healthy
* I got married
* I traveled 40+ countries
* I lived almost everywhere

I had my favourite most happy time in Bali.

Not because I had a plan.

But because I never paused my life
waiting for one to feel “perfect”.

Here’s what I keep seeing with founders:

They think:

* the right plan guarantees success
* one wrong decision ruins everything
* waiting = being smart

So they overthink.
They optimize hypotheticals.
They delay.

Result?

→ nothing ships
→ energy leaks
→ life becomes a spreadsheet

Perfect planning doesn’t create freedom.
It creates paralysis.

What actually worked for me wasn’t certainty.
It was motion.

Doing what made sense *now*.
Doing what made me happy *now*.
Fixing mistakes *after* they appeared.

Careers aren’t linear.
Lives aren’t roadmaps.
And success doesn’t reward caution.

📢
Stop planning your life like a pitch deck.

question for you:

what are you postponing right now
because it’s not “perfect” yet?

In the last months, only ~14% of buyers ever made it into a sales call.
The rest?
They decided without one.

(this is NOT a “sales is dead” post)

It’s a warning.

Enterprise buying has gone D-I-G-I-T-A-L first.

~80% of buyer interactions now happen without reps.
Buyers spend ~17% of their time with vendors.
I’ve seen $1M+ deals close with minimal or zero sales contact.

Your AE is no longer the main source of information.

If you show up late,
you lose before the first meeting even exists.

Here’s where most enterprise teams are wrong:

They still treat sales as a P-E-R-S-U-A-S-I-O-N function.

More calls.
More follow-ups.
More “relationship selling”.

But persuasion happens too late.

What actually wins now is O-R-C-H-E-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N.

Shaping the deal before the conversation.

Influencing how buyers:

frame the problem

compare options

build internal consensus

Long before sales ever speaks.

That’s why outbound + relationship selling alone is dead.

Not because salespeople don’t matter.
But because their role has changed.

The real work now happens:

in proof assets

in POV content

in digital sales rooms

in narratives buyers pass internally

Selling without a call must be PRIORITISED.

Because enterprise buyers are already deciding without you.

And the teams that adapt first
won’t need to convince anyone later.

Most founders ask, “How do we sell more?”

The right question is, “Why should we be chosen first?”

“Sell more” is an operational question.
“Be chosen first” is a strategic one.

First choice changes everything.
It shortens the sales cycle, reduces comparisons, and removes pricing pressure.

When you’re first, sales isn’t persuasion.
It’s confirmation.

Don’t optimize the funnel.
Identify why you’re entering it first.

I believe the (discovery) call is the LAST step in the pipeline.

Not the first.


(this is NOT a “sales calls don’t matter” post)

It’s a reality check.

Because ~**70% of the buyer’s journey happens before the first call**.

Long before:

* your deck
* your demo
* your pricing slide

By the time someone books discovery,
they’ve already:

* researched alternatives
* read opinions
* formed a shortlist
* built a bias

The call doesn’t create demand.
It confirms a decision.

Here’s what **80% of founders miss**:

They obsess over:

* discovery scripts
* objection handling
* closing frameworks
* after-sales experience

All important.

But all **too late**.

If the buyer shows up skeptical,
you’re already defending.

If they show up curious,
you’re already winning.

That difference is created **before sales ever speaks**.

During:

* content they consume
* language you use to frame the problem
* how clearly you position yourself
* whether they see you as “one of many” or “the one”

Discovery isn’t where deals are won.
It’s where decisions are revealed.

So if your pipeline feels fragile, ask yourself:

Are you optimizing what happens **on the call**
or what happens **months before it**?

Because no discovery call fixes a buyer
who already decided you’re not it.

question for you:

what do buyers believe about you
before they ever click “book a call”?

Last year I generated 1.6M impressions.

And posted 218 times.

That’s 7,333 impressions per post.

And yet… I still caught myself thinking:

“Maybe I flopped.”

Because LinkedIn messes with your head.

You see someone hit 200k every week and you forget what consistency looks like.  
You ignore your totals.  
You judge yourself by one random week.

Then andreas jonsson 🛠 shared something that snapped me back to reality.

LinkedIn reach benchmarks (impressions) by follower count:

0-1k followers = 182 (typical) · 438 (strong) · 1,023 (top)
1-5k followers = 486 (typical) · 1,141 (strong) · 2,791 (top)
5-10k followers = 738 (typical) · 1,899 (strong) · 4,577 (top)
10-25k followers = 1,139 (typical) · 3,083 (strong) · 8,612 (top)
25-50k followers = 2,454 (typical) · 6,852 (strong) · 19,901 (top)

Reach = impressions.
Typical = median. Strong = top 25%. Top = top 10%. 
Source: TheShieldIndex (50,000 posts, Nov 2025, medians).

So, happily I didn’t flop.

I just got hypnotised by outliers.

Totals matter.  
Medians matter.  
Consistency matters.

If you’re posting and you feel like “nothing is working”…

Pull up your last 12 months.  
Do the math per post.  
Then compare to reality, not to the loudest screenshot on your feed.

CEO @Shield, @TheShieldIndex (LinkedIn reach & format benchmarks @ theshieldindex.com) | Founder @bootstrap.university

TheShieldIndex

Your resume isn’t bad. You’re just forgettable.


And no, sending “Just checking in” 7 times won’t fix that.

Here’s what most people call “persistence”:
- Staring at a sent email like it’s a microwave.
- Refreshing inbox like it’s the stock market.
- Writing follow-ups to feel productive, not to move anything.

It’s not persistence.
It’s anxiety management with punctuation.

Picture this:
You apply.
You interview.
They say “We’ll get back to you.”
You follow up. Then again.
Then you invent a new personality called “Polite But Mentally Unwell.”

Brutal truth:
If they wanted you, they wouldn’t need reminders.
They’d find time. They’d answer. They’d pull you forward.

Most outcomes are decided before your second follow-up.

Not because you’re broken.
Because competence is getting cheap.

If your value is “I can do tasks,” you’re now competing with a subscription.

So what doesn’t price to zero?
Being remembered for *judgment*, not effort.

Try something uncomfortable:

* Post a decision you made and the trade-off (not “tips”)
* Build a track record people can verify in 10 seconds (projects, results, writing)
* Create proof assets that travel without you (case study, teardown, short Loom)

Stop begging for replies.
Start building a reputation that makes them reply first.

Keep “quick bumping” if you want.
Maybe the ninth one triggers a miracle.

Your call.

If you’re not sure how to position yourself to a recruiter or hiring manager, drop one question in the comments. I’ll answer it.

I don’t sell AI-POWERED anything.
And in 2 years, (neither) will you.

Because saying “AI-powered” will sound exactly like saying
“electric-powered” horse riding today.

Normal.
Expected.
And completely irrelevant.

Here’s why “AI-powered” is a (SCAM) right now:

1. You transfer responsibility from yourself
  to a thing that doesn’t exist.
  If it fails, you blame AI. Not your thinking.

2. You quietly admit you have
  no imagination, no creativity,
  and no point of view.

3. It’s the same as saying
  “I sell electric cars”
  in the age of horse riding.

Cool tech.
Zero differentiation.

Buyers don’t choose tools.
They choose clarity.

Here’s how firms actually stand out:

1/ Pick ONE trigger moment.
→ The exact moment buyers feel pain and start looking.
→ e.g. “Pipeline stalls after Series A.”
→ e.g. “Enterprise deals die in procurement.”

2/ Name the problem better than anyone else.
→ Give it a sharp, repeatable label.
→ If you can’t name it, you can’t own it.
→ And buyers can’t repeat it without you.

3/ Show up months before buying starts.
→ Publish thinking around that trigger.
→ No features.
→ No category talk.
→ Only the problem and its consequences.

4/ Build proof that’s easy to forward.
→ One memo. One teardown. One benchmark.
→ Something a buyer can send internally and say:
→ “This is the issue.”

That’s positioning.

Not AI-powered everything.

📢 question for you:

what problem do buyers associate with you
B-E-F-O-R-E they ever talk to sales?

Maxim's Competitive Advantage  

I’m open to GTM + Revenue ownership.

Part-time. Fractional. High-stakes projects.

95% of B2B deals are decided before sales ever speak.
Once buyers start researching, the outcome is usually locked in.
The sales call just confirms what’s already been decided.

If buyers don’t pick you early,
they compare you, delay you, or remove you quietly.

That’s where revenue leaks.

I step in where deals are actually decided — before comparison starts and before pipeline looks “healthy but stuck”.

What I take ownership of:
> Positioning buyers use to choose (or exclude) vendors
> Enterprise pipeline that turns interest into committed revenue
> Multi-stakeholder deal logic (economic buyer, risk, internal justification)
> Outbound and social selling that work only after positioning is fixed

Proof, not theory:
- $0 → $1.5M ARR in 9 months (solo sales, no marketing budget)
- 10+ B2B SaaS companies scaled
- Consistent pipeline built through LinkedIn-led GTM (visibility → decision → deal)

I’m not here for:
❌ commission-only experiments
❌ “advisory” roles with no ownership

If you want someone who takes responsibility for where revenue is won or lost, DM me:

1. what you sell
2. ACV + sales cycle
3. where deals stall

I’ll tell you what’s already costing you money.

The CEO role will be partially replaced in the next 3–5 years.

Not someday.
Not “in theory.”
It’s already being trained.

Mercor is paying $5,000 per hour to CEOs right now.

Not to run companies.
To teach AI how to replace them.

Yes, really.
(There’s a screenshot. Over 100 CEOs already applied.)

Let that sink in.

If AI is being trained on the top of the org chart,
what makes you think your role is safe?

The CEO is supposed to be:

* The final decision-maker
* The strategic brain
* The “hardest to replace” human

And yet someone just put a market price on learning their job.

$5,000/hour.

This isn’t about “AI tools.”
This is about role compression.

Here’s the pattern most people miss:

* SDRs were “essential” → replaced
* Customer support was “human-only” → replaced
* Writers were “creative” → replaced
* Junior devs were “too complex” → replaced

Everyone believed it would stop *one level above them*.

It didn’t.

Now it’s reaching:

* Strategy analysis
* Decision modeling
* Resource allocation
* Scenario planning

In other words: management work.

Still think:

* “AI can’t do what I do”?
* “My judgment is different”?
* “Leadership is uniquely human”?

Radiologists said the same thing.

Right before Mercor started paying them $375/hour
to train the system that now outperforms them on pattern detection.

So here’s the real question. Not a comfortable one.

What is your (unfair) advantage?

Not your title.
Not your experience.
Not your résumé.

What do you do that:

* Can’t be learned from observing you
* Can’t be reduced to patterns
* Can’t be optimised by scale

Because AI doesn’t replace people.
It replaces ROLES without defensible (edges).

And the C-suite is no longer off-limits.

The question isn’t (if) AI comes for part of your role.

It’s whether you’ve built:

* Authority instead of position
* Judgment instead of process
* Leverage instead of labor

So I’ll ask it again:

What’s your unfair advantage?

And if you don’t have one yet —
how much longer are you going to assume your title will protect you?

$5,000 per hour.

That's what Mercor is paying CEOs right now.

Not to run companies.

To train AI to replace them.

(Screenshot attached. Over 100 people already applied.)

And here's the part nobody wants to hear:

If they're coming for the CEOs...

What makes you think they're not coming for you?

Seriously.

The CEO sits at the top.
The final decision-maker.
The "irreplaceable" one.

And someone just put a price tag on replacing them.

$5,000/hour.

So let me ask you something:

What's YOUR unfair advantage?

What do you do that AI can't learn from watching you do it 1,000 times?

Because here's the pattern:

Data labelers got replaced.
Then customer support.
Then writers.
Then junior devs.

Everyone thought it would stop before it reached them.

It didn't.

And now it's at the C-suite.

Still think your job is safe?

Still think you're "different"?

Still think "AI can't do what I do"?

That's exactly what radiologists said.

Right before Mercor started paying them $375/hour to train their replacements.

The question isn't whether AI will come for your role.

It's whether you'll have somewhere to go when it does.

So I'll ask again:

What's your unfair advantage?

And if you don't have one — when are you going to build it?

--

♻️ Repost if this made you uncomfortable.
💬 Drop your unfair advantage below — I want to see who actually has one.

Recruiter: What team management experience do you have?

Me:

Be the obvious choice before the first sales call

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Maxim Tanevskiy

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Denis Acia's LinkedIn Performance

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