Manuel Hartmann

Founder & CEO@SalesPlaybook | Build & scale B2B sales without trial & error

Transforming B2B SaaS Sales in the DACH Region

With over 5 years of experience, I built SalesPlaybook from CHF0 to 30k MRR in under 18 months and scaled it to a 7-figure annual revenue with fewer than 6 FTEs. I’ve supported 300+ B2B SaaS and Professional Service Entrepreneurs to:
- Achieve EUR 0-10 Mio. ARR in under 3 years profitably
- Accelerate ARR growth by over 5x from 0-1 Mio. in less than 18 months
- Close 10-50x larger deals through Message-Market-Fit & Value Selling
- Implement & optimize HubSpot Sales Hub & Outbound Sales from scratch

Career Highlights:
- 2009: Launched sales career with 3-figure NPO donations
- 2012: Reached 6-figure sales with sportscars@Tesla
- 2014-2016: Led 7-figure CRM transformations@Accenture
- 2017-2019: Managed 5-figure AI SaaS@Onedot
- Present: Driving 5-figure deals@SalesPlaybook

What I Offer:
- Pipeline Generation: Developing and executing strategies to build robust sales pipelines.
- Sales Enablement: Equipping sales teams with the tools and training needed for success.
- HubSpot Services: Comprehensive implementation and optimization of HubSpot CRM

Personal Interests: 
- I’m an avid UFC fan, active (kick)boxer, snowboarder, and musician (piano + e-guitar). 
- I enjoy taking on challenges like writing a book in under 30 days or completing 1,000 push-ups

Education: Master’s Degree in Business Innovation from HSG with MBA Exchange in Canada

Let’s connect if: 
- You're a B2B entrepreneur looking to scale sales quickly, efficiently & without 6-figure mistakes
- You identify as a Top 1% talent on hunger & drive, urgent curiosity, intelligence & integrity

Founder & CEO

Join 220+ customers to build & scale sales with the #1 B2B SaaS Startup Sales Journey Partner in DACH.

All the expert sales help you need to fast forward your B2B SaaS Startup.

👉 Book a 1:1 Sales Assessment Call: https://thesalesplaybook.com/bookacall
👉 Get proven hands-on sales resources: https://thesalesplaybook.com/resources
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Track Record:
❖ 0-2M booked ARR in <15 months by finding message-market-fit in <9 months (boostbar)
❖ 0-7 figure ARR in <12 months by hitting message-market fit, setting up outbound sales engine & more (Kyan Health)
❖ 0-7 figure ARR in <18 months by hitting message-market-fit, building outbound sales & training first sales hires (Archlet)
❖ >10 projects to 50+ subscriptions to exit after building outbound sales from 0 (Airica)
❖ 0-2M+ ARR in <18 months by building a sales team from scratch (rready)
❖ 5x MRR by building scalable sales & hiring first sales rep (Turbit)
❖ Ramp 5 SDRs to quota in less than 3 months (Beekeeper)
❖ 4x annual revenue after closing 700k deal with Fortune 500 company by leveraging value-selling (novoMOF)
❖ 2x MRR in 6 months by niching down on Ideal Customer Profile (Houston & Ko)
❖ 370k+ deal closed through hands-on support, approaching 7-figure revenue (56k.Cloud)
❖ 2x ARR in 9 months by 10x'ing ACV by 10x, winning 100K+ deals & hitting 90% reply rates (Classtime)
❖ 2x MRR in 3 months, from 5-10k deals to EUR 150k contract, hitting 30% booking rates (wowflow)
❖ 2x MRR in 6 months from group coaching sessions & more (Houston & Ko)
❖ 250k ARR deal closed by changing their positioning & negotiation approach (Linimex)
❖ <5% to 80% opening and 30%+ reply rates on scalable outbound sales (TRESIO)
❖ 2x MRR in 6 months by niching down on Ideal Customer Profile (Houston & Ko)

SalesPlaybook

Building and Scaling Allbound-Engines, for B2B Software and professional Service Entrepreneurs, Generating 7- and 8-Figure Annual Revenue. Enhanced by AI but controlled by you, so you build and scale trust, instead of destroying it.

Sales Consultant

Founder-Led

Before joining SalesPlaybook, I supported B2B founders in mastering sales, turning ideas into validated ventures, and closing initial deals with personalized weekly training.

Geschäftsführer

Easy Digitals

We worked with Managed Service Providers to increase their pipeline through marketing and sales development.

We implemented more than 50 go-to-market projects, effectively packaging, launching and distributing new services.

This role allowed me to build my B2B sales skills through thousands of cold outreaches, hundreds of sales conversations, and €300,000 in closed deals, alongside managing and fulfilling our client projects.

IPS Concept GmbH & Co. KG

As part of my internship as a student, I worked with our partner IPS-Concept. Here, I assisted in marketing the company's own products as well as supporting the marketing efforts for IPS-Concept's clients. My main focus was on enhancing the collaboration between marketing and sales.

Praktikant

DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale

Management of IT-Services and IT-Service Providers.

Werkstudent

Master founder-led B2B sales for early traction | 1% better every day | 5 years experience in sales & marketing | 50+ GTM client projects

We help B2B SaaS Entrepreneurs and revenue leaders boost weighted pipeline through tailored strategy consulting paired with leveraging AI & automation —no endless trial and error, no copy-paste blueprints, no need to hire more SDR's

Check my featured section, to see how we can help 👇

Luke Schneider

Gal Aga gets 65% of Aligned's leads from LinkedIn. Everyone studies his posts but often miss what's actually driving results. I spent this morning analyzing his approach, so you can use the insights to grow your business through LinkedIn.

The problem you face when trying to grow through LinkedIn: 

People come to LinkedIn to learn and be entertained. If you just sell, reach dies.

Gal portrays a masterpiece of solving this problem, and it consists of two parts:

𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 1 - 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿-𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲-𝗙𝗶𝘁 (𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻)

He spent 17 years in sales. AE to CRO. Enterprise deals, team leadership.

Now he builds Aligned - a solution for sales leaders and AEs.

His story IS his audience's story. His pain points ARE their current problems.

When he writes about enterprise deal complexity, he's sharing scars from hundreds of deals he personally closed, lost, and learned from.

Your audience smells the difference between someone who Googled their problems and someone who lived them.

That's the foundation.

𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 2 - 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵:

He then turns this into content.

1 - Opens with a specific problem from his 17 years. A real scenario his audience is living right now, helping them identify.

2 - Gives actionable insights they can use today. No product required. The value stands completely alone and people can implement independently.

3 - Positions Aligned only as one possible vehicle to solve it. Not "You need this to solve it, buy now." Just "PS: We built Aligned for this. Try it free."

They read for the insights. Trust him to know how to solve the problems. And get educated that Aligned is a possible way to solve them if they want a shortcut.

Three moves for your content:

→ Match your experience to your audience's current problems. 
→ If they don't align, adjust your positioning and POV
→ Give the insight away for free. Talk about problems from lived experience.
→ Position your solution as a vehicle, not the requirement.

Thanks, Gal. Learned a lot from you!

LinkedIn GTM Consultant at SalesPlaybook | Sharing insights from hands-on work with B2B entrepreneurs growing through LinkedIn

This is a former Fortune 50 CIO turned tech-scaleup CEO. Me, in joggers from my home office, get to interview him to create content that benefits his business. Here is how to get banger content out of banger people:

It still feels surreal sometimes.

A 24-year-old in sweats, extracting insights from people who ran billion-dollar companies.

Turning it into content that helps grow their business.

But it's my job and it's just awesome.

Doing this for 13 months now, I developed a mental framework I use to approach those calls.

Here it is:

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 0 - 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆.

Stories are unique, non-copyable and authentic. Also, people identify with stories, learn through stories, visualize stories, remember stories. Always look for the story - high-profile people have a lot of them.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 1 - 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻.

Every good story includes a painful problem. The person either experienced it firsthand (best case) or witnessed it. It needs to connect to the pain their product solves - directly (best) or indirectly. When you find it, bring it to life. Visualize it. Get examples.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 2 - 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝘂𝗹𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆.

Experiencing the pain creates vulnerability. This is what makes readers sympathize and lower their guard. Don't fabricate it if it's not there. But if it is, admit it.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 3 - 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

The transformation is the process of overcoming the problem. Look for the steps needed to work through it or what had to change to turn the problem into a new insight. This can also be the WHY behind your solution.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 4 - 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁.

The insight comes from overcoming the problem and finding a solution. It's earned through the journey above, which makes it unique and valuable. Link the insight clearly to the pain. And if you've done a good job, you can also link it to your solution without selling.

This works for founders. Works for executives. Works for anyone who's actually done something intersting.

And me? I am just grateful I am able to do this as my job!

𝗣𝗦 - Not every post needs to be a story, but most can benefit from one.

A client asked : "How do we know our LinkedIn content is actually working?". Fair question. "It feels like it's working" doesn't cut it. Here is what I've built to prove impact early.

A system to track exactly which people from target accounts engage with our posts.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀:

1 - Hooked up Teamfluence™ to the thought leadership account

2 - Created a webhook that sends all engagers and profile viewers to Clay

3 - Built a target account list of the top 2,000 accounts in their market (we do this in every project regardless)

4 - Cross-referenced the two Clay tables to see how many people from each account showed engagement signals

5 - Bonus - Import HubSpot contacts with open deals to see influenced pipeline.

Two weeks later, we had data.

The champion of an open deal? Visiting multiple profiles frequently and engaging with the content.

Many more accounts had multiple stakeholders engaging over a two-week span.

Using this data, we started reaching out to the people who engaged early.

Turning them into qualified meetings booked.

At this point, everyone knew it's working.

When I started at Salesplaybook, I onboarded two clients in week two. No ramp up. No training. I was accountable for whether they succeeded, and I wasn't even expecting this when deciding to join.

I saw the big SalesPlaybook brand and thought I'd get all the training I needed. All the playbooks.

But the company had just come out of a pivot. A transformation of their service offering.

I was part of delivering something we had no playbook for yet.

So I found myself in a fast change, high uncertainty environment.

I couldn't wait for others to take action for me. I needed to own it and move forward.

This extreme accountability was (and is) discomfortable at times. But the discomfort is what helped me grow.

Looking back, my learning and agency improved exponentially. Faster than ever.

Here's what I'm getting at:

If you had to choose a career path, look for the place with the biggest learning opportunities. Where you'll need to endure discomfort and take ownership. (Given it's something you care about.)

Especially when you're young.

--
PS - picture goes back to our last retreat. By now, we have the playbooks I expected! And yes, we could use some diversity, I know :D

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Manuel Hartmann

Luke Schneider

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The Battle

Manuel Hartmann

Luke Schneider

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Luke Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

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