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)

SlyLeadz

Sly Leadz - Your Partner in B2B Sales Growth

TIRED OF SLUGGISH SALES GROWTH?

At Sly Leadz, we help B2B businesses like yours THRIVE by crafting compelling outreach systems that LAND ideal clients and FILL your sales pipeline!

OUR MISSION:
We're on a mission to revolutionize B2B sales by providing a personalized, results-driven approach to outreach and lead generation.

Founder

Konecte

Sales Director

Keeper Security, Inc.

Account Executive - SMB

Business Development Representative

BlueGrace Logistics

Carrier Sales Representative

Founder @ Slyleadz | I help startups build cold outbound systems that generate qualified meetings | 💌 slyleadz.us

STRUGGLING TO FILL YOUR PIPELINE WITH QUALIFIED LEADS?

I've been there. After testing 1000+ outreach campaigns, I cracked the code.

Now, I help B2B companies build outbound systems that:
→ Generate 20-30 qualified meetings/month
→ Convert cold prospects into warm conversations
→ Scale predictably without the spam tactics

Our secret?
- Multi-channel outreach that actually works
- AI-powered personalization at scale
- Follow-up sequences with 40%+ response rates
- Data-driven targeting that finds your ideal customers

Recent wins:
→ Helped a SaaS startup book 100+ demos in 60 days
→ Built a 7-figure pipeline for a tech company in 90 days
→ Generated 500+ qualified leads for enterprise clients

Want to stop guessing and start closing?
Book a strategy call: calendly.com/slyleadz/slyleadz-15-minute-meeting-clone

Nick Palasz

Some cold email openers deserve jail time and not the minimum sentence 😂

Every day I see lines so painful, so overused, so spiritually illegal that I’m convinced we need a special outbound correctional facility

“Quick question…”
“Hope this finds you well…”
“Following up on my last 8 emails…”

Swipe to see the 10 openers that should be locked up immediately

If you’ve used them, it’s okay consider this your probation

Follow Nick Palasz  for more sales honesty in a world full of questionable choices

10 cold email openers that deserve jail time

30 outbound experiments you can run in the next 30 days

Save this post; these are the tests most teams don’t run but should

Inside you’ll find →
– ICP & targeting audits
– Trigger-based prospecting
– Deliverability reset sprints
– Messaging clarity rewrites
– Personalization depth tests
– Cadence density + velocity checks
– Human-first follow-up systems
– Sequence drift & hygiene audits

Plus 20+ more experiments to help you tighten your system, sharpen your messaging, and build predictable pipeline in 2025 and 2026

Comment “OUTBOUND” and I’ll send the full resource

Make sure we are connected 🙌

Your reps aren't lazy, they're exhausted

I used to think my outbound team just wasn't hungry enough

Then I realized, they were spending more time managing tools than actually selling

→ CRM over here
→ Email platform over there
→ Spreadsheets for tracking
→ Another tab for deliverability checks

By the time they're ready to hit send, half their energy is already gone 🤷

Sounds familiar, right?

So I put together 5 reasons why outbound teams burn out and how Saleshandy can help them

Swipe the carousel to learn more about it 👇

Saleshandy

5 reasons your outbound team feels burnt out

Every day in sales feels like its own Stranger Things episode:

A disappearing prospect.
A terrifying demo.
A sudden burst of superpowers.
Vecna soundtrack during pricing.
Dustin-mode when replies get weird.

And we call this… a career 😂

Ever feel like you're in Hawkins? 

Swipe the carousel to see why sales is a real-life Stranger Things episode!

5 times sales feels like stranger things edition

Some reps unplug for the holidays

Some spend time with family

And then there’s the Christmas Eve Outbound Assassin
600 emails
1 sequence
0 self-awareness

Fully convinced “holiday inbox energy” is a real intent signal 😂

We all know that rep

Some of us are that rep

But truth is, the leads aren’t going anywhere

Your quota isn’t Santa

And you’re allowed to actually take those days off

Follow Nick Palasz for more moments that prove sellers are unintentionally hilarious

Why do agencies with $50K MRR feel more chaotic than startups at $500K ARR?

It's simple… startups build infrastructure before they scale

Agencies duct-tape tools together while juggling clients 🤷

And then reality looks like this 

→ Switching between 5+ platforms per client 
→ Managing dozens of logins 
→ Hunting for reports across different dashboards 
→ Triple checking you're in the right inbox before hitting send

This is not growth, this is pure survival

You don’t need more tools, you need better ones

One platform to manage leads, send cold emails, warm up inboxes, track performance, and handle multiple clients

And I prefer Saleshandy for it

No tool-switching problem 

No per-seat pricing nightmares

Just centralized client management that actually scales because clients don't care how many tools you use

They care about results

Swipe the carousel to learn more about it 👇

If you're managing clients in 5 diff tools 

This is me explaining to my family what I do for a living and somehow it gets more confusing the longer I talk.

It always starts simple:

“I help startups book more meetings.”

Then someone asks, “So… you just send emails?”

 And suddenly I’m 10 minutes deep explaining:

 – inbox warmups
 – deliverability
 – intent signals
 – ICP accuracy
 – and why one wrong domain setting can ruin your entire week

This is the point when my whole family just gives me that Thanksgiving look
 
The one where they’re not sure if I’m explaining my job or about to impersonate the turkey

But hey it pays the bills, fixes pipelines, and keeps founders from panicking every Monday morning 😂

Late on the post but Happy Thanksgiving everyone 🦃

Hope you all had an amazing one

Follow Nick Palasz for more

I stopped hating rejection when I saw the pattern

Every “No” used to sting

Now it’s just another metric to study

Because not all No’s mean the same thing

Here’s how 👇

“Not right now” → timing data
“Not relevant” → ICP feedback
“We already use X” → positioning clue

Every rejection leaves a breadcrumb

You just have to be smart enough to trace it back to the system

The more I studied the No’s, the faster I fixed what actually mattered 
-Offer
-Targeting
-And message

The Yes’s came later

They always do

👉 Swipe the carousel to see the full breakdown

Follow Nick Palasz for more

rejection that pays you back

Have you ever noticed how LinkedIn outreach works great… until the moment you try to scale it?

I didn’t think much of it until recently.

I was reviewing one of our client’s outbound setup 

Nothing fancy, just a routine check and something felt… off.

They were doing all the ‘right’ things, but the system still felt like it was fighting for survival

That’s when I realized something I should’ve seen earlier

LinkedIn breaks not because of the outreach but people treating it like a single user platform while trying to run a multi-user operation 🤷

I kept seeing this over and over …
– Multiple profiles doing outreach but all in separate silos
– Conversations scattered everywhere

Every problem was related to infrastructure

And the moment they stopped trying to push harder, everything changed

So, lemme share a better way

➡️ Add pre-warmed outreach profiles so you’re not risking the main accounts
➡️ Distribute campaigns across multiple profiles, the same way we scale cold email
➡️ Centralize every conversation in one place so nothing slips
➡️ Make LinkedIn an extension of the outbound engine

We use Aimfox because it helps outreach behave the way it should behave
• Multi-profile campaigns
• One unified inbox for every conversation
• Clean automation with Clay/Make
• Human-feeling outreach at scale

Once you fix the foundation, the scale follows naturally.

P.S. Have you run into the same scaling problems on LinkedIn? What did you notice first?

AI took the excuses personally

Now it’s just you, the system and accountability 😬

And honestly, we weren’t avoiding the work before

It just took forever to get stuff done

Research dragged
Personalization dragged even more
Writing one email felt like a whole shift

So yeah the “no time” excuse used to make sense

But then AI showed up and suddenly all the slow stuff wasn’t slow anymore

Which means if outbound still feels inconsistent…

It’s not because of AI, it's because of your system

Swipe through the carousel to see what actually changed and DM me "AI" if your outbound needs help

Follow Nick Palasz for more

the moment ai removed all excuses

Did your voice crack on your first call too?

Because mine definitely did 💀

And honestly, that’s the part nobody tells you

Cold calling doesn’t start with confidence

It starts with sweaty palms, shaky intros, and questioning every life choice you’ve ever made

But give it a few months?

You go from “Uh… is this a bad time?”
To “Hey John, quick one got a sec?”

The work stays the same

But you don’t

You get better at the awkward pauses, the messy intros, the fast pivots all the stuff that felt like chaos on day one

P.S. Comment your first cold call memory let’s laugh or cry together 😂

Warning⚠️  

This list may cause emotional damage

Because every seller pretends they’re built different until you realize we all operate the same way under pressure

The mid-call Google searches
The enthusiastic intro no one asked for
The 11-day “I’ll follow up tomorrow” delay
The CRM blame-game Olympics

We’ve all done it

We just don’t admit it publicly

Drop the number that hurt your soul the most 👇

Follow Nick Palasz for more honesty in a world of sales delusion

JSESSIONID

li_at

There's a 72-hour window when a buyer is 8x more likely to take your meeting.

Miss it, and you're back to cold outreach.

I didn't believe this until I saw it myself.
- A prospect changing jobs
- Company raises funding
- A team starts hiring SDRs

These aren't random events, they're buying windows.

And the reps who catch them early? They win early.

Here are the 5 buyer signals I track in real time using Lusha 👇

1: Job Changes
A buyer who just entered a new role, track job changes the minute they happen.

2: Funding Events
Teams that raise capital hire fast, build fast, and fix bottlenecks fast. Perfect timing for outbound.

3: Tech Stack Changes
Whenever a company adds or removes a tool, something is breaking. This is the most overlooked signal in outbound.

4: Team or Territory Expansion
Expansion means demand for new tools, data, workflows, and pipeline

5: Pipeline Activity
Teams already active in your category are the warmest 'cold' prospects.
The best way is to send better timed messages instead of sending more messages

The reps who see the signals early… win early.

I have explained all 5 signals in the carousel below. Swipe through to see how each one works

P.S. What's one buyer signal you wish you could track in real time?
#Lushapartner

Brand partnership • Founder @ Slyleadz | I help startups build cold outbound systems that generate qualified meetings | 💌 slyleadz.us

5 buyer signals that predict a meeting

The breakthrough wasn’t a tool… it was cleaning up the mess

And that’s when everything started working again

We didn’t try to “build a stack”

We just fixed what kept breaking until the pipeline finally stopped fighting us

Here’s what stayed 👇

PhantomBuster- Scrapes real buyers not random titles
LeadMagic - Finds the hidden visitors already showing intent
Clay - Turns raw signals into clean, usable lead intelligence
Icypeas - Verified emails + enrichment that doesn’t fall apart
Prospeo.io - Find business email addresses for outreach.  
Aimfox- Personalization at scale that still feels human
Writesonic - Context-aware copy that doesn’t sound robotic
Smartlead -Safe sending + consistent outbound volume
Instantly.ai - Sales Engagement & Lead Intelligence  
Saleshandy - Follow-ups that land naturally
Inframail - Protects deliverability from collapsing
MailReach -Keeps inboxes warm, clean, and trusted

P.S. Which tool are you keeping in your stack this year?

Repost ♻️ to inspire your network and 🔔

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Outbound changed the moment AI joined the team

But are you actually using it correctly?

Most teams plug AI into the copy but ignore the parts of outbound where AI creates the real lift.

Here are 3 simple ways to fix that 👇

1️⃣ HPS
You pick the angle, and AI turns it into a few strong message options you can test and scale.

2️⃣ DTT
Outbound gets easier when your messaging reacts to real movement. New roles, new funding, new tools. AI turns those shifts into relevant openers so every message is timely.

3️⃣ SRI
Once the sequence starts, AI reads the signals your prospects send and recommends the next best step so nothing goes stale. 

Outbound isn’t about using more AI

It’s about using it where it actually matters.

P.S Which framework is your fav? Let's talk

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Same product. Same training. Same sequences.

But only one rep was consistently closing deals. Here's why →

Last year I was reviewing an outbound team for a client.
But one rep kept coming up in conversation.

"Yeah, Jenna is different."
"She just runs cleaner calls."

I wanted to see what was actually happening.
Because 9 out of 10 times the rep is not the problem.
The system is.

Turns out Jenna was not magically more talented.
She was not born with some special discovery gene.
She just delivered a consistent experience on every call.

Every single one had clear notes, clear next steps, and fast follow up.
No repetitive questions.
No missing info on handoff.

Meanwhile the rest of the team was working at the mercy of their workflow.
Some typed notes. Some relied on memory. Some forgot key details.

Buyers feel that instantly.

Your top rep is not different.
Your process is different.
You cannot coach consistency if the infrastructure is broken.

So here is what we changed.

We added an AI call layer with Aircall that handled the note taking for them.
One shift that fixed the foundation."

Right when the call ended the AI created a clean summary with key points and next steps.
Everyone worked from the same version of the truth.
Follow ups finally matched what buyers actually said.
Hand offs felt smooth for the first time.

From the buyer side it felt like every rep suddenly became Jenna.
No repeating their story. No confusion. No drop in momentum.

Most people still think Aircall is just a phone system.
For this team it became the AI engine that made every call feel like the top rep was running it.

If you want your whole team performing like your best rep
fix the system first.

If you want your whole team performing like your best rep, fix the system first.

You can try Aircall's AI for free here: https://bit.ly/4oDKRTh

Not every deal’s meant to close and it's okay

When I first got into outbound, I thought every ‘no’ was a reflection of me

Every Closed Lost felt like failure

I’d overthink the follow-ups, rewrite the emails, and convince myself I should’ve done more

But over time, I learned something that completely flipped my mindset 

A lost deal doesn’t mean you did something wrong

Sometimes it means timing’s off
Sometimes the fit isn’t right 
And sometimes it’s just not your deal to win 🤷

Those moments taught me more than any course or sales hack ever could

What worked? What didn’t?

Why did some people lean in while others ghosted?

That’s how growth happens, quietly, between all the no’s and not yets.

So if you’re just getting started, remember

You don’t need to close every deal

You just need to learn from the ones you lose

That’s how you stop taking rejection personally 

And start taking it professionally

Repost ♻️ to inspire your network and 🔔

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Outbound is entering its filter era

Where strategy starts to matter again

The problem isn’t that outbound stopped working 

It’s that everyone kept copying what they used to

Templates. Tools. Tricks.

All trying to sound “personal” and ending up sounding the same

Your prospects don’t need more messages

They need meaning

The teams that’ll win in 2026?

They’ll stop chasing open rates and start engineering systems that earn attention

One's built with data that flows, context that connects, and structure that actually scales

Outbound’s not a volume game anymore

It’s a systems game

This is outbound, evolved

See the cheatsheet to learn what’ll still work when everything else fails

Repost ♻️ to inspire your network and 🔔

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Your people notice the damage long before the numbers expose it

And once the numbers react, the damage has already spread

Because bad sales cultures don’t blow up your numbers first they blow up your team

And it starts quietly

Reps stop asking real questions
Managers start obsessing over quota
Buyers feel sold instead of helped
And suddenly every call feels like a pitch instead of a conversation

That’s when performance drops

Not because the reps don’t care but because the culture is working against them

I’ve watched teams with insane potential fall apart this way
Great product.
Great talent
But the environment kept breaking them long before the metrics showed anything was wrong

And here’s the part nobody likes admitting:

The fix isn’t a new script, a new cadence, or a new tool

It’s the environment
→ help the buyer
→ coach curiosity
→ reward doing it right not rushing the close

Because when a team actually believes in how they sell?

Everything else becomes easier

The results always follow

Follow Nick Palasz for more

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Nick Palasz

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The Battle

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Nick Palasz

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Engagements

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