I started my career on the phones. I logged 75,000 cold calls before I ever moved into leadership.

The lesson that followed me out of that cubicle was simple: Volume creates activity. It doesn’t create influence.

For 15 years across Revenue.io, Inside Real Estate, and BoomTown, I watched the same pattern play out. We optimized for coverage. We treated "The Account" like a single entity. But buyers punished us for sounding like everyone else.

The market has shifted. You can no longer spam your way to a number.Real buying decisions happen in a messy group.

• The CFO feels the problem in budget bleed.
• The Ops lead feels it in the workaround eating their Tuesday.
• The VP feels it when the board asks why the number is off.

If you treat them all the same, you lose.

My work sits where Sales Development, Ops, and Enablement meet. I build systems that stop reps from guessing and start helping them shape consensus.

That is why I am at Influ2.

It is the first time I’ve seen a way to shape the narrative for the specific humans inside a buying group, before the cold call even happens. We don't wait for demand; we build the context that creates it.

The results of shifting from "spray" to "shape":

• 376% pipeline per rep growth
• 55% of new ARR from signal-based outbound
• 48% faster ramp

Based in Charleston, SC. Toddler mom x2. Terrible at unmuting on Zoom. Great at destroying waste ($, effort, time). 

Curious how contact-level signals can help your ABM motion? Happy to share what we're seeing! 

💌m.bross@influ2.com

Maria Bross

📣 It’s official: you can now find me at Influ2!

The exact problem I’ve been duct-taping solutions for over 15 years finally has a real home.

Our CRM said “Meta has engaged.”
Our reps: Sweet...what do I do with this?

The "signal" never told me or my team who to call.
What the human who engaged actually cared about.
And why us contacting was relevant to them.

So we compensated....

I rebuilt outbound plays.
I rewrote MQL criteria with marketing.
I built signal-based sequences that drove 376% more pipeline per rep.
I built 19 sequences that sourced 55% of new ARR.
I built a custom GPT because “engaged” didn’t mean “ready,” and reps were wasting good leads.

It worked.

But it required constant stitching across Salesforce, Outreach, intent tools, call data, and enablement. And burnt me out. 

And the core mismatch stayed the same:

We organized around accounts.
Buyers made decisions as individuals.
Most research happened before we were invited in.
Most of it never showed up as a click.

If we waited for visible intent, we were ghosted. 

Influ2 works at the level the decision actually happens...the human level. 

You can see which named individual was exposed to what.
You can see influence even if they never filled out a form.
You can see buying-group coverage, not just logo activity.

That matters because I care about two things as an enablement leader:
Reps walking into conversations prepared.
Buyers feeling understood instead of chased.

The culture sealed it.

In interviews, I pushed back directly on a few assumptions. I’ve learned that not every company actually wants that. S/O den kozlov 🇺🇦 for being the real deal - seeing this as a feature not a bug. 

💓 Katie Penner for making the intro and supporting me throughout. 

🤍 Hamish Stephenson 🦘for taking my call in the uber ride to meet my future leader. 

Sean Frazer for teaching me so much in such a short amount of time. ("Girl dad" energy meets AI business acumen.) 

If you’ve ever rebuilt your outbound motion because “account engagement” wasn’t enough, we should talk.

My DMs are open.

PS: Olympic Ice Technician, Mark Keown is my supporting role inspo in this new chapter (Making the sheet perfect for GTM teams with a "little rizz and a little style") 😂

Influ2 Enablement + RevOps | Destroyer of GTM waste| Toddler mom x2

"Employee Appreciation Day" got me thinking.

Past roles? Might as well have been National Grilled Cheese Day.

Pre-Influ2, I'd either miss it or spot some sappy LinkedIn post about it. 

(Like this one.) 

But a month in at Influ2? Different story.

Katie Penner (VP) is proactively Slacking me + Carlie Vollert for ideas on appreciating our SDR team.

Unreal.

Not because SDRs don't deserve it - they 10000% do.

But this level of intention by a leader to see the humans keeping lights on? 

Rare as hell.

Okay, now to the real MVPs of this post. 

Influ2 SDRs, I See You. 

You're: 
✅ asking for feedback
✅ roleplaying with zero ego
✅ testing out new approaches in live calls 
✅ building on your already impressive knowledge 

Wins/Rejection, y'all come back every day with professionalism, a growth-mindset and positivity. 

 I have so much respect for what you all do because it's flipping tough. But the ROI? Bigger than a commission check. 

The skills you build subtly trickle into real life: 

- Negotiating with your toddler at bed time
- Making a spouse sharing a concern feel heard 
- Prepping for an interview in a completely different industry and role 
- Working backwards from running a marathon 

 I'm pumped to be your teammate, a coach and appreciate each of you!

PS: Marketing/ABM leaders: If you're at all focused on influencing real *full cycle* revenue, efficiency metrics... and proving it at the named contact level. 
We should talk precision. (and possibly get my team a win today!)

Bout to hit the phones and fingers crossed land this group some meetings toward March target. 

Expecting to eat giant slice of humble pie 👀 . Wish me luck. 

Haven't cold called in ~6 months... what's the biggest change I should expect?

Most deals I've lost came down to one mistake: 

single-threading.

You find one champion. Hand them the pitch. Cross your fingers they'll sell it internally.  

(Greener reps do this all the time.)

Marketing tries to fix it in the opposite way...

Overnights Yeti tumblers to the entire building because the *account* "showed intent."  

Turns out, just an intern checking where their Bumble date worked.  

Only revenue Marketing can prove they influenced? Yeti's 

Sales takes unnecessary risk.  
Marketing burns budget across an account. 

Neither one matches how real buying groups make decisions.  

It's never one person.  
It's six, eight, sometimes ten.  
Some are deep in the research.  
Some are focused on risk, budget, or technical fit.  
One has final approval.  

Problem is that opinions start forming long before you ever join the conversation...

Group threads. Hallway chats. Shared docs.  

By the time your champion brings you in, half the group has already decided. 

That's when deals are lost.  
Not because your champion failed.  
But because no one else ever heard of you until it was too late.  

Doug Madey and Ed VanderBush from LiveRamp are unpacking this at #B2BMX next week:  

"Orchestrate Your ABM Around the Main Characters, Not the Extras."

March 9th  2:30 PM.  

I won't be there, but I'm living this every day.  

Happy to share my notes on what our brilliant customers (like Ed) are building 💪

Who will be in town?? Katie Penner is hosting what looks like the most fun happy hour in walking distance

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

Over the last 22 years I have been fortunate to have started, managed, invested, failed, and even sometimes succeeded in building some great companies.

In 2000 I was part of the founding team of Thrive Networks, which grew to become one of the leading providers of managed IT services in the New England area.  Since it's sale to Staples in 2006 I have been a founder, investor or advisor to 20+ companies including DesignerAdvantage, Web-O-Matic, J. Barrows Sales Training, and WhatArmy.

In an effort to contain my craziness - in 2016 along with my friend of 35 years - John Barrows - founded Playground Partners as a vehicle to ideate and develop new concepts mostly focused on the Sales Enablement / Development space.



Christopher Merrill

Jed Mahrle and Kyle Vamvouris are two of the people I love interacting with - mostly because every interaction gives me a chance to ask how they built automations and AI into the workflows.

In fact, I assumed Kyle's VA response was AI-generated, so I gave it some sass. Nope, real (and kind) human. Lines are being blurred!

Thank you, Kyle, for forgiving me.

Jed's superpower is translating "complex" into "simple." He and Kyle are hosting part 1 of an "AI for Sales" this week. If you liked the workshops we did with Agent.ai, you will love this.

https://hubs.la/Q045n_P-0

CEO @ Better Media [Sell Better & Market Better]

Open article: AI Foundations For Sellers by hubs.la

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