Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer at Sales Assembly | Developing the GTM Teams of B2B Tech Companies | Investor | Sales Mentor | Decent Husband, Better Father

I’ve spent my career trying to solve one puzzle: how do you scale sales teams without losing what makes them great?

Before Sales Assembly, I lived the highs and lows of hyper-growth - leading revenue teams, juggling targets, and realizing that growth without structure eventually collapses under its own weight. The lesson stuck: great teams don’t just grow fast, they grow well.

That’s the idea behind Sales Assembly. We built the preeminent skill development platform for B2B tech companies: part training, part community, part therapy for GTM leaders trying to do more with less. We help teams move faster, stay aligned, and actually enjoy the process of getting better.

Somewhere along the way, I also became a General Partner at VentureOn Partners, Chapter Head at Pavilion, and mentor with Techstars. I’ve spent a lot of time with founders and operators who are chasing the same thing: building something that lasts without taking themselves too seriously.

A client and friend once described me as someone who “builds community through authenticity,” which I’ll take as the polite version of “tells it like it is.” That’s probably fair.

Outside of all that, I’m a decent husband, a better dad, and a walking Simpsons encyclopedia (seasons 1–11 only, of course). I travel when I can, laugh often, and still believe a good team - and a good joke - can get you through just about anything.

Matt Green

Your champion just rewrote your proposal in language her CFO would approve. She texted you on Saturday with intel from a leadership meeting you weren't in. Know what that looks like? 

Someone whose bonus depends on your deal closing.


Here's how one AE in the Sales Assembly ecosystem figured this out: 

She was working a MM deal that felt solid but wasn't moving. Champion was responsive, took every call, forwarded emails to the right people. Standard stuff. 

Then during a casual convo, she asked something she almost didn't: "You seem really motivated on this. What's going on?"

Turns out the champion's quarterly bonus was tied to getting this exact type of solution implemented before end of quarter. Her leadership had made it a goal. She needed this deal to close as badly as the AE did!


Believe it or not, everything changed after that. The champion started coaching the AE on exact language to use with her CEO. Shared what the CEO had said in a recent leadership meeting and suggested weaving it into the talk track. 

She'd gone from supporting the deal to co-building the pitch.


That deal closed. They still text each other to this day.


Now think about what DIDN'T happen. The AE didn't uncover this through a formal discovery framework. Instead, she asked one human question in a moment where she was paying attention.

And that's the thing very few folks teach in champion development. You can MEDDIC until you're blue in the face, but the single highest signal indicator of whether someone will actually fight for your deal is whether their compensation, promotion, or reputation depends on the outcome.


When someone's bonus is on the line: 

- They don't wait for you to ask for introductions. 
- They set up meetings before you request them. 
- They don't pass your proposal to procurement. They rewrite it. 
- They don't go quiet between calls. They reach out with intel you didn't know existed.

A friendly contact responds when you reach out. A real champion reaches out when you haven't. 


Do this exercise this week: On your three biggest open deals, can you answer these about your primary contact: 

1. What happens to their compensation or visibility if this project succeeds? 
2. What happens to them personally if it stalls? 
3. How are they measured on the initiative your solution supports?


If you can't answer those, really think hard about whether you actually have someone who will fight for your budget line in a room you're not in.

Sales Assembly facilitator Jon Rydberg nailed it: if there's no clear winner or loser when a deal dies, the deal is going to die. 

You can set your watch to it.

Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer at Sales Assembly | Helping B2B tech companies improve sales and post-sales performance | Decent Husband, Better Father

A CS leader in one of our peer groups tracks everything. NPS, CSAT, adoption, etc. Still got blindsided by three ENT churns last quarter. Combined $840K ARR = gone.

They had oodles of data at their fingertips, but they were measuring the wrong kind.

NPS tells you how customers felt last quarter.

Support tickets tell you what broke last week. 

Product adoption tells you what they did last month. 

All LAGGING indicators. By the time any of those metrics move, the decision to break up with you has already been made.


Leading indicators tell you what's GOING to happen. And there's real research backing up what stuff actually predicts churn before it shows up in a dashboard somewhere.

Login frequency is the most obvious one and the most ignored. HubSpot found that targeting users who dropped below one login per week cut churn by 15%. 

If someone stops showing up, the clock is ticking.


But logins alone miss the picture. Feature breadth matters more than raw engagement. 

Customers using 5+ core features churn at almost 1/3 the rate of single-feature users. The depth of adoption creates pain in the ass switching costs that no competitor can easily overcome. 

If your CSMs aren't tracking which features each account actually uses, they're flying blind on stickiness. And that's a shitty place to be when renewal season hits.


Another big one: WHO is logging in, not just how often. 

When admin and decision-maker engagement drops but regular users keep humming along, that's often the clearest signal your customer is shopping around. 

The people with budget authority are quietly shopping while their team keeps using your product out of habit. By the time the regular users notice, procurement already has three proposals on their desk.


The move here is to build a lightweight early warning system around 3 things. 

1. Login frequency trends by week, not month. 
2. Feature adoption breadth per account, tracked against your core value workflows. 
3. Stakeholder engagement patterns, specifically whether the economic buyer and admin users are still active or going dark.

None of this requires a new $100k CS platform. Pull login data from your product analytics. Cross-reference feature usage against your top five value-driving workflows. Flag any account where decision-maker activity dropped in the last 14 days. 

One Salesforce formula field or a simple dashboard in Gainsight or ChurnZero can automate most of it.

Lagging indicators tell you what's broken. Leading indicators tell you what's breaking.

While you can still fix it.

Founder @ FDTC → I help startups go from $100K-$15M by improving sales processes, playbooks, & people → Building the #1 SaaS sales coaching program for AEs → Featured in Techstars & Sales Hacker → #helpmedontsellme

It was Monday morning, 11 AM when I went to my boss and said, “I’m sorry, this job, sales...it’s not for me” and I left.

That was 13+ years ago.

At 22 years old I landed my first real job fresh out of college ready to be a “career person.”

I crushed the interview.

But when I came into work for my first day at 10am, I quickly realized that I was scared sh**less of sales, and quit within the first hour.

For the next 3 years, I had PTSD and avoided sales like the plague.

I played it safe and stayed in my comfort zone.

No sales-related stuff whatsoever.

I lost my confidence and ambition. 

I missed career opportunities and wasted away my early 20s.

Fast forward to present day:

I'm a former 2X VP of Sales who took 1 startup from $0 ARR to ≈ $10M ARR in 4 years, and another from $1.5M to ≈ $4.6M ARR in 18 months.

I now teaching SMB AEs and teams how to be top sellers, make higher 6-figures, and get promoted through repeatable systems and playbooks.


Want to learn more? Book a clarity call: https://calendly.com/fdtc/30min 


P.S.⚠️ Grab my top (FREE) 24 discovery questions 6,000+ salespeople are using: https://bit.ly/4d3B2sl


Otherwise, you can find me here:
► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@demotoclose
► iTunes: https://apple.co/3Fome9g | Spotify: https://spoti.fi/408V0LS
► Twitter: https://twitter.com/@mistamor

Mor Assouline

I used to say I have no time to work out.

A 30–45 min workout isn’t just 30–45 min.

Between commuting + showering it’s at least 1–2 hours.

But what if it didn’t have to be?

3 of the best purchases I made over the last 6 months:
	1.	A pull up/dip bar for my office
	2.	A stand up desk
	3.	An in office treadmill

All are in office.

Requires 0 commute.

Integrated in my work.

I made it too easy for myself to say yes.

Founder @ Demo to Close | “Success feels like luck. I don’t have a repeatable process.” → I coach SMB & MM AEs on the system for predictable performance | 2X VP of Sales

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SMB sales is overwhelming.

Unlike ENT, it feels like you don’t have time to breathe.

I’ve been there.

- Running 5-6 sales calls every day.
- No time to prep for next meeting.
- Forgetting to follow your call structure.

It’s a lot.

So here’s how I'd reset my focus before the next call:

I’d have a pre call ritual.

Before every call, I’d take a walk around the office, and mentally rehearse what’s about to happen.

It worked for me.

What’s yours?

I audited 47 discovery calls. Inbound close rate = 45%. Outbound close rate =17%. Same MM AE, same approach, but completely different results.

They forgot the most important part of discovery:

You should not treat inbound and outbound leads the same way.

Inbound prospects:
- Raised their hand
- Have a problem they're trying to solve
- Expect to be challenged and questioned

You can be direct: "What's broken that made you reach out?"

Outbound prospects:
- Didn't ask to talk to you
- You're coming to them
- Need context before they'll engage
- You have to earn the right to ask questions

The principle: Your approach should match their entry point.

Inbound = Permission granted They gave you permission by raising their hand. Use it.

Outbound = Permission required You need to earn the right to dig deeper.

Example:
Wrong way with outbound: 
→ "What challenges are you facing with your current system?" (They're thinking: "Who is this person and why should I tell them anything?")

Right way with outbound: 
→ "When I speak with [personas], they tell me they're dealing with [problem A], [problem B] or [Problem C]. So when I did some research, I noticed [relevant trigger] and was wondering if any of that is also something you're experiencing too?"

The lesson: Stop using the same playbook for different situations.

Read the room and map your approach to where the buyer lives.


P.S. Here are 24 of the top discovery questions 7,000+ AEs have been using: https://lnkd.in/eR69raD4

A mid-market AE I just started coaching told me his problem is "inconsistent prospecting." I asked him to screen share and show me his process. 

I found the real problem within 5 minutes.

Me: What does inconsistent mean?

Him: prospects once or twice a month instead of weekly.

Me: Why?

Him: It takes 3-4 hours and it's exhausting.

Me: Okay. But why does it take 3-4 hours? What are you actually doing 
during those 3-4 hours?

Him: He logs into database directory, searches a specific vertical and adds 
some criteria, opens 50+ websites. Decides if each one is a fit.

Me: How does you decide which is worth going after?

Him: Gut feel. I just know when I see it.

Me: What IS gut feel?

Him: don't know. It's like... I can't explain it. I just know based on certain 
things I’m noticing.

Me: sounds like its a mix of certain criteria and intuition?

Him: Yes

Me: "So your brain has seen hundreds of companies. Some closed. Some 
didn't. Your brain learned patterns. What "good" looks like. But you never made those patterns conscious. So you can't fully articulate them."

Him: Yeah, exactly. That's the problem. It only works when I do it.

That's the actual bottleneck.

His knowledge is trapped in his subconscious and he’s working off of intuition.

So here's what we're doing:

Step 1: Figure out what his brain is actually looking for.

Pull every deal he closed won → Feed it into Claude → See what's consistent.

The goal: find the patterns of what good looks like.


Step 2: Write it down.

Once we know what "good" looks like, we make it a checklist.

Now it's not in his head (step 1 and 2 will be tedious at first).


Step 3: Let Claude do the work.

Export companies from the data base results that match the initial criteria and upload to Claudecowork.

Claude checks each website against the checklist and returns the good ones.

20 minutes instead of 3-4 hours.

He’ll be able to build more pipeline, faster.

His "intuition" won't be stuck in his head anymore.

It's in a system.

Which means he can repeat it and scale it



P.S. I’ve been spending 3-4 hours a day vibe coding. All this AI can be overwhelming if you don't know where to point it to. The easiest place to start, at least for me, is looking at what tasks are draining my time that I'm doing manually that I can automate.

Every week I run a group coaching call for AEs at companies like LinkedIn, Hubspot, Klaviyo, Nooks, etc.

Every week after the call, I'd spend 30+ minutes doing the same thing:
→ Pull up the Fathom recording
→ Read through the transcript
→ Summarize the key topics
→ Format everything into a lesson
→ Publish it to our learning portal
→ Copy the topics into Slack for the community

It's not hard work.

But it's tedious as hell and eats at my calendar.

So I automated the entire thing with AI (via Claude Cowork).

Now, every Friday at 1:00 PM, a Claude task kicks off automatically.

It opens Fathom, extracts the full transcript, identifies the coaching topics, generates a formatted title and "How to..." summary for each topic, creates and publishes the lesson in Kajabi, moves it to the top of the course, and posts a recap to our Slack channel.

The whole workflow runs itself. I just show up, coach, and it's done.

Fathom uses encrypted video streaming that blocks automated downloads. Kajabi's drag-and-drop needed custom browser scripting to reorder lessons. The "simple" automation required real problem-solving at every point.

Some lessons I'm learning:
1. "Automate everything" is the wrong goal.
2. Recurring tasks are the highest ROI automation targets.
3. AI agents are better at browser automation than you'd expect.
4. The bottleneck is rarely the AI.

We're entering a whole new era where the competitive advantage isn't knowing how to use AI, but it's knowing how to wire AI into your actual workflows.

If you're a seller or sales leader doing repetitive pre or post-session work every week you're sitting on hours of reclaimed time (houuuurs)




P.S. I’ve been coaching AEs in my community on how to leverage AI in sales. Feb and March coaching slots are sold out, but if you’re interested in joining HMU, we have a waitlist.

See this woman to the left?

If you're in SaaS sales, you might not recognize her.

Her name is Erica Feidner

She's known as the Piano Matchmaker

And every serious salesperson should study her.

Inc. called her one of the top 10 salespeople of all time.

She was Steinway & Sons's top salesperson for a decade & sold over $40M in pianos.

Here are 5 things she does that puts her in another league:

1. REDEFINE YOUR ROLE:
Erica refers to herself as a "piano matchmaker" rather than a salesperson.

Her: "My passion in life is to pair people to pianos in a way that reflects their lifestyle and their personality."

That means YOUR solution may not be the right fit for your prospect (and that's okay)

It took me years to realize not every interested prospect is a fit.

Instead of being a salesperson, be a [solution] matchmaker.


2. PRIORITIZE CLIENT EXPERIENCE OVER THE SALE:
The best salespeople know that buyers don't want to be sold, they want to be helped.

They know that if a prospect feels good with you early on, you're closer to making a deal.

Erica: "What I try to bring to the floor is a wonderful experience for clients and finding exactly the right piano that is in line with their needs and financial comfort zone."

If your prospect's highest priority is price, consider showing them a range of your rates first.

Every sales call should be customized.


3. DON'T RUSH TO MAKE THE SALE:
If the perfect piano isn't available, Erica tells clients to wait until she finds the right one, even at the risk of them purchasing elsewhere.

Her: "If I feel that the piano isn't perfect, I'll tell them to go home and I'll call them when I find the right one."

But, this is exactly how she builds trust and credibility.

I closed a Series D company last year to do onsite sales training for their AEs.

I told the head of sales I'd rather we slow down just to make sure I'm the right fit.

We spent an extra 2 days doing more due diligence.

I earned his trust and closed the deal.


4. READ THE ROOM:
Use conversational cues and body language to understand what the client's sentiment is.

Erica: "I listen to the tone of their voice, the speed of their voice, eye contact or not."

This is why turning on webcam first on Zooms is table stakes.

Example: If your prospect raises their eyebrows in surprise during your sales demo, that's an indicator that they're impressed.

"Sam, seems like this is striking a chord with you?"


5. ADAPT BY PERSONA:
Customize your communication style to fit the client's background and preferences.

Erica: "For instance, engineers might need detailed technical information, while musicians might prioritize sound quality. Once I figured that out, I can speak in a language that they understand best."

For example: In my experience, meet with your prospect before a demo to understand who's showing up and what they care about.

I used to make the mistake of winging it and showing up half prepared.

Half prepared = not prepared.

I review 30+ calls a week for the reps I coach. This is the single most expensive habit I see (it's not discovery).

I was reviewing a call last week where the rep did everything right.

Really solid discovery and demo. 

Then he showed pricing.

Prospect said: "Hmm, that's a bit more than we expected."

And the rep, without missing a beat, said: "Yeah, so we actually have some Q4 pricing incentives right now. If you move forward by end of month, I can probably get you a better rate."

Nobody asked for a discount.

The prospect hadn't said they couldn't afford it.

Hadn't even finished their thought.

The rep just gave it away.

Here's what happens when you do that:

1. You tell the buyer the price was never real. 
2. And you train them to expect a deal every single time you show a number. 

So now every future conversation with that buyer starts with them waiting for you to cave.

I call this flinching.

Most reps don't even realize they're doing it. 

They hear "that's more than expected" and their brain skips to "I'm about to lose this deal."

So they reach for the only tool they think will save it.

The problem: "that's more than we expected" means completely different things depending on who's saying it and why. 

Each version needs a different response.

If you flinch before figuring out which one you're dealing with, you give away money for nothing.

Stop treating every pricing pushback the same. 

Start diagnosing before you respond.

I'm breaking down the full framework in Monday's newsletter. The diagnosis, the talk tracks, all of it (including a cheatsheet you can use).

Read it here tomorrow along with 6.6K+ sellers: demotoclose.com/newsletter


P.S.  It's my birthday today. Instead of cake, I'm giving you a newsletter that'll save you thousands in commission.

I'm consulting for a company that raised over $120M, and we've built AI agents based on my sales methodology to audit thousands of sales calls at scale and score them automatically.

The results are automatically fed into:

a) Slack - real time notifications
b) Salesforce - to generate report on trends

We’re using this to coach reps on high leverage strategies.

It took us about 1.5 months to get to v1 (and still tweaking it)

But the takeaway from implementing this is:
1. What is a high frequency task
2. That is low complexity
3. But is manual and guzzles time,
4. That you can chop up into smaller mini tasks?

Build an AI agent around that and tinker.

Then do it again, and tinker.

You won’t learn about how to be an AI native by reading about it all day.

This is where I built my confidence in sales.

Wearing a suit and door knocking during in Miami (in summer...it's hot).

The cheapest homes in this neighborhood are $10M-$15M.

2 years prior I had quit my first sales job because I was scared.

That notebook you see me holding was a list of all the homeowners that told us to F off.

I had to make sure we never knocked on their homes again.

I never closed a single deal that year in that neighborhood.

But I walked away with a sales MBA

The one thing that can compensate for lack of sales skill is confidence.

And after 1 year of door knocking and cold calling I was confident as hell.

That’s how I eventually found myself in tech sales and teaching others how to be confident and sell better.

First as an early stage AE.

Then as a 2X VP of sales.

Here are 14 (of the many) rules that will never be dead in sales that I've learned:

1. Always show up even if you're not in the mood

2. Don't move onto another skill until you've improved the current one

3. You'll sell more when asking questions vs talking/pitching

4. Always have a compelling reason for the prospect to listen/show up

5. A few bad experiences and screw ups doesn't mean YOU are a screw up

6. You'll always learn more when you fail vs succeed

7. Betting on yourself is the best seed you can plant

8. Surround yourself with people who you look up to

9. Affirmations are cheesy until you do it consistently

10. Community is underrated, never do it alone.

11. Expect the work to be harder/longer than what you anticipated 

12. There is always a trade-off, always.

13. How you say things is sometimes more important than what you say.

14. Building a brand makes sales so much easier

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Mor Assouline

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