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.

Samantha McKenna

Founder @ #samsales l Sales + Cadences + Executive Branding on LinkedIn l Ex-LinkedIn l Keynote Speaker l 13 Sales Records l Early Stage Investor l Overly Enthusiastic l Swiss Dual Citizen l Creator, Show Me You Know Me®

I had my first exposure to competitive "sales" in sixth grade when my school raised money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.  Knocking door to door and delivering a pitch was the start of my education; I still have the portable TV that I won for second place, which fuels my competitive spirit.

I’ve spent my career in sales doing a few things – breaking records, putting others first, creating global sales programs, educating through peer interaction, and going to great lengths to make people feel valued.  I’ve launched new verticals, overseen the GTM strategy for some of the most successful initiatives in company history, and put in processes across businesses that redefine how each company works and succeeds.

As the founder of #samsales, I oversee an all-women team of 14 who believe in a manners-first and buyer-first approach. We:

•	Run sales trainings that cover prospecting via your likely under-utilized LI Sales Nav licenses, how to write great email copy, Show Me You Know Me™, perfect discovery calls, etc. all while being sales methodology agnostic

•	Speak at 100+ annual events - keynoting for SKOs, international conferences, and podcasts alike re: sales, social selling, and women in tech/sales/leadership

•	Write the content you have in Outreach.io, etc using our proprietary techniques + the most up-to-date data on what works to drive opens + replies

•	Teach social selling - as an LI influencer, ambassador of Sales Navigator, and former LI leader, I understand how to use the ecosystem to truly SELL. I've personally trained tens of thousands on the platform, ranging from 10-person teams to Fortune 500 brands. 

•	Build brands for C-Suites on LinkedIn.  If you want to build a brand on LI but don't know what to write, don't understand the algorithm, and don't have the time to manage, our full-service strategy will manage it exclusively like we do for some of the most prominent/highly visible execs you see on LI.

As a founder, I have one goal - to make as much positive impact as we can.  Since our inception, we’ve raised over 120K via personal donations + our annual charity events for incredible causes, and have given away hundreds of our trainings to the military and transitioning teachers, free of charge.

When you hire us, you're not just hiring a team, but rather investing in one who constantly puts good into the world.

Who am I, otherwise - 

Philanthropist, investor, dog lover, die hard competitor, writer, former Nickelodeon game show contestant, extrovert, expert in self-deprecating humor, and willing to walk through fire to make you laugh.

Limited Partner

Sign up for our newsletters, webinars, and all our content here www.samsalesconsulting.com 

San Fran, I'm headed your way! Couldn't be more honored to be the closing speaker for LinkedIn's Sales Forum, and even more so that they've extended a happy hour for us to say hello thereafter! 

This half-day event will be packed with other wonderful speakers, and is an event I've always looked forward to as an attendee - a pinch-me moment to get to be on the other side of the camera, so to speak.

Come join 200+ other GTM leaders and executives in LinkedIn's gorgeous SF office as we dive into the state of sales, super tactical ideas on how to use LI Sales Navigator, and musings from me on the actionable things your sellers can do to succeed in today's market. 

Note that seating is limited, but you'll find the registration details here - https://lnkd.in/esdrJnuW, and will receive an email once your seat is confirmed. 

Can't wait! 💃 

#samsales

Looking to up your LinkedIn content game? Here's a cheat sheet that's one of many assets with give our LI Executive Branding teams. No gate, no comment needed - download and use :)

#samsales #LIEB

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taplio

The Battle

Matt Green

Samantha McKenna

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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);}Matt Green's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreMatt Green's LinkedIn Performance