Building sales teams and delighting customers at early stage hyper growth startups.

Mike Gallardo

We're hiring AEs at Deel. 🥳

Here's why you should apply:

1. All remote. Forever and always. Work from anywhere in the USA or Canada.

2. The earning potential is real. I have reps hitting 200%+ consistently. More than 50% of the team hitting quota. The comp plan is built to reward top performers.

3. We promote fast. Promotion cycles every 3 months. I have already promoted 10+ people this year. And we're not slowing down.

4. You'll learn from the best. We listen to calls, coach every week, and genuinely care about your career growth.

5. We're still growing super fast. New products. New markets. New opportunities. The opportunities are endless.

If you're a hungry AE who wants to build something and get paid well doing it, this one's for you.

👉 Interested? Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gkhGnZdA

If you have any questions drop them in the comments!

Best of luck!
- Mike G

Most AEs send a follow up email after a discovery call that says something like:

"Great connecting today! I'll send over the info about X and looking forward to our next call."

That type of email usually gets ignored.

Here's what actually works:

Subject: [First Name] — Quick recap

Hey [Name],

Was great connecting today.

3 things I took away from our call:

1. [Their #1 priority in their words]
2. [Key challenge they mentioned]
3. [Something specific they said that matters]

Based on that, here's what we'll cover on our next call:

[Describe the demo/next step — 1 sentence on what you'll show and why it's relevant to them]

Looking forward to connecting at [Day] at [Time].

— [Your name]

Super clean and focused on them and how they will benefit.

The reps who win send emails that make buyers feel like they were actually listened to.

Bonus: That email does it in under 30 seconds to read.

- Mike G

👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

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Certified Public Accountant

Sales Director at Deel

The Best Sales Course

An AE on my team closed a deal that was dead for 45 days.

No responses. Ghosted. Done.

Here's what he did:

He didn't send a breakup email. 
He didn't drop the price. 
He didn't chase.

He sent one short message:

"Hey [Name] — I know the timing may not be right. No worries at all. In the meantime, here's one thing that changed since we last spoke: [specific update]. Is [priority] still something that's top of mind?"

That was it.

The prospect responded within 2 hours. 
Deal closed that Friday.

Most reps lose deals in the follow-up.
Not the pitch.

Because they either disappear or become annoying.

The best ones stay present without being desperate.
And they have a system for valuable follow ups.

That's the difference.

- Mike G

👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

The best AE I've ever managed didn't have the best pitch.

Wasn't the most polished on calls.

Wasn't even the loudest in the room.

Here's what she had:

She treated every lost deal like a lesson and every won deal like a system.

When she lost: 

She reviewed the call, found the moment it went sideways, fixed it.

When she won: 

She documented exactly what happened and repeated it. 

Even looked for ways to make the process and experience better next time.

Most reps do the opposite.

They move on from losses fast and treat wins like they were meant to happen.

So the gap between average and elite isn't talent.

It's the work someone puts in after the deal is done (win or lose) that matters most imo.

That's where careers are built.

- Mike G

👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

Most reps panic when a prospect says "I'm not interested."

Here's what to do instead:

Don't argue. Don't pitch harder. Don't cave.

Just say: "That's actually why I called." A strategy I learned from the one and only Jeb Blount 

Here's how it plays out:

1. "Not interested." → "That's actually why I called. Most [personas] I speak with feel the same way until they hear how we helped [similar company] solve [specific problem]. Mind if I take 30 seconds?"

2. "We already have something." → "That's actually why I called. [Company] was in the same spot and found we could [specific differentiator]. Worth a quick look?"

3. "Not the right time." → "That's actually why I called. Most of the best conversations I have start that way. What would need to change for the timing to be right?"

The magic of this phrase:

It doesn't fight the objection. It works with it.

The prospect expects you to fold. When you don't (in a nice, conversational and clear way) they get curious instead.

It's one of the most simple ways to overcome objections. 

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

- Mike G

👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

One of my best AEs has a 39% win rate 🤯

Her secret is one question she asks on every single discovery call:

"If you could change one thing about how your team handles [process] right now, what would it be?"

That's it.

Here's why it works:

It's specific enough to get a real answer. 

Not "what are your challenges?" which is pretty vague, and tends to get vague answers (unless you're lucky).

This questions forces the prospect to prioritize. 

Suddenly they're telling you exactly what matters most.

The answer tells you everything. 

And gives you exactly what you need to position your product as how to best solve what's most important to them.

Most discovery calls fail because reps ask broad questions and get broad answers.

They leave without knowing the #1 thing the buyer actually needs to fix.

Ask the one question. 
Listen hard. 
Build everything else around the answer.

That's how she closes 4 out of 10 deals.

- Mike G

👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

90% of my team hit quota in Q4.

Here's how we crush it with discovery.

Instead of asking questions like:

"If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change?"

or...

"If you don't do anything about this, what happens to the business?"

Which are somewhat awkward and unnatural, and sound like you're trying to manufacture urgency.


Here's the type of questions we ask instead:

1. "I work with a lot of [role]s and they're usually focused on one of two things: [priority A] or [priority B]. Is that the case for you, or is something else more top of mind?"

2. "What's going on in the business that's making this a priority right now?"

3. "Can you walk me through your current process for [X] step by step?"

4. "When it comes to [challenge they mentioned]. Can you share a specific example of when that's been a problem?"

5. "If this call goes well and we end up working together. What would need to be true for you to call it a success 6 months in?"


The difference between good and bad discovery questions isn't how clever they are. It's whether they sound like something a real person would ask.

And that they're focused on real priorities, problems and processes they have. That way, you can center your entire sales process on how you'll help and how your solution is better positioned for their business vs competitors.

What's your favorite discovery question?

- Mike G

👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

I use AI every single day.

And in my opinion, Claude is the strongest AI tool for sales right now.

Here's one of the easiest ways to start using it:

Track your closed won deals every month. 
That's it.

Just log how many deals you close each month. 
One number per month.

Then drop that data into Claude and ask it to visualize it.

What comes out the other side? (See image below 👇)

A clean chart. 
Month over month trends. 
Automatic callouts on what's working and what's not.

This took me < 1min to make.

Now take that into your next 1-on-1 with your manager.

I promise, nobody else on your team is doing this.
And that's exactly the point.

AI isn't going away.

The reps who figure it out now are going to make more money, get promoted faster, and be a lot harder to replace.

The best part?

You don't need to be a tech person to start.
You just need to start.

And this is one of the simplest first steps you can take.

What are you waiting for?

- Mike G

👉 Get The Best Sales Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox for FREE: https://lnkd.in/g-dHTj7s

70% of my team hit quota in 2025 🥳

And 80%+ hit quota in both Q3 and Q4.

I'm incredibly proud of this team.

Here's why I think we're built different:

1. The best product on the planet.
Deel is the #1 global HR and payroll platform. We were built for global teams from day one. It's a fundamental advantage that makes selling easier and customers a lot happier.

2. Coaching and training that's actually dialed in.
Our managers are top tier. Our reps are world class. When you join this team you are surrounded by greatness every single day. There is no better place to sharpen your skills and grow as a seller.

3. Leadership that genuinely cares.
Every manager on my team makes time to listen. We take feedback seriously. We move mountains when we can. You will never feel like just a number here.

The reason we're hiring right now? 
We've promoted so many people internally that we're backfilling a ton of roles.

That's an awesome problem to have if you ask me :)

If you want to sell an incredible product, get coached up, hit quota, and build a real career, there's no better place than Deel.

Interested? Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gkhGnZdA

Best of luck!

- Mike G

She was at 175% of quota.

Working a deal that would've put her at 274%.

Contract was out. Deal was in commit. 

But then a week went by with no response from her champion.

She wasn't panicking.

And the reason why comes down to something we coach all our AEs on from the very first call.

Multi stakeholder discovery.

3 key questions:

1. "Who else on your team would benefit from seeing how this works inside Deel?"

2. "I noticed [name] is on your finance team. They usually like to get involved when we get to commercial terms. Would you be open to including them on our pricing call?" 

3. "I'm really excited about the potential partnership here and helping you with [key business initiative]. As we get closer to pricing, do you mind walking me through your internal process? Who's typically involved, what do they care about most, and how do they like to be included? That way I can make sure I'm giving you exactly what you need to present this internally." 

The third one’s my favorite. 

It’s a bit longer but it’s great for mapping the people, the process, and the timeline early. 

That way you’re ready if a situation like this one ever pops up.

So when the champion went dark.

She had a couple options:

1. Call her (tried this already but no luck)
2. Go over her head (do not recommend!)
3. Loop me in

She decided to loop me in because a leader to leader message would hopefully cut through the noise and get a response. 

First we had to make the message as targeted/relevant as possible.

We use Aligned (which automates deal insights) and noticed the CFO had not reviewed the pricing yet. So that was probably what was holding the deal up.

So we crafted a targeted message to her champion about getting the CFO aligned on pricing, got a response the next day, and were able to get the deal back on track and moving forward.

Without the right insights this deal could have very easily stalled out.

That’s why every complex deal our team runs lives inside Aligned. It gives our AEs total visibility into what's happening inside the account when they're not in the room. 

That way, AEs can take targeted and effective action (like she did) to keep momentum going. Especially when things slow down or champions go dark.
That level of visibility literally makes or breaks your most important deals.  

👉If you haven’t already I highly recommend using it for free here: https://lnkd.in/gqNS6GRW

And if you have any questions let me know in the comments!
Always happy to help :)

- Mike G

#alignedpartner

Brand partnership • Sales Director at Deel

Founder | B2B GTM | Scale without headcount by mapping your playbooks into an AI revenue engine

Be honest - how many Linkedin posts have you seen this year saying that XYZ tech/playbook/widget is absolutely essential to your GTM this year?

Probably a lot

We now have thousands of sales and marketing technologies on the market

And all of them are pitching their solution as best in class

With playbooks, agencies, influencers to sell them

And yes, we have preferred tech vendors

Here's the difference

We don't throw you in canned playbook, we actually look at your Go to Market model before making recommendations

Let me tell you a funny story

I talked with an SDR team that was booking 80 meetings a month with parallel dialers and 10k emails per SDR per month

But 60% of their meetings got disqualified

Why?

They didn't qualify target accounts before doing outreach

Tech and playbooks don't save you deploy the wrong one at the wrong time

So what do we do different?

When you work with us, we start with an assessment

We look at your funnel metrics, your best customers, your messaging/copy, and get input from your team on detailed attributes that make up a great customer

That you CAN'T find in an off the shelf tool

After that we use our knowledge of best practices and tooling to identify the biggest opportunities to unlock more revenue per headcount in your team

This could look like

> Customer analysis
> Serviceable Addressable Market Mapping (because TAM is where you lose deals not win them)
> Target Account Lists
> Automated Contact Prospecting & Enrichment
> Pipeline Validation (we build out a script, test it to book meetings for you, help you take the meetings through completed discovery with next steps, then give you a completed call framework, email sequence, and discovery framework)
> Outbound Sales Team Coaching (Phone first)
> Sales Process Optimization
> Managed Cold Emails & Cold Calling
> Inbound Lead Flow Optimization
> AI Business Case Building (which we used to open a $300k+ opp at UPS)
> Implementation of Nooks, Clay, Evergrowth, and other sales tooling

Yes, we do that under one roof

Yes, it was very hard to find a team good enough to do all of this in one place

If you want to learn more, book a time here: https://calendly.com/b2bcatalyst/your-gtm-system-audit-linkedin
> Cold Email Infrastructure

Scott Martinis

GTM engineers & AI platforms are trying to figure out GTM context engineering by reinventing product marketing from first principles. Most will fail.

Context - I am seeing a ton of really smart people like Nico Druelle, Charlie Saunders, Alex Fine🌲, 🏍benyamin ‎ and others start to work on the problem of how to create centralized context libraries to iterate on messaging and targeting.

I am also seeing many platforms try to do the same thing.

The operators I included above will probably succeed. 

The platforms and GTM engineers that follow in their footsteps will largely fail.

Why?

Simply put - GTM context engineering is effectively reinventing a complete and fleshed out disciple (product marketing) from scratch.

Given INSANE amount of training volume, ML modeling (Karpathy released a new library to help automate this) CAN effectively invent the necessary cognitive architecture to help generalize those patterns.

Outreach could probably do this if they really wanted to. Gong as well.

But that's a waste of time, and anyone with less training data will probably fail horribly.

Think about what ACTUALLY happened to optimize messaging in high performing GTM orgs years back:

Product marketers would run meeting analysis, win/loss interviews, customer interviews, and talk with analysts.

They would then consolidate this into strategic narratives, positioning frameworks, competitive battlecards, ICP/segment/persona definitions, and value frameworks for major audiences.

If you want to do context engineering, you could try to reinvent this discipline from first principles.

But you're going to demonstrably slower than people who just... 

Interview good product marketers 

And figure out how to automate the product marketing analysis pipeline.

The marketers I've been most recently impressed with on this front are Emily Pick, Julia Hugg, Trinity Nguyen 💎

Octave, of course, is way, way ahead of the pack here.

Instead of trying to figure this out all by themselves, GTM engineers and revops leaders should take the shortcut and take the time to learn product marketing from elite practitioners instead

This was why all the AI SDRs failed by the way. 

It's not the lack of data foundations that broke them as many revops people supposed (though that doesn't help)

It was actually the lack of understanding the GTM strategy is quite complex, and guessing and checking without proper PMM foundations is not fast enough to get ROI on automated outbound.

What does this mean?

Well, the actual foundation of your GTM strategy is not revops OR GTM engineering, it's REALLY good product marketing

Both of those functions rely on good PMM to build good data models and automated workflows... though they both relying to some degree on well thought out enablement playbooks to know what to include in the data model and what to automate as well.

TLDR: model your context engineering on PMM. Will save 6-12 months.

I make AI work for complex B2B GTM through pipeline impact, not data projects | CEO, B2B Catalyst

So it turns out you can CSV dump from every GTM tool into your GitHub repo then Claude Code can write you data lake scripts in like... 20 minutes?

And if you dump in cold call transcripts from Gong or Chorus then you can basically rewrite any messaging playbook your org has in a few hours

Working next on ways to extract use cases from sales calls at scale, map in depth what messaging wins and loses

Then take the use cases and scrape online presence of won deals to extract custom signals

Tag won and lost deals with them

And build custom signal models predicting win rate and ACV

Future is pretty wild

Next up:

- Automated coaching briefs across the org
- Down funnel marketing campaign attribution
- Automated and targeting iterations for marketing campaigns and sequences
- Weekly or monthly auto playbook updates broke. down by segment
- Weekly or monthly value framework updates, battle cards, competitor battle cards (possibly automated)

Of course the more normal use cases like 

TAM scraping, signal sourcing, account prioritization, contact sourcing, qualification, classification 

TitanX phone intent

AI outbound personalization on emails calls LinkedIn

AI content generation and amplification 

AEO

AI inbound and outbound SDRs

Personalized ABM content

Personalized meeting prep

ETC

Candidly those feel a bit more pedestrian and table stakes to me though in 2026

Still... very exciting possibilities for GTM orgs

The key I think is knowing where to start

Which is usually your biggest bottleneck 

(DM me "context lake" if you want this in your org)

Every GTM intelligence tool is racing to answer the same question: who should we target?

Intent data. Buying signals. De-anonymization. Account scoring.

The targeting layer is getting genuinely good. 

And it's about to be commoditized. 

The same way signal aggregation became table stakes after Clay and 6sense turned it into infrastructure.

There's a deeper problem.

These tools are optimized for finding people who want to buy tools like them. They surface intent signals and firmographic matches.

They don't find the prospects where YOU have a differentiated advantage at closing.

That's a different ICP layer. Not "who looks like our customers" but "who has a problem we solve better than anyone else."

Most teams build messaging off the same shallow foundation. Company value props plus signals. "They just raised a Series B, mention growth." "They posted a sales role, mention scaling."

Relevant first line. Generic pitch.

The signal tells you WHEN to reach out. Your value prop tells the buyer what YOU think matters. 

Neither one tells you what the BUYER thinks matters.

The thing that converts is explaining why your solution beats the buyer's current state in a way they actually agree with.

That's differentiation. And it's missing from almost every discussion on signals & ABM I've seen. 

A VP of Ops at a 200-person logistics company. What's her job-to-be-done? What objection does she raise first?

That's not in your intent data. It's in your call recordings. It's in the patterns your best reps know but nobody's formalized.

Pull your last 30 closed-won deals. Listen to the first calls. What did the buyer say they cared about? Group them.

You'll find 3 to 4 patterns. Those are your real use cases.

Each one should shape both WHO you target and WHAT you say. Not a template with a different first line. A different reason to meet, built on why your solution changes their current state.

The targeting will keep getting smarter. The message won't get better until someone studies the buyer.

If you want help building this layer, DM me.

I rebuilt my company's website through an MCP inside Claude Code. Told my AI co-worker what to change. It read the Webflow data directly, made the edits, and published.

Mostly. I still had to open Webflow for some formatting changes the MCP couldn't handle. But 80% of the work happened without touching the UI.

That alone changed how I think about platforms.

MCP is Model Context Protocol. It lets AI talk directly to a platform's data and take actions.

Every legacy platform is walking the same path right now.

Step 1: Platform. You log in, click buttons, build reports, configure sequences. Standard SaaS.

Step 2: The AI can READ the platform's data. Pull reports, see pipeline, check analytics. You still log in to do anything.

Step 3: The AI can ACT. Create records, update fields, trigger workflows. You log in less.

Step 4: The AI owns the domain. It decides what to do, does it, reports back. You make decisions. You rarely touch the platform.

I'm somewhere between step 3 and 4 with Webflow. It's not perfect. But the direction is clear.

Now think about Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft.

Once an AI can read your CRM, update records, pull analytics, manage sequences, and trigger workflows.. what's the UI for?

Salesforce has Einstein. HubSpot has Breeze. Outreach has "AI everywhere."

Bolting a chat window onto a legacy platform is step 2.5 at best. And the companies building step 4 aren't starting from step 1. They're starting fresh.

Pick the GTM platform you use most. Map it against the 4 steps. Where the AI feature actually sits vs. what the marketing claims will tell you everything you need to know about that vendor's roadmap.

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The Battle

Mike Gallardo

Scott Martinis

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Engagements

Likes

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