LinkedIn Top Voice | Marketing @ Clientell | AI-RevOps| Wellbeing partner | Social Eater

Most companies talk about employee wellbeing after burnout has already happened.

By the time surveys show disengagement or attrition increases, the damage is already done.

I believe employee wellbeing should work quietly, daily, and early inside how people actually work.

I am building Wanderfly with a simple but powerful idea.
Understand stress patterns before they turn into burnout.

My work focuses on predictive and everyday wellbeing rather than one off programs, annual surveys, or compliance driven initiatives. Real wellbeing is not an event. It is a system.

Through Wanderfly, I work with organizations to move from reacting to stress to preventing it.
From measuring wellbeing to truly protecting it.
From isolated initiatives to embedded support.

I spend most of my time thinking about

Early signals of burnout that companies miss

How daily work data reflects human stress

How technology can support wellbeing without adding noise

What the future of healthy work should actually look like

If you are an HR leader, founder, or people manager who believes wellbeing should be proactive and practical, we will likely agree on a lot.

Let us build workplaces where people do not have to break down before they get support.

Penchala Tharun 🚀

Our first event. Our first stall. A big moment for Wanderfly.in. 

We had an amazing time at the The Shape of Work Awards and it truly felt surreal.

Why this mattered to us
• First ever event stall for Wanderfly
• Live product demoed to 50+ HR and People Leaders
• Powerful conversations around predictive burnout intelligence and employee wellbeing
• Met inspiring founders from the HRTech ecosystem
• Had the honour of meeting and felicitating Dr. TV Rao, the father of Indian HRD

The feedback was incredibly encouraging.
Many leaders resonated with our belief that burnout should be predicted, not reacted to, and several showed interest in implementing Wanderfly in their organisations.

We wrapped up the day with an impromptu pitch to respected HRTech investors and walked away feeling energised.

A perfectly curated event and the best possible start to 2026 for us 🚀

🎁 Quick note
Visitors at our booth entered a lucky draw.
We’ll be selecting 2 companies to receive free 2 online wellbeing sessions worth ₹20,000.

Tagging everyone soon. Watch this space 👀

P.S: Great event requires a great team to pull off Kartik Mandaville Sadia Vali Yashasvi Jaiswal and team of SpringVerify

#Wanderfly #TSOWAwards #HRTech #EmployeeWellbeing #BurnoutPrevention #FounderJourney

Founder at Wanderfly | Building predictive employee wellbeing to prevent burnout before it starts

Copy‑paste this message to your team if you suspect burnout.

Quick check-in:  I’ve noticed the last few weeks have been intense
I don’t want you to push through silently
 1. What’s feeling heavy right now?
 2. What’s one thing we can pause/deprioritize this week?
 3. What kind of support would help most clarity, coverage, or time?

Most managers want to help. They just don’t have the words

If you manage people, save this and share it with one manager

#HR #humanresources #managers #founder #burnout #people

Andrei Zinkevich

Co-founder @Fullfunnel.io| ABM & full-funnel marketing for B2B tech companies with high ACV and long sales cycle

We transform B2B Tech and Service-based companies from siloed sales and marketing to full-funnel account-based marketing and demand generation. 

We help your team develop an ABM strategy, launch pilot programs, operationalize and scale the programs without ramping up budget or depending on external agencies.

Here is how.

1. ABM STRATEGY.

We go together through a 3-week initial strategy sprint that includes: 

- Deep assessment of current marketing and sales processes
- Challenges both teams face and the root reasons behind them
- Revenue and channel analysis to identify focus markets and ICP for the ABM campaigns
- Custom ABM strategy development including detailed:
- Marketing and sales alignment with ICP, strategy and playbooks

2. LAUNCH PILOT ABM PROGRAM.

Within a single quarter, we’ll work with a pilot team to implement a minimal viable full-funnel program, without pausing existing processes. The pilot team usually consists of one marketer and one sales development rep.  

When we hit the target KPIs, we move to the operationalization and scaling stage.

3.DEVELOPING FULL-FUNNEL ABM FUNCTION.

At this stage we combine ABM with demand generation function to create a holistic model that creates awareness, generates demand and activates accounts that are already engaged across the full funnel.

SPRINTS INCLUDE:

-> Account-Based Marketing

-> LinkedIn demand generation and social selling

-> GTM strategy

-> Sales enablement

-> Demand generation and accounts warm-up

Why Work With FullFunnel.io?

1. 30+ years of niche experience

We were and still are “in the trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, so you’ll get access to 30+ years of our combined experience and knowledge.

2. Knowledge transfer.

Your team gets consistent support and training, including step-by-step playbooks, templates, marketing and sales dashboards, tech stack, and process maps.

3. Revenue alignment.

We align marketing and sales teams around revenue, ideal customer profile, target accounts and lead scoring criteria which helps to consistently hit your revenue quota and operate as one Revenue Operations team.

OUR CASE STUDIES INCLUDE

- $300k from a pilot ABM campaign with a software development company

- 9 qualified sales opportunities and 3 new contracts, 10x ACV from an account-based demand generation campaign with AdTech development company

- 7 sales-qualified opportunities from a pilot ABM campaign in the Nordics region with a cloud solutions vendor

- 76% response rate, 36% accounts engaged, 5 opportunities from a pilot ABM campaign

Co-founder

At Fullfunnel.io we are growing B2B companies with long and complex sales cycles since 2006.

We were and still are “in trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, and bring to the table our 30+ years of combined experience and knowledge. 

I live and breathe B2B marketing since 2006. 

Before launching Fullfunnel.io, I spent 8 years in the enterprise segment working for Kimberly Clark and Biosphere Corporation.

What makes Fullfunnel.io different?

1. Ins and outs of selling to enterprise

Coming from the mid-market and enterprise world, I know all the ins and outs of selling to these segments: the research and evaluation processes, decision-making procedures inside the buying committee and the approval workflows. 

We’ve been there, done that, and know how to generate opportunities with these segments and influence the decision-making processes.

2. Niche experience

While we could help many B2B business, since 2007 we focus exclusively on two verticals: high-value B2B tech (enterprise SaaS, blockchain technology, hardware) and service-based companies (software development, consulting, cybersecurity, DevOps as a service, etc). 

We were and still are “in the trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, so you’ll get access to 30+ years of our combined experience and knowledge. 

3. Knowledge transfer and in-house operations

We believe that the real growth can only be driven in-house. You need to have people who are in the trenches every day, talking to customers, experiencing the sales hurdles, refining the messages and positioning.

We join your team as external marketing advisors, provide consistent support and training including step-by-step playbooks, templates, marketing and sales dashboards, tech stack and process maps.

As a result, you get an evergreen in-house growth engine.

Here is our entire updated ABM cheat sheet: Use it to launch or refine your ABM program👇


We see ABM as a bridge between marketing and sales. 

It is the best way to connect top-of-the-funnel with bottom-of-the-funnel activities, while actively working with sales on pipeline and revenue.

Over the last 5 years, Vladimir Blagojević and I wrote more than 50 detailed guides about ABM. 

Here is a list of the best guides to help you plan or refine your ABM program:

ABM STRATEGY

- ABM strategy: the step-by-step guide: https://lnkd.in/etWEeJGG
- The ABM mirage: https://lnkd.in/dJK6-EXt
- Who owns ABM: https://lnkd.in/dN4MPdT6
- Planning, budgeting and forecasting ABM: https://lnkd.in/dn6pEQCi
- Shifting from lead gen to ABM: https://lnkd.in/dvhtU2GV
- ABM readiness checklist: https://lnkd.in/dJkaGx7y
-  How to target accounts in 2026: https://lnkd.in/deJWVK8e

DEVELOPING ABM PROGRAMS AND PLAYBOOKS

- ABM pilot: https://lnkd.in/dw-TZREp
- Account-Based Content Strategy: https://lnkd.in/dTszwX_8
- Operationalizing ABM: https://lnkd.in/d2wRUZQf
- Expansion & upsell: https://lnkd.in/d-BQPF33
- How to create ABM playbooks: https://lnkd.in/dj3sJhTf
- ICP for ABM: https://lnkd.in/diePETma
- Selecting accounts: https://lnkd.in/dkYBZN7X
- How to create playbooks for long sales cycles and multiple buyers: https://lnkd.in/dFhrbBN6

HOW TO WORK WITH SALES IN ABM

- Sales KPIs in ABM: https://lnkd.in/dewNCkJT
- Buying committee engagement: https://lnkd.in/dwSyR96v
-Sales perspective on ABM: https://lnkd.in/dXi5M6wc
- Role of SDRs in ABM: https://lnkd.in/eXin7VNF
- How to create awareness among strategic accounts through B2B buyer ecosystem: https://lnkd.in/esXKq2xc

ABM REPORTS

- ABM KPIs and reports: https://lnkd.in/drsUKFNa
- How to measure ABM: https://lnkd.in/dncUBUBX

ABM TACTICS AND CASE STUDIES

- 4 ABM Programs that Drove $7mln Pipeline: https://lnkd.in/dEMYSY7g
- $300k in revenue from pilot ABM: https://lnkd.in/dThUk_C 
- The ABM Pilot Program With 60% Marketing-Sourced Enterprise Pipeline (feat. Ken Roden and Magali Finet-Perdu): https://lnkd.in/dBKymbaT
- ABM in 2-year sales cycles (feat. Joseph Threlfall, Astrid van Dam, Bowin Cai and Raf Schroons): https://lnkd.in/dKVE2bnF
- Lean ABM (feat. Briana (Manrique) Casey, Megan Barenie, Jalynn Close): https://lnkd.in/d-rSjKeT

---
The success of ABM doesn't depend on your stack or budget. 

It depends on solid foundations, marketing and sales alignment, and shared playbooks to drive pipeline and revenue.

The biggest problem we faced last year with ABM - selling to sales the new operational model. Here is why.

In many B2B companies, sales and marketing planning happen in silos. Once a year during sales kick-off (SKO), sales:

-Pick up the biggest accounts
-Define target stakeholders
-Assign accounts to AEs and BDRs

Then, BDRs launch outreach sequences. AEs create account development plans and work on accounts that are already in the pipeline.

Collaboration with marketing is often limited to: "I need this deck, can you create it?" Marketing supports sales based on their requests, handover MQLs and inbound inquiries.

Nobody questions the status quo until the revenue targets are hit. But when the targets are missed, here is when the fun begins:

-fingerpointing and blaming
-strategy changes
-layoffs.

Nobody questions the status quo and ignores the elephant in the room:

The traditional pipeline generation model is completely misaligned with the B2B buyer journey.

B2B buyers don't buy according to our sales plans and timeline.

B2B buyers don't care if they are marked as "MQL" in our CRM.

B2B buyers don't want to receive 21 emails and LinkedIn messages.

The new operating model is accepting the complexity of the B2B buyer journey and aligning marketing & sales processes with it.

It doesn't change the incentives and core metrics:

Revenue, sales opportunities and pipeline coverage are still the top priority.

But it changes how marketing and sales:

-Select and prioritize accounts
-Plan and engage the entire buying committee
-Work together from awareness creation till closed won.

Three key changes:

1. Territory planning and account selection happens quarterly instead of annual SKO. Accounts are piroritized weekly based on the 1st party and 3rd party signals, and buyer engagement.

2. Buying committee engagement is shifted from decision-makers to the entire buying committee. Static outbound cadences are substituted with continuos nurturing. It includes time-based and signal-based playbooks.

3. Marketing doesn't work as sales assitants working on requests and transferring leads. Both teams create weekly account plans asking: How can we influence this account together?

These changes are inevitable.

We live in an era of abundance: technology, signals, automation. It's not a competitive advantage anymore.

The only competitive advantage you have is a cross-functional collaboration with a value-added engagement for the accounts that really need your product.

The best ABM playbooks we've run always follow these 4 principles:


1. Run activities that generate 1st party signals (aka Always-On Playbooks)

- Connecting with the entire buying committee
- Personalized "account love letters" posted on LinkedIn that mention target accounts' initiatives
- Personalized invites to the events
- Content hubs
- Expert roundups featuring industry thought leaders
- Thoughtful commenting on buyers' posts
- Thought leadership content

2. Build one activity on another for continuous account nurturing, research and penetration (aka Time-Based Playbooks).

Every time-based playbook is built on the previous ones.

Example: content → webinar → expert roundup → market research → webinar presenting market research.

It creates a constant mix of value-added touchpoints across the long buyer journey. It helps to stay top-of-the-mind instead of "send and forget" playbooks.

3. Use 1st party and 3rd party signals for value-based touchpoints with engaged buying committee groups.

- Monitor hiring announcements 
- Track management changes t
- Follow P&L reports and press releases to identify business challenges and key initiatives
- Look for questions in communities asked by target buyers
- Monitor content engagement 
- Track high-intent pages visits for timely outreach

We use these insights to share relevant content, suggest help, ask additional questions—everything that adds value to the current thread. Every insight also triggers multithreadin when relevant to engage more buyers.

4. Have a mix of fully personalized 1:1 activities for active focus accounts.

The most engaged accounts are moved to fully personalized account development, including:

- Create personalized solutions and content hubs
- Offer free strategy sessions/workshops with SMEs or clients
- Creating business cases

---
HockeyStack once shared a report that it takes 417 touchpoints and 5493 impressions to generate >$100k deals. Most ABM playbooks I've seen account, maybe, for 5-10% of the necessary touchpoints. And there is a reason:

B2B vendors want pipeline today. 

What they forget is the real length of the buyer journey. 

The pipeline you're trying to close this quarter started 9+ months ago. You can capture some of the demand, but it's always not enough to hit the targets. 

If you're not building future pipeline right now with the playbooks optimized for long sales cycles, you'll be having the same "pipeline dried up" conversation in Q4.

Sales: We want to run ABM with you. We need to improve lead quality and pipeline coverage. But our BDR has only 5 hrs/week. Here is what happens next:

ABM WITHOUT DEDICATED SDR.

- Broad list-building. No prioritization based on awareness, engagement and intent signals. All accounts are assigned by territory and size.

- AI-based "research" pulling generic public information anybody can get in second from ChatGPT

- Marketing runs more targeted demand gen to generate MQLs and inbound inquiries with further handover to sales

- Sales sends the same outbound cadences personalized by title and the research pulled from ChatGPT

- All accounts are treated the same way

Pause for a second and guess:

Who is blamed when this program fails?

The right answer is.....

Marketing!

ABM WITH A DEDICATED SALES REP

- Joint program planning: from narrative and account selection to account development

- Clusters replace segments and verticals for targeting

- All accounts are prioritized based on revenue potential, vendor awareness, relationship, and product-need evidence

- In-depth desk and 1:1 research mapping product value to key initiatives and buyer JTBDs

- Detailed buying committee mapping including Champions, Decision-makers, Power Users, and Influencers

- Continuous nurturing and engagement playbooks aligned with intent level and vendor awareness

- Constant multi-threading

- Constant value-added touchpoints: personalized messages based on captured signals, thoughtful commenting, content sharing, event invites

- Joint weekly reviews and planning

TLDR;

To make ABM work you need to have a rep that is constantly researching and engaging with the buying committee groups of target accounts. Not via automated cadences, but via constant, personalized engagement.

No budget and technology will compensate it.

Some sales teams sometimes think that "not pitching all the time" is not prospecting. But they forget about the reality of enterprise B2B buyer journey.

First, you need to be known.

Second, you need to get into a shortlist.

Third, you need to have credibility.

Fourth, you need to help creating a compelling reason to change now and sell internally.

It's not possible with quarter air cover, marketing campaigns and outbound cadences. It's possible with a continuous relationship building with strategic accounts.

In Q4, we ran a quarter ABM campaign with 51 accounts. One became closed won, 4 became sales opportunities. Here is how we selected the accounts:

We used our account prioritization framework, segmenting all accounts by:

-Revenue potential
-Level of awareness
-Relationship with buying committee
-Product-need evidence

1. REVENUE POTENTIAL.

We looked at companies that fit our Tier 1 & Tier 2 criteria:

These accounts represent the highest value and largest scale targets.

Company Size: Large scale (201–500 / 501–1,000 / 1,000–5,000 employees)
Annual Revenue: >$50M
Distributed GTM Teams: 3 or more business units or Go-To-Market teams
Sales + Biz Dev Size: 50+ members
Marketing Team Size: 10+ members
Industry: Enterprise B2B SaaS
Priority Markets: US, Canada, UKI, Benelux, DACH, France, or Nordics.

2. LEVEL OF AWARENESS.

We paid attention to several criteria:

-Spikes in visiting our consulting page in the last 90 days. We set up a filter in Dealfront applying our qualification criteria. Accounts with a high engagement score were added to the draft list.

-Known engaged buyer (see next point)
-2+ buying committee members are subscribed to our Substack newsletter

3. RELATIONSHIP.

We prioritized accounts where we had a known engaged buyer (the matching was contact->account level):

-We had recent engagement or conversation on LinkedIn
-A contact has signed up and attended at least one of the previous 10 episodes of Full-Funnel Live
-A contact is subscribed to our newsletter more than for 6 months

4. PRODUCT-NEED EVIDENCE.

We looked for a combined evidence between 1st party and 3rd party signals.

1st party:

-Reading ABM articles on our blog or Substack
-Attending ABM-related podcast episodes
-Visiting our consulting page

3rd party:

-Growing a new regional team and actively hiring SDRs and AEs (they will need marketing support)
-Promoting enterprise case studies and sharing enterprise logos on the website
-Executive interviews mentioning expansion to a new market
-LinkedIn posts mentioning ABM initiatives or purchasing ABM platforms
---

One takeway (though with a hindsight it is obvious) that the most responsive and engaged accounts were those who matched all 3 criteria:

-Were connected or following us on LinkedIn
-Reading newsletter for 6+ months
-Attended at least one of our events

Which proves our theory:

Always focus on the most engaged accounts and invest in cluster awareness. Your future pipeline is created today.

P.S. What's your approach to selecting accounts for the ABM program?

I've created 50+ ABM playbooks in the last 5 years. 

Here are 6 core principles:

1. ALIGN ON THE ROLE OF MARKETING AND SALES IN ABM.

Who owns ABM? Here is a breakdown of marketing and sales responsibilities in ABM: https://lnkd.in/dN4MPdT6

2. CREATE PLAYBOOKS FOR CONTINUOUS NURTURING AND LONG SALES CYCLES.

Our framework to engage & nurture accounts across 18-month sales cycles and multiple stakeholders leveraging time-based and signal-based playbooks: https://lnkd.in/dFhrbBN6

3. CLUSTER TARGETING.

Here is our cluster-based ABM framework: https://lnkd.in/deJWVK8e

4. SELECTING ABM ACCOUNTS.

Here is the account qualification and prioritization framework: https://lnkd.in/dkYBZN7X

5. MEASURE ABM.

Reports for new logo, expansion and renewals + integrated ABM dashboard: https://lnkd.in/dncUBUBX

6. 6A FRAMEWORK TO CREATE AN ABM PLAYBOOK.

6 essential pillars of the ABM playbook:

https://lnkd.in/dj3sJhTf

Marketing and sales should stop the WISH LIST approach to territory planning.
Here are 5 pillars we apply to account selection.

1. QUALIFICATION CRITERIA.

Before prioritizing and selecting accounts, all of them should be qualified. Just because the account is in your area or meets firmographic criteria (e.g. big manufacturing company in North America) doesn't mean that it's a good fit.

Qualification criteria examples:

- Losses are stated in the annual report because of the currency volatility.
- Product release cycles >1 month, etc.

2. REVENUE POTENTIAL.

What is the real opportunity potential? Are you hunting antelope or mice?

Prioritize accounts with the highest and medium revenue potential.

3. LEVEL OF RELATIONSHIP.

Do we know anybody who works for the target accounts, or who is closely connected to the buying committee?

Somebody who can make an intro or share insider information about the account's needs and challenges.

Prioritize these accounts.

4. PRODUCT-NEED EVIDENCE / BUYING SINGNALS.

Are there any facts that might tell us that the account might have a challenge our product solves?

Examples:

- Actively hiring for a specific role
- Announced losses, key initiatives, or roadmap
- Legacy technology, etc.

5. LEVEL OF VENDOR AWARENESS.

Are the accounts that we want to target already aware of our product? 

Are there any engagements and touchpoints we had with them?

The last question is essential because it helps you to separate "cold accounts" (no touchpoints) from the accounts that are already aware of your brand.

Cold accounts should be put into a future pipeline list and added to your cluster-based demand gen program.

To identify "aware" and "engaged accounts" look at your marketing automation and intent data:

- Recent sign-ups to your cluster-based webinars
- High-intent website page visits (demo, pricing, case studies, vertical/role solutions, comparison reports)
- Engagement with your thought leadership content and demand gen ads, etc.

The ultimate step is scoring all the accounts and making an "active focus" list according to your team's capacity.
---

Most marketing and sales teams either build a "wish list" of accounts or play the MQL game.

They always get the same results: miserable pipeline and missed revenue targets.

Their challenge can be easily solved by:

- sitting together
- defining account qualification and prioritization criteria
- and identifying target accounts they SHOULD focus on.

In the last 3 years I read 61 books. Here are the top 10 that helped us to refine our full-funnel ABM framework:

1-2: Reset: How to Change What's Not Working and Switch by Dan Heath.

ABM implementation comes along with an extensive change management. You can't just blow up everything and ignite the revolution. These books helped us: 

- to audit and identify the things that are already working in the company ('the bright spots")

- find change agents who are willing to challenge the status quo. 

- launch small pilots by building on the top of what already works 

It's the essence of our pilot program.

3. Selling with by Nate Nasralla.

Historically we generated a lot of demand and engaged champions. But instead of closing the deal we lost them due to internal blockage. For years we optimized our deck around the methodology, numbers, etc. without realizing that there should be two factors to win the deal:

- Compelling internal events that we can use for change management
- Clear business case that articulates: What, Why, How, When, and What to expect

Not our long and impressive deck 😃 

This book taught us the necessary framework and helped us to close every 4 of 5 qualified deals.

4. Scrum by Jeff Sutherland.

We always had weekly pipeline and review meetings with the ABM teams, but they were more ad-hoc. Scrum gave us structured methodology:

-to refine the planning
-identify bottlenecks early
-make sure that the weekly backlog we plan altogether is actually done.

5. The Culture Map by Erin Meyer.

We work globally, and cultural differences hit hard in year one. European teams wanted detailed methodology walkthroughs and thorough planning.

Our first American client? Different story. First question: "Show me the results."

Once sold on the idea: "How fast can we start the pilot? We trust you—let's move."

Then came the real differences: communication and feedback style, commitment, timelines.

This book taught us to adapt our consulting to different cultural contexts.

6-8. Goal (1, 2 and 3) by Eliyahu M. Goldratt.

This is my favorite business non-fiction. This book taught me how to identify and remove constraints that exist in every business process. Then, optimize the delivery according to bottlenecks.

Not to say it reminded me of my corporate days: night office hours, working weekends, endless business trips and meetings 😃 .

9-10. 80/20 by Richard Koch and 80/20 in sales and marketing by Perry M.

These two books helped us to find a framework to answer one of the most important ABM planning questions: Where should we focus?

Account prioritization framework, segment and use case selection, ICP for ABM came from the core book concepts.
---
I have a collection of 278 book notes I made since 2012. 

Let me know in the comments if detailed posts with book notes and how we implemented them are appealing to you.

Our industry problem - engaging enterprise accounts the same way we sell $49 products. The mindset behind: if they are in the market, they will buy. We just need to write a good script.

But this is fundamentally wrong when it comes to selling high ACV products. The low-ticket playbook simply doesn't work.

The enterprise sales cycle is long not because we send bad emails. It's long because corporates and mid-size companies operate in a completely different reality:

- strategic initiatives
-long-term planning
- low velocity

Your solution should be a part of their current strategy. If it doesn't fit, nobody engages. But even if it does fit, enterprise buyers usually have their preferred vendors shortlist.

Apparently, you can break through, but it's more luck than a predictable motion.

TLDR;

To create future pipeline, you need to have continuos nurturing playbooks alinged with the length of enterprise buyer journey.

The SMB pipeline generation playbook cracks in a week when going upmarket. Here is the reality of enterprise sales cycle:

Our sales cycle is 9-12 months with 80-100 touchpoints across the buying committee (way beyond 12 emails over two weeks) :)

Our buyer's journey typically starts when they see our LinkedIn thought leadership content. 

Other touchpoints are happening later through:

- Weekly newsletter diving into ABM and GTM strategy
- Live weekly podcast where buyers can ask questions
- Quarterly webinars
- Content hubs tailored to specific challenges and solutions (launching pilot ABM, initiating change management, etc)
- 1-1 conversations on LinkedIn
- Content co-creation

Before we generate a sales opportunity, we help our buyers to:

- Identify the root reasons for their challenges and the solutions in strategy sessions
- Build a business case to get stakeholder buy-in
- Design pilot programs with clear metrics, resources and timeline

It's not ad-hoc and not optional. This is how the enterprise buyer journey is happening.

The trap I see most B2B companies fall down is focusing on the volume and scalability instead of focusing on future pipeline creation and thorough account development to land enterprise deals.

They try to replicate what works for SMB / low-size deals:

- Developing target lists from ZoomInfo / Apollo / Clay
- Set up personalized outreach sequences Outreach / lemlist
- Run air cover to the same set of accounts

The SMB playbook is optimized for fast pipeline creation with minimal human involvement.

While enterprise playbook requires:

- In-depth account research and thorough account mapping
- Constant engagement with 5+ buying committee members across the entire sales cycle (9-12 months): power users, champions, stakeholders
- Personalized activities and content per account

You can't fix it with technology.

You can fix it only with setting up cross-functional teams that are focused on continuous account development and quarter milestone metrics for 12-month sales cycle:

Q1: X engaged buyers, initial conversations, account penetration
Q2: Discovery calls
Q3: Business case creation
Q4: Sales opportunities

Your SDR just marked 47 accounts as "touched" this week.
Your VP Sales asks: "How many conversations did you start?"


The answer: 2, and both ghosted after one reply.

I’ve witnessed this a couple of times with our clients during weekly review meetings. SDRs report on activity metrics: touched accounts, calls, emails sent. 

But when leadership asks about pipeline, nobody has a good answer.

Here's why.

Most B2B sales teams run 3-week personalized cadences with 8-10 touchpoints. Marketing supports them with LinkedIn ads for "air cover" and call it ABM. SDRs follow up with everybody who likes, clicks or downloads any asset. 

But in reality, most emails get ignored. Some people accept connection requests but never reply. SDRs mark them as "touched" and move on. 

This operational model is completely misaligned with long 9-12 months sales cycles that require 100+ touchpoints to close a deal (check this report: https://lnkd.in/dFhrbBN6)

According to Pavilion's 2024 B2B Sales Benchmarks, year-over-year performance of “traditional sales model” dropped across every revenue metric:

- Win rates down 18%
- Deal values down 21%
- Sales cycles up 16%
- 69% of reps missed quota

Another Focus Digital research shows that (in Complex B2B SaaS) the average account-to-pipeline ratio is 0.03% (stats: https://lnkd.in/dupPez5q) 

That means for every 3,000 accounts you touch with outbound sequences, you might generate one sales opportunity. Maybe.

B2B tech market already reacted to the problem by mass SDR layoffs. 

According to Emergence Capital's Beyond Benchmarks report, 36% of 560 tech companies decreased their SDR/BDR headcount last year—the highest percentage among all sales roles (stats: https://lnkd.in/dupPez5q)

The truth is simple:

You can't fix this fundamental problem with better technology and AI.

You can only fix it by accepting how enterprise buyers actually buy and co-creating with sales a new operating model.

We've documented with Vlad how we develop a new account-based operational model for marketing and sales, including:

- How to implement it without a revolution
- How to get sales buy-in: the step-by-step framework
- What could go wrong: the failure scenarios nobody talks about

Subscribe on Substack to receive it tomorrow in your inbox: https://lnkd.in/dSje9cKc

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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);}Penchala Tharun 🚀's LinkedIn Performance

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