audience & revenue growth tips for B2B startups and creators

My mission is to build predictable pipelines for B2B startups. I share what I learn along the way. 

Read more if you are ready to build your pipeline 👇

💡 I am super relevant if you are:

→ Indie Hacker
→ Freelancer
→ Early Startup Founder
→ B2B Sales Person
→ Creator (any profession)

✍️ I write about:

→ B2B sales
→ Go to market strategies
→ Signal-based prospecting

Little more about me:

Cryptocurrency Investor. SaaS Enthusiast. Agriculture Business Owner. 

Lived in 3 countries.

I'm a T-shaped growth person who has experience in sales, content marketing, and growth.

Drop me a LinkedIn message if you need any help.

We will keep it simple.

Twitter: @sehaokudan

https://calendly.com/sehaokudan/30min

Seha Okudan

Sales is stressful.
Turkey built an industry around it.

Every job is stressful. 

I get that.

But the stress of a salesperson is different.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲:

- Pressure
- Rejection
- Judgment
- Uncertainty
- Expectations

Still not convinced?

Every deal can die last minute.
Every “maybe” keeps your mind busy.
Every quota resets the clock.

𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼:

-Detach from outcomes
-Handle rejection calmly

Don't lose your hair.

If this was your reality in 2025, I’ll see you in Istanbul this year.

I'm sure Turkish Airlines can help. 😅 

Jokes aside, what part of sales stresses you the most?

--
Inspiration: Tosin Jan

Building Outbound & RevOps systems for B2B companies

Prospects hate to give bad news.
(And it costs you time)

They don’t reject you.
They delay you.

They hope the problem fades.
They hope you stop following up.

Most sellers miss this.

You chase wrong deals for months.

Hoping to get positive news.

Bad discovery hides the truth.

One "I'm interested." costs you months.

𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼:
-Get to “no” fast
-Pressure-test intent
-Disqualify with care
-Learn to walk away early

Money is in the follow-up. That's 100%

Not in chasing the wrong deals.

Bad news early saves months.
Good sales feels honest.

Agree or disagree?

Video Credit: @sales_humor /Instagram

BANT is outdated.
Here’s why 

BANT is a sales qualification criteria. 
Budget, authority, need, timing. 

Especially if it is outbound, the budget is rarely allocated for outbound as an example.

Last week, I saw someone in my network say,
 “BANT is the key to winning deals.”

Coming from an Enterprise C level, you'd believe.

Maybe 10–15 years ago, it was a silver bullet.

Today? 
Buying processes are no longer as simple as they used to be.


BANT is problematic because:

1️⃣ 𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿-𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱

BANT was built for sellers, not for buyers. 
Buyers don’t want to be qualified for you
They want to be understood by you.

2️⃣ 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗿

Buyers move in and out of priorities fast.
Your job is to show impact and move the solution up in the list.
Not learning if it's the right time.
It is rarely the right time.

3️⃣ 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆

If there’s real pain, the budget appears.
If there’s no pain, no number will matter.
Show how much their pain is costing them.

4️⃣ 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱

Usually, there’s no single decision-maker anymore.
Users, champions, legal, finance, etc.

Modern frameworks, such as MEDDPICC, shift the focus from qualification to alignment.

But religiously following a framework is a mistake.

Sales involve psychology and emotions.

Never forget that.

How do you qualify prospects?

Build quality lists.
(Or outbound fails.)

Outbound is harder now.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲:

-Good offer
-Great copy
-Reliable infra
-Warmed up emails

None of this works if three things are wrong.

- Bad timing
- Wrong people
- Old contact data

You waste time.
You hurt deliverability.
You miss opportunities.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀:

1️⃣ Pick intent that matters
2️⃣ Build pre-verified lists
3️⃣ Find real decision makers
4️⃣ Sync natively with your sequencer
5️⃣ Launch without cleaning chaos

I was part of the Prospeo V2 beta program, tested with one of my clients, and we LOVED it. (thanks for inviting me, Matthew!)

It did what outbound tools should do.

No hacks. No patchwork.

𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀:
99% contact data accuracy, up to 30% call connect.

That changes outcomes.

If lists are weak, outbound dies.

Check out Prospeo.io V2, you won't regret it.

----
PS: Clay ranks Prospeo as the most accurate data provider. Not a surprise.

Sales is easy.
(is it?)

"If the product is good, it'll sell itself."

Ok, fair enough.

If you're not in sales, it is easy.

- You send a message
- Book a meeting
- Send your pitch deck
- Impress with your product
- Send the quote
- Get the money

Oh, sometimes they even come to you to buy!

If you're on the buyer side, it is even easier to say it is easy.

"They just show the product, send a quote, anyone can do it"

But here is the part they don't see:

- You get rejected every day
- You lose deals to competitors
- Prospects ghost you after 4 calls
- Legal stalls your contract for weeks
- Champions go silent before signing

Competition is bigger than ever.
Everyone is building fast now.
Buyers have more power than ever.

Sales isn’t easy.

It just looks that way when it’s done right.

What part of the job do people underestimate the most?

The biggest sales mistake is simple.
(but still overlooked)

Talking too much about yourself.

Everyone knows this.

Some still forget it.

𝗡𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁:

- Your offer
- Your service
- Your product
- Your new feature
- How great you are

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴:
Does this help me hit my goals?

You learn that by talking less and by asking clear questions.

Sales gets easier when it is about them.

Not you.

Agree or disagree?

Selling a no-product market fit SaaS?
It is not a sales job.

It is a founder job without equity.

In those companies, your role is not just closing.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼:

- Find the real ICP
- Fix weak positioning in live calls
- Turn vague value into clear outcomes
- Surface feedback no one wants to hear

You'll face blockers that kill deals before they start.

Especially if you're working with a founder who loves the product.

They're going to blame you when you can't sell.

They’ll defend features.
They’ll call it a “sales problem.”
They'll call prospects stupid for not getting it.

Sellers can't sell a product nobody needs.

Only the founder can sell to his/her network.

Sellers don’t fail here.

The product does.

Is your problem a “sales problem” or a product problem?

Never pitch the solution first.
-here's why

Problems have many fixes.

An umbrella works.
A roof works too.

Both protect from rain.

But only one fits the buyer’s world.

If you pitch early, you guess.
Guessing kills trust.

𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴:

-Fear they want gone
-Desire they want fast
-Challenge blocking progress

Then do one more thing.

Show the impact.

What breaks if nothing changes?
What slows down?
What costs them money, time, or status?

When they feel the impact, they pull the solution from you.

Not the other way around.

Sell less.
Diagnose more.

➡️ How do you diagnose before you pitch?

Sales sucks.
(It is true.)

Closing, prospecting, the whole thing sucks, too.

- You’re ghosted after a “great” call
- Quota pressure eats at your sleep
- You’re rejected 13 times before lunch
- People assume you’re pushy before you speak

All true.

The worst part? 

Some people see you as order takers.

Send email → show product → send quote → done

But here’s the thing.

It’s also a life skill.
There’s no way around it.

Start shifting your perspective.

Because it is also awesome:

- It can get very lucrative
- You meet cool people every day
- You get paid to solve real problems
- It’s the fastest path to building a business
- You build grit that most jobs will never teach
- You learn to read people better than a therapist

Most people can’t handle both sides.

But if you can?

Sales will change your life.

Be honest, do you love it or hate it?

Just "do more” is lazy manager advice.
Here's why:

Just do "do more" is a lazy manager advice.

5 difficult scenarios for salespeople:
(Even for the top ones.)

5 difficult scenarios for salespeople

5 worst sales discovery questions:

Outbound is changing.
Before 2019, spray & pray worked.

Send thousands of generic emails → get leads.

𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴:

- Deliverability got stricter
- Prospects got smarter (sales methods)
- Email channels got flooded

Now, in 2025, we can create high-quality emails in bulk.
With AI.

And yes, it still works for now.
(If your deal size is small + TAM is huge.)

You can also have the best cold email infrastructure.

𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗺𝘆 𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻:
It is getting easier to create mass email campaigns,

So history will repeat itself.

-Buyers will get “immune”
-ESP rules will tighten (even more strict)

Even good emails will start to see fewer replies.

For me, sending mass messages isn’t sales. It is a form of marketing. And it’s starting to look a lot like paid ads, only through inboxes.

I think email service providers will regulate and monetize it pretty soon.

LinkedIn avoids spam as much as possible with InMail ads, Sales Navigator credits, message limits, and verifications.

What are your thoughts?

How are you future-proofing your outbound?

-
𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲:

Signal-based, hyper-relevant, multichannel approach. 

8-13 step sequences - 40-50 business days.
(cold call, LinkedIn, email)

And leveraging referrals, my network, and multithreading when/if needed.

Sales skill is a life skill.
(not just for more revenue)

Sales is not just a revenue skill.

It can help you:

- Negotiate better pay
- Build trust with people
- Sell ideas to your team
- Get buy-in from your boss
- Handle rejection with grace
- Build better personal relationships

Most importantly:
It helps you communicate with intent.

You can be a teacher, designer, engineer, or founder.

You’ll always move faster if you know how to sell.

Investing.
Copywriting.
Communication.

All life skills.

What life skill paid off most for you?

“Do you have a budget?”
(don’t ask this)

Yes, budget matters.
Every sales framework says so.

But asking it directly is lazy and self-serving.

𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝟮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀:

1️⃣ Outbound:

No one has a budget for something they just heard about. They didn’t plan for you. They didn’t ask for you.

So the answer is probably “no”, even if the pain is real.

2️⃣ Inbound:

Asking about budget too early kills momentum. You turn discovery into a price check.

𝗠𝘆 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲:
If there is a big pain, a budget can be found.

---

Asking “Do you have a budget?” is really asking:

“Do you have money for me?”

𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱:

“Why hasn’t it worked?”
“Who is affected by this?”
“What have you tried so far?”
“What happens if this stays unsolved?”
“What does success change for the business?”

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝘀𝗸:

“What priority would this have if it worked?”
“How do you usually fund problems like this?”
“Who would need to be involved to move forward?"

When the pain is clear, the budget becomes a logistics problem.

Budget is usually the outcome of good discovery.

How do you uncover budget without asking for it?

Objections are opportunities.
Many feel bad after an objection

I was like this back in 2018.

Telling myself:
"Not going to happen again."

I was terribly wrong.

You should feel good about objections.
They help you close.

𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻:

-Real interest
-Serious buyer
-Active thinking
-Risk awareness

Gives you a chance to discover more.

And SOLVE.
(or disqualify fast)

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲:

Asks nothing
Shows no concern
Says "great product
Says yes to everything

I learned this two months later. A prospect said they would buy. - “100% sure.”

Then they vanished.

Waste of time...

Handle objections well.

This gives you a chance to solve. Or disqualify fast.

Focus on better-fit clients.

Agree or disagree?

Ideas are worthless.
(until someone pays for it)

Building products is easy now.

Every day, we see a new SaaS project.

“Let’s build first. We’ll sell later.”
“People loved the idea.”

That is how you burn resources.

Selling is the only real validation.

7+ years in B2B sales.
One failed micro-SaaS.

Almost nobody told me that my product/idea is bad.

𝗬𝗼𝘂'𝗹𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴:

1️⃣ Sounds like a great idea, we'll consider it when you build the product.
2️⃣ We'll subscribe when it is ready!
3️⃣ We'll try it once it is live!

None of this is validation.
None of it is good news.

Because people hate to give bad news.

𝗠𝘆 𝘀𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻?
Make people take their credit cards out in advance.

Is it easy? Absolutely not.

This is why you can ask people to make small commitments first.
(Waitlist, for example)

Yes – people can buy later too, but that’s a big risk.

You might waste your time, energy, and resources.

𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿:
Money is proof. Everything else is just talk.

If the money is not in your account, there is no deal.

If you don't have any sales before building;
Don’t build it.

How do you get real commitments from prospects?

What is one thing AI will never be able to do? 
(In sales)

GTM Engineer | Uber driver turned sales guy

Creative and analytical GTM Engineer with 3 years of experience in tech sales, now focused on building advanced go-to-market, workflows and automation. I am experienced in leveraging tools like Clay, Leadmagic, HubSpot, Make, and Apollo to build scalable outbound systems, streamline prospecting, and drive measurable results. I combines technical expertise with frontline sales knowledge to deliver systems that generate pipeline and revenue.

Particularly interested In AI, great founders, products, and people!

I believe talent exists everywhere and is not bound by location - which is why I champion global hiring and remote work.

Need anything? Let's connect!

Chris Mbanta

POV: when a client makes joke on a call.

Salespeople ⬇️

While I was away for the holidays,
Daniel was in the motherland.

We planned to link up on the evening of Dec 29.

I had returned from Cotonou 🇧🇯 in the morning to make sure it happened
Because he was flying back to Dublin 🇮🇪 the next day 30th Dec.

For some unforeseen reasons we couldn't see on the 29th.

Past 9pm, my phone rang.

“Chris, it’s Dan.”
I screamed, “DANIEEEEL?!”
It was all joy and happiness on both ends of the call.

He said he couldn't leave Nigeria without seeing me
So we made it happen
We saw the next morning, the same day he was to travel.

That was very intentional
And that’s what great friends would do.

Here’s to meeting people on LinkedIn
Who turn into real-life friends…
And friends who become family.

Cheers to more of that in 2026 🤍

Go where you can win the most.

When I was an SDR I was heavily focused on old calling 
Because that was where most of my meetings came from....

Don’t get me wrong,
I was using other channels.

Email sequencing
Social selling (LinkedIn DMs, even tried X for a bit)

What didn’t work was trying to be great everywhere at once.

The phone was the channel that consistently gave me pipeline,
So I anchored on it.

I even had personal KPIs to hit,
Minimum number of calls I must make every day.

Once I mastered the phone
(confident on calls and consistently booking meetings)

I moved to other channels,
Doing multi-channel became easier and more successful.

𝐌𝐲 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬

Focus on one channel until you’re good at it.
Then layer the rest

That’s how you'll win faster.

Agree or disagree?
Let me know In the CS.

I wouldn’t do a 100% commission-based role.

I've done a few in my career especially in my early days.

I thought it would “build grit” and fast-track my growth.

What it actually did was drain my time
Every day became about survival
I was chasing quick wins
To get paid.

I avoided learning curves I couldn’t afford
There was no room to get better at the craft
No room to slow down and understand what actually worked.

At the end of the day I realized I was wasting my time
I was better off working for free.

WHY?
Because working for free is intentional 
With growth as top focus, I wouldn't expect 
Anything in return and that'll help me learn and grow fast.

100% commission shouldn’t be the norm.

It pushes people to optimize for short-term wins, 
Not long-term skill.

And that’s very different from working for free.

Working for free is a deliberate choice to learn, get reps, and build leverage.

Commission-only roles demand output before you’ve built any.

There’s a big difference between betting on yourself
and being set up to scramble just to stay afloat.

If you think otherwise,
Let me know in the CS.

The fight to “turn off LinkedIn” is real.

Every few weeks, 
Someone posts about why LinkedIn is noisy, or should disappear.

And honestly, I get it
People don’t like what they feel they hate
And make all sorts of opinions on what should be done to it.

I responded to one 
Saying "B2B can't survive without LinkedIn"

And this is absolutely true.

Because for B2B companies, LinkedIn isn’t a distraction
It’s infrastructure.

Where conversations start
It’s where trust compounds
Where companies find leads
Where careers change with/without applications.

So when I see “LinkedIn is useless” takes
I usually assume one thing:

They don’t sell to other companies/agencies.

You don’t have to love LinkedIn
Your personal opinion about it also doesn't matter
Because there are more than a billion people on here.

They love it
And they conduct business here
And in B2B, not being in the room is the real cost.

What do you think?

I wasted time building an outbound campaign the wrong way.

Started with job titles:

CISO
VP of Security
Head of Security

It made sense in my table
But in practice, everything broke.

I kept pulling in companies selling 
What I was trying to sell, rather than those who need it.

That’s when I realized my mistake, 
Was the flawed logic behind the campaign.

I was asking first, “Who should I talk to?”
Instead of asking, “What companies actually need this right now?”

Job titles answer the first question
But they don’t answer the second.

Signals do:

Infra changes
Expansion moves
Specific hiring activities.

This is the reason I started 
Planning out first before building any campaign. 

Once I flipped the order to these two

𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 → 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 → 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭
𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 → 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 → 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭

My workflow became better:

Cleaner lists
Fewer false positives.

Learning from my mistakes was my biggest play here
Growth forces you to confront the gaps in your thinking.

Most GTM Engineers come from one of two backgrounds:

Sales
Or engineering.

Sales folks usually understand:
ICPs
Messaging
Objections
What actually gets replies.

Engineers usually understand:
Systems
Data
Automation
How to scale without things breaking.

But to really level up, people coming from sales have to learn the engineering side: data, systems, automation, and scale.

And vice versa for folks coming from engineering.

Because the best GTM Engineers sit somewhere in the middle.

They take commercial instincts
and merge them with engineering execution.

They don’t just know what works.
They know why it works and how to operationalize it at scale.

That’s what turns a background into a GTM Engineer.

Which side did you start from?

If you think otherwise, 
Let me know in the CS.

Give inexperienced candidates a chance.

Every experienced candidate you admire today started somewhere
At some point, someone took a chance on them before they had the proof.

Early in my career, I didn’t have much to point to on paper.

What I did have was hunger, curiosity, and a lot of time to learn
A few people saw that and gave me room to grow.

That changed how I think about experience
It’s useful, but it’s not the whole story.

Progress usually comes from people who are willing to be uncomfortable, make mistakes, and improve fast.

Now when I look at early careers, I remember that growth has a starting point
And that starting point is often inexperience.

If you’re in a position to hire or mentor, consider the upside of potential.

And if you’re early in your career, remember that one “yes” can change everything for you.

Can you remember that one person who gave you a chance?

Giving your employees fair pay isn’t generosity.

It’s the baseline.

A lot of companies talk about “culture” and “loyalty"
That part makes sense.

But if you’re underpaying the people doing the actual work,
That’s not culture.

That’s cost control disguised as values.

Fair pay signals a few simple things:

- You respect the work
- You value your people
- You understand replacement cost
- You’re serious about retention, not just hiring.

People don’t leave teams first,
They leave when effort and compensation stop lining up with output.

You don’t build long-term results by squeezing short-term margins,
You build them by making staying worth it.

Think otherwise?
Let me know in the CS.

P.S. I went to the beach on a monday evening.

taplio

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Chris Mbanta

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The Battle

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