Twain

Product Advisor

FDTC SaaS Sales Consulting & Training

FDTC (From Demo To Close) I help early-stage SaaS startups grow revenue by improving their GTM sales playbooks, people, and processes.

I do this by co-piloting their sales enablement, training, and coaching:

PROCESS:
✅ Improving sales hiring and onboarding process.
✅ Prospecting, Discovery, Demo, and Follow-Up Strategy
✅ Sales funnel, email, and CRM audits

PLAYBOOKS:
✅ Building a custom sales playbook
✅ Writing cold email sequences 
✅ Building talk tracks in call recording software

PEOPLE:
✅ 1:1 and group coaching & advisory
✅ Custom sales workshops
✅ Deal and follow-up reviews



🟢 For SaaS companies ➡️ demotoclose.com
🟢 For AEs ➡️ fdtcuniversity.com

Founder

FDTC University

From Demo To Close University (FDTCU) is a 12-month sales coaching program for SMB, MM, and Enterprise AEs who want to 2X their quota without using high-pressure sales tactics by nailing their discovery, demos, and follow-ups.

Sales Coach

DCKAP

Strategic Sales Consultant & Coach

GorillaDesk

Sales Consultant & Advisor

Vajro

Helping the team at Vajro with:
→ GTM sales process/playbook
→ Outbound motions and messaging
→ LinkedIn social selling strategy
→ Marketing

Strategic Advisor

SixFigures

SixFigures is the premier organization for sales education. Based in Tel Aviv we help the start-up nation scale, and scale careers in the process.

Sales Instructor & Mentor

SaaS Talks: From Lead to Close

SaaS Talks: From Lead to Close is a short-form audio SaaS sale podcast sharing common challenges, and strategies to close more of your deals from the moment they reach your pipeline. 

You'll learn how to:
💸 Schedule more demos
💸 Build a bigger pipeline
💸 Close at least 50% of your demos. 

Every episode will be short and to the point so you don't have to waste time listening to sales fluff.

→ Each episode is less than 10 minutes and cuts out ALL of the fluff. I post an episode 5 days/week.
→ Also includes monthly specials with guests like Nick Cegelski, Collin Mitchell, Ethan Parker, and more!
→ GO HERE TO LISTEN: https://anchor.fm/saastalks

💯 Now you can listen to it during your bathroom breaks, in-between meetings, or anytime you want!

Creator 

Techstars

Mentoring startups in a remote-first environment, I support their strategy, offer firsthand experience, and guide their growth. Since 2006, Techstars has worked with startups across a range of verticals, from aerospace to finance, logistics, and retail, connecting them to a network of successful mentors and partners. Each year, Techstars chooses over 500 early-stage companies to join one of their 3-month, mentorship-driven accelerators, investing $120K and providing hands-on mentorship and access to the Techstars network for life.Mentoring startups in a remote-first environment, I support with their strategy, offer firsthand experience, and guide their growth. Since 2006, Techstars has worked with startups across a range of verticals, from aerospace to finance, logistics, and retail, connecting them to a network of successful mentors and partners. Each year, Techstars chooses over 500 early-stage companies to join one of their 3-month, mentorship-driven accelerators, investing $120K and providing hands-on mentorship and access to the Techstars network for life.

Startup Mentor

Endeavor

Helping startup founders with their go-to-market sales playbook.

Testimonial: "Mor was incredibly forthcoming with his knowledge and learnings from his past experiences. Without hesitation, he dove right into our challenges and came up with tangible/realistic/proven solutions for us to work on. Everything we wanted and more out of the conversations. Within the first session we discussed multiple ways in which we could address our initial goals. We then spent the next two sessions going into more detail on how we can strategically implement what is best for us as a growing SaaS solution. Given our needs and Mor’s approach, I’m searching for and cannot find constructive feedback to provide - he was friendly, prompt, to-the-point, and showed a genuine interest in our success. I could not ask for anything more within our limited mentor/mentee capacity. Thanks so much for recommending Mor to us."

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 3X VP of Sales for early-stage SaaS startups.
🎯 I've built sales playbooks and repeatable sales processes.
🎯I’ve built & scaled GTM sales teams from scratch, trippling ARR in 12 months for 2 of them.
🎯I’ve trained AEs to quickly ramp up and consistently close 60-80% of their sales demos.
🎯I’ve reduced average sales cycles from 75 days to 25 days in 3 months.
🎯I've demoed and closed major brands like 👉 Ikonick, Fanjoy, and more.


I help early-stage SaaS startups grow revenue by improving their GTM sales playbooks, people, and processes.

I do this by co-piloting their sales enablement, training, and coaching:

PROCESS:
✅ Improving sales hiring and onboarding process.
✅ Prospecting, Discovery, Demo, and Follow-Up Strategy
✅ Sales funnel, email, and CRM audits


PLAYBOOKS:
✅ Building a custom GTM sales playbook
✅ Writing cold email sequences 
✅ Building talk tracks in call recording software

PEOPLE:
✅ 1:1 and group coaching & advisory
✅ Custom sales workshops
✅ Deal and follow-up reviews


🟢 For SaaS startups ➡️  demotoclose.com
🟢 For AEs ➡️  fdtcuniversity.com

If you want to chat, shoot me a DM ✌️


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

If I started as an AE tomorrow, I wouldn't bother reading sales books to ramp up.

I'd focus on these 6 things to ramp up as fast as possible.

1. Study the buyer persona (to learn the pain)
2. Study the most common use cases (to learn the buyers' scenarios)
3. Spend 1-2 weeks answering support tickets (to learn the product)
4. Get on sales calls ASAP (to get comfortable)
5. Following up with lower quality leads (to practice)
6. Sitting on sales calls of top performers (to absorb)

Getting into the weeds > Getting into the reads



Ps. If you liked this post you'll like my newsletter. 
 
Every week I share tips from the front lines as a seller and coach on how to build, qualify, and close pipeline. 
 
Join 6,000+ subscribers here: https://lnkd.in/eWsyreAt

Mor Assouline

When I was a VP of Sales, the worst AE on my team closed-won 50% of their demos.

The best AE closed 75% of their demos.

And both were first-time AEs.

Here are 5 evergreen strategies we implemented that you can copy:

↓

1/ Prioritize discovery over product:
They went from 'I can't wait to show them the product' to 'I can wait to understand if we can help them solve their problems.'

We made the entire demo process orbit around discovery.

Before & after every featured, we did discovery.

I know how founders and sales leaders pressure their people to show the entire product, but it doesn't work.

Demo less (trust me)


2/ Prioritize pain over features:
Prospects don't buy features, they buy pain relievers. 

I trained AEs to always talk about the pain FIRST and then the feature that solves it.

E.g. "You mentioned that [PAIN]...so here's how..[SOLVE PAIN]...[*SHOW FEATURE*]"

As my friend 🏄‍♂️ Scott Leese says, "No pain, no sale. Know pain, make sales" (may have butchered the quote)


3/ Prioritize prospect over commission:
Commission breathe is a real thing and it turns buyers off because they don't trust that you're there to solve their problem. 

If a prospect came in with a pain that can be solved on the lowest plan, that's the plan we'd advise them to choose (not the one that yields the most commission).

This type of transparency leads to LTV, high NPS, low churn, referrals, and the ability to expand the account.

It's hard to do, but in the long run it's always a win-win.


4/ Serve the 'main course' first:
Bad demos start with 'appetizers.' These are features that don't solve the prospect's main pain points.

The prospect is waiting 20-30 minutes until they see what they came for (horrible experience).

We flipped the demo on its head and showed prospects the exact features that they'd care about.

As the demo starts, we'd say: "I'm going to show you how to solve your biggest problems in the shortest period of time."

They would have an excited and relieved sentiment (try it).


5/ Shared control:
Most demos have AEs taking control, but that leads to low engagement. So instead, we gave mouse control whenever we wanted to demonstrate how easy or intuitive a feature was.

e.g. "I want you to see first hand how intuitive it'll be to use, something you were complaining about with your last product, so I'm going to give you mouse control..."

(this is a cheat code my friends)

Your demo isn't for you, it's for your prospect. #helpmedontsellme

BTW, the only way to nail the demo is to nail discovery.

So here's a master list of 24 of the top discovery questions that 5,000+ salespeople are using:
https://lnkd.in/ewpjB4s6

On January 2, 2024, I received a cold LinkedIn connect request with a note.

This one was different...VERY different

I was the one being pitched to help a company.

A founder asked me if I take on product advisory roles.

Fast forward to April, I'm sitting in the Sequoia Capital office building in NYC with a group of sales experts and creators:

Mark Kosoglow
Vin Matano
Leslie Venetz
Daniel Disney
William Padilla
👩🏻‍🏫 Krysten Conner
Danilo Vuk Capric

We were all there because Mohamed Chahin is helping salespeople feel confident pressing 'send' when cold emailing through Twain.

And he wanted us to be part of it.

This is not your ordinary AI tool.

I'm married with 3 kids (4yr, 2yr, 1yr)...it takes a lot for me to travel outside of Miami.

This product, people, and trip did not disappoint.

Something special is happening, this is only the beginning.


P.S. try Twain out for free: https://lnkd.in/eiRujEVk

I've seen SMB & MM sales orgs try and run with an enterprise sales playbook.

It rarely works well.

The best sales methodology is the one that works for your specific:

1. Buyer persona
2. Industry
3. Product
4. Team/Culture

Good salespeople pitch the ROI and COI.

→ Elite salespeople don't pitch at all.

Pitching involves pushing.

The best salespeople don't push, they pull.

They ask questions that change perspectives.

And naturally, this causes prospects to pitch themselves to you.

I used this method to close:
a) A $15,000 MRR deal this year
b) A $10,000 MRR deal this year
c) A $3,500 MRR deal this month
d) A $2,000 MR deal this month

(and working a few more in the pipeline for this quarter).

Here are 3 questions I asked the CEOs and founders.

→ "It seems like you've been managing relatively well, why not just continue doing what you're doing?"

→ "You mentioned that your timeline is next month..curious, why so soon, why not wait a little longer?"

→ "You may not need a service like mine, why look into this externally instead of doing this in-house?"

They all ended up convincing me of why I was a fit for them.

Spend more time 'unselling' your product, not pitching it.


P.S.  6,000+ salespeople are crushing discovery with these top 24 questions: https://lnkd.in/eR69raD4

Being an Orthodox Jew comes with a lot interesting laws and customs that look wacky to someone from the outside.

Many of these laws are life changing, like keeping the Sabbath.

From Friday sundown to Saturday sundown were not allowed to work, use electronics, cook, drive… (and a lot more)

It’s the day of rest.

We cook a feast in advance (well… my wife does) and we spend the next 24 hours praying at synagogue, reflecting on our week, spending time with family and friends.

It literally is how we recharge every week.

Some other laws that are not as fun is not being able to eat whatever we want.

This video explains a bit of it:

Almost every founder, CRO, VP, sales rep I speak to is having this problem:

"We rely too much on inbound leads and have no outbound motion"

When I started my business 2.6yrs ago, I wasn't relying on anything, I had no inbound, no brand, nada.

But I was able to land 3 deals in 1 month (one of which was an $8,000 MRR deal) through these 7 outbound strategies that work (for real..):

1. Reverse Buyer Persona:

Before you send outbound emails, look at your closed won deals.

That data has all the info you need to understand who you should be cold emailing:

→ Pull up your closed won deal report for the last 3-6 months
→ Run a filter on it to see who the prospects (i.e. titles) were (hopefully you're tracking this)
→ Identify what stage of those 'titles' were involved in the sales cycle. The ones that were involved earlier could be the ones you'll have to reach out to first (my advice is to A/B test this in your outbound campaign).

This will be an indicator of who you'll need to prospect to.



2. Niche it to Industry:

Following the first step, the next action step is to filter your closed won report by industry. 

What industries are most of your closed won deals in? Document THAT



3. Audit Their Use Cases (lot of work):

You guessed it, within that same closed won report, identify the most common use cases for those prospects.

For example: For industry A the most common use case was prospects using ACME competitors and are looking to switch because of a sub-par integration that only your solution can do properly.



4. Scope Out the Problem Statements + Goals:

The problem with most outbound cadences is articulating the prospects' problem statements and goals (this will eventually be part of your messaging).

This step IMO is the longest and most tedious step.

The best way to understand your prospects' problem statements/goals is to write them down the way they describe them, verbatim (not how you paraphrase them).

→ Pull up the discovery call recordings for your closed won deals (the ones you've identified in steps 1-3) and research the words prospects used to describe their problems, impacts, goals, etc.



5. Find Your Doppelganger Customers:

Now that you have all the relevant data from your closed won deal report, the next step is to find 'lookalike companies' that are as relevant to your won customers.

For example, one of my clients sells to VPs of IT/marketing in the manufacturing space. One of their leading indicators for closed won deals is their customers were coming from a particular competitor that had an unreliable integration.


...awkward, LinkedIn doesn't allow me to share the other 2 steps because of character limits, so I will share it with you tomorrow morning @ 8am ET.



P.s if you've found these helpful so far, you'll like my newsletter. 

Every week I share tips from the front lines as a seller and coach on how to build, qualify, and close pipeline. 
 
Join 6,000+ subscribers here: https://lnkd.in/eWsyreAt

I became a VP of sales at the age of 26.

4 years prior, I had quit my sales job because I was scared.

A lot can change in just 4 years.

But for the first 2 years of my VP role, I almost burned my sales team down.

I made the classic mistakes you think are smart strategies at first:

1. Expected my team to be the exact salesperson I was
2. Expected my team to always know the answers
3. Thought it was motivating to call out my team in public.
4. Thought I was leading them when I was telling them what to do.
5. Cared more about the mistakes they made than the wins they had.

The best sales leaders work for their sales reps, not the other way around.

In the first 3 months of starting my sales consulting business, I closed a $50,000 deal in 15 days from a cold email by breaking a rule in sales:

→ I talked about my business in discovery.

Go through every discovery post on LinkedIn (including some of mine)

And you'll see people saying never talk about your product during discovery.

But doing a disco call with a prospect from cold outbound is not the same as inbound.

They didn't raise their hands (i.e. inbound).

They're coming in with the *prove it to me first* mindset.

And many times they have little context.

When I was on the first discovery call with the CEO, here's what I said:

Me: "I know I cold emailed you, and you probably get hundreds of these a day...so can I give you a bit of context about what I do/who I help?"

Them: "Of course"

Me: *Telling them about the problems I solve and how I work*

Me: ..."I'm curious, what about the [problems I solve] are you experiencing the most right now?"

The CEO opened up like a patient to a therapist.

And I don't believe this would have happened had I jumped in by asking questions.

I need to earn the right to ask my questions.

The lesson: meet your buyers where they are (and it's okay to break the rules).



P.S. 5,000+ salespeople are crushing their discovery with these top 24 questions: https://lnkd.in/eR69raD4

Many of you don’t know this but I quit sales.

I was 22, and got my first real job out of college doing sales.

Within the first hour of the job, I went to my boss and said "sales isn't for me."

I still remember the sales PTSD I carried for 3 years not taking jobs that reminded me of sales.

Luckily, I got my boot camp of sales as a real estate agent at Keller Williams door knocking and cold calling every day.

To help pay my bills, I got a part time job at Allstate Insurance cold calling in the afternoons.

12 months of doing cold calling and door knocking you'd think I made a lot of money.

I didn't.

I was over $10,000 in debt b/c I could barely pay my bills with the money I was making.

But I finally stopped being scared of sales after going through "sales bootcamp."

Eventually, I worked as an AE for a SaaS startup in the legal tech space (company called PracticePanther).

After 6 months, I became VP of sales at 26 and took the company from a few hundred clients to tens of thousands in 4 years, eventually getting acquired.

Worked again a couple of more time as a VP of sales taking a company from $1M ARR to $4.5M in 18 months.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I used to struggle with prospecting, discovery, demo, follow up, and close....all of it.

But I was coachable enough to learn and perfect my calls and the salespeople I hired and trained over the years.

And I didn't do it by myself.

I invested in books, courses, and mentors.

I paid money to gain time and experience (the other way around is more expensive in the long run)

If your company isn't willing to invest in you or give you stipend, you can either complain or suck it up and invest in yourself.

If you're not seeing your sales improve, you can either complain or figure out another angle and get help.

You're the CEO of yourself, own up to the job that most normal people run away from (like the younger Mor).


P.s Here’s a pic of me door-knocking (I almost got arrested that day..but that's a story for another time)

PPS. If you're still reading this, join 6,000+ salespeople crushing discovery with these 24 questions (free): https://lnkd.in/eR69raD4

I have a friend who went from almost being fired from his job as an AE because he didn't hit his numbers...

...to becoming the 2nd best AE in the company.

They company now treats him like a king because he demos and closes like one.

I took him under my wing at the time when I was a VP of Sales and taught him everything I knew.

Well...I'm going to share some of these sales techniques this Friday with the Sell Better team with James "Saywhatsales" Buckley.

You'll learn:
1. 2 early demo stages that are crucial to follow-up
2. The best channels and cadence for your follow-up
3. Examples of top follow-up CTAs you can steal 


Join and watch it (free) here: https://lnkd.in/eeDqTpNf

I hate to do this.

But I never like to be so in your face with telling you to go do something.

Tomorrow, I'm releasing a fiiiirrrreee email about one of the many ways I do outbound.

I also share the cold email that landed me an $8,000 MRR deal when I first started my sales coaching/consulting business with:

1. No pipeline
2. No money for marketing
3. No brand
4. A 2nd child in the house
5. No idea where how I'd pay my bills

Most companies and AEs I speak to these days tell me they rely too much on inbound.

But they don't know how to do outbound properly.

There's only so much I can pack into a newsletter without making it a full on course.

So tomorrow morning @ 7:30 AM EST, you're going to an appetizer that will move the needle for you.

And it's free.

P.S. did I mention 6,000+ salespeople are following my advice on this? https://lnkd.in/eWsyreAt

No, I don’t have the same 24 hours as Steve Jobs had or other successful entrepreneurs.

No, I can’t just grind it out for 18 hours a day

Why?

Because I’m not able and allowed to.

Being a parent + being religious has many…many perks (wouldn’t change it for the world)

But a rule of life is: there are always tradeoffs 

Here are mine.

This question should be mandatory for AEs that sell SMB if you want to get better at either 1-call closing or handling objections sooner:

It's called the "Gut check"

When your prospect tells you their timeline is "yesterday" or "asap"

One of the best questions you can ask is the type that gut-checks the prospect to see if they're serious or blowing hot air.

AE: "When are you looking to implement this...what's your timeline?"

Prospect: "ASAP...we need this yesterday"

AE: "okay..and who else will be evaluating this option (assuming it's a fit) with you?"

Prospect: "Just me"

AE: "So if at the end of the demo you see that this aligns with your expectations and solves X, would you be ready to sign up?"


They will either say yes (good news), and can turn into a 1-call close.

or 

Bring up a reason why they can't (hidden objections revealed)



P.S. Join thousands of AEs going from feature dumping to value-based selling with this free guide: https://lnkd.in/egiQiCNm

My #1 piece of advice for founders hiring their VP of sales at their startup:

→ Get out of their way

The right way to hire (and it took me a long time to figure this out) is to hire someone better than you.

Too many founders want to own every part of their GTM motion (understandable).

Don't be negligent, just learn to trust someone who's done it before.

Some of the worst demos I've seen were done by the most popular companies.

They all had the following in common:

→ They prioritized slides over product
→ They were concerned more about checking off their discovery scorecard than learning about the prospect's problem.
→ They did a great job of running a product tour, not a demo
→ The demo was feature focused, not problem focused 

This is usually a symptom of primitive onboarding & lack of continuous education.

❌ Primitive Onboarding:
→ Learn the product
→ Learn the pricing
→ Learn the sales deck
→ Watch demo recordings
→ Take an onboarding test
→ You're on your own


✅ Modern Onboarding:
→ Learn the buyer persona
→ Learn the industry
→ Learn the problems
→ Learn the solutions
→ Then learn our product
→ Watch others do it
→ Do it yourself
→ 1:1s coaching to course correct


Learn how thousands of AEs are transforming their demos from feature selling to value-based selling using this free guide: https://lnkd.in/egiQiCNm

The #1 reason discovery sounds interrogative is:

→  sales reps are more focused on checking off questions they need to ask than the prospect.

I’ve built a LOT of relationships on LinkedIn.

But nothing compares to meeting online connections IRL.

It’s pretty cool to meet one the members of FDTC University in person.

Joseph Feterman has been in FDTCU since the beginning (that’s almost 3 years!!!)

One of the top AEs I know in the game.

I’m adjusting my OKRs for 2024 to include more in person meetings, it’s a game changer.

Salespeople don't quantify pain.

Buyers do.

Over the last few months I've been speaking with AEs, VPs, and CROs, and the area of sales they're focused on improving right now is how to quantify pain during discovery.

I have a problem with people saying they want to learn how to quantify pain.

It's not the salesperson's job to do it.

It's the prospect's job to quantify pain.

Your job in discovery is to ask questions and make observations that will allow the prospect to talk about their goals, problems, etc.

THEY quantify pain, not you.

And this is why many buyers feel like they're being sold to in discovery.

Here are a few "quantify pain" questions I've asked during discovery that helped me land a $15,000 / month deal:

During Discovery
→ “What’s recently changed that you’re looking into solving this problem now?”

→ “It seems like you’ve been managing this relatively well up until now, why not just continue?”

→ “What other projects/initiatives do you have on your plate aside from this that’s also a priority?”

→ “What feedback have you gotten from the rest of the sales team regarding this issue?”


During Demo
→ “On a scale of 1-10, 10 being this is exactly what I’m looking for, what would you rate how I’ll go about solving X for you?”

→ "Do you think the way we do this is worth changing your current workflow?"
​
Practice asking these questions by roleplaying so you don't sound like you're interrogating your prospects.


P.S. 5,000+ salespeople have been crushing their discovery with these top 24 questions: https://lnkd.in/eR69raD4

I've got a really talented/experienced head of sales/VP of sales with a ton of vertical SaaS experience building.

He's built SMB/MM velocity-driven sales motions.

Peole first leader.

In other words, the type of leader you want for your company.

If any companies are hiring, comment or DM me and I can make the intro.

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