Mark Hoffman

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝗗𝗥 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹. In most B2B orgs today, the real challenge isn’t effort or headcount, it's focus.  • SDRs spend hours chasing leads that aren't in-market  • Personalization often defaults to "Hi {First Name}"  • Sales cycles are longer than ever, while buyer engagement is happening behind closed tabs 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁? Wasted touches, burned budget, and pipelines that look full… until the quarter closes. 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘁: 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝗗𝗥 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀, 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁? This is where intent data becomes a revenue lever, not just another tool. According to Demand Gen Report:  • Companies using intent data see 2.5x conversion rates  • Sales cycles shrink by 28%  • 68% of marketers say it’s critical for ABM performance At S2W Media, we help marketing leaders solve this with a full-funnel, intent-driven strategy:  • 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 + 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁-𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗳𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻, pinpoint buyers already researching your solution or evaluating your competitors  • 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴, SDRs focus on verified, high-intent accounts  • 𝗛𝘆𝗽𝗲𝗿-𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, informed by real behavioral signals, not assumptions The outcome? Predictable pipeline. Faster velocity. Higher ROI. No more guessing games. No more wasted touches. As marketers, we don’t need "more leads."We need better intelligence to drive a meaningful pipeline. If you're ready to align sales & marketing on who to target, when to engage, and what to say, let’s connect. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 - https://lnkd.in/dq3Qbvzt

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SDRs are the backbone of every sales engine—but outdated scripts, vague processes, and one-size-fits-all outreach leave even the best SDRs frustrated and prospects cold. If your SDRs aren't hitting quota, this blog explores what makes a winning SDR strategy—from precision targeting to hands-on enablement—and demonstrates how a modern, growing playbook can open motivation, pipeline growth, and increased revenue. Check out: https://lnkd.in/gJgJG6QP #SDR #SalesDevelopment #SalesLeadership #PipelineGrowth #B2BSales #SalesPlaybook #BeyondCodes #SalesStrategy #ModernSelling

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Your SDRs move slow. Your market doesn’t. In 2025, sales teams win with agility. Markets shift. GTM strategies evolve. New products launch overnight. And if your SDR team can’t keep up, your pipeline’s at risk. Bad news: Most internal teams aren’t built to move that fast. Good news: Outsourced SDRs are. Here’s why they’re built for the modern sales org: 🔄 Pivot to new ICPs without missing a beat 🚀 Launch-ready teams, no hand-holding required 📊 Real-time reporting to optimize on the fly 🎯 Performance-based models (not just warm bodies in seats) The future of SDRs isn’t in-house—it’s on-demand. Want to pick the right agency to keep your pipeline fast, flexible, and future-proof? We’ve got the guide for you 👇

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Most BDR teams don’t have a pipeline problem. They have an activity addiction. More emails. More calls. More sequences. None of it matters if it doesn’t convert. What actually drives pipeline: • Targeting the right accounts • Reaching the right people • Saying something that actually matters I’d take 20 high-quality touches over 200 generic ones every time. Because pipeline isn’t created by volume. It’s created by relevance. Most teams just haven’t made that shift yet.

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Your SDR team can't scale outbound because personalization breaks at volume. Writing custom emails for 200 prospects weekly is humanly impossible. So reps make a choice: send generic blasts that get 2% response rates, or cherry-pick 30 high-value accounts and leave pipeline on the table. Both options lose. The first trains prospects to ignore you. The second caps your growth at however many personalized touches one human can produce daily. The constraint isn't effort. It's that real personalization requires research, context synthesis, and message adaptation for every single prospect. Most teams can't operationalize that at scale, so they default to templates with merge tags and call it "personalized." Prospects see through it immediately. Enter This Week's Featured Agent: AiSDR AiSDR removes the personalization constraint entirely. It handles prospect research, contextual message writing, response management, and meeting coordination as a complete workflow. The agent researches each prospect across 323+ data sources, including recent LinkedIn activity, company news, job postings, tech stack changes, and funding rounds. It then writes messages that reference specific business context rather than generic pain points. When prospects reply, AiSDR responds within 10 minutes. If someone says "we're focused on other priorities right now," it doesn't mark them closed-lost. It schedules a follow-up for when their roadmap likely shifts. When they ask technical questions, it provides specific answers and moves the conversation toward a demo. When they raise objections, it handles them using your company's playbooks. The agent operates from your actual inbox through Gmail or Outlook integration, learns your messaging patterns through its persona builder, and maintains consistent positioning across every interaction. Your reps stop spending hours on email composition and sequence management. They focus on the conversations AiSDR has already warmed up. This fundamentally changes your outbound economics. The bottleneck shifts from "how many personalized emails can we write" to "how many qualified conversations can we handle." Your pipeline becomes a function of market size and offer strength, not human capacity to research and write. That's the unlock. Most SDR teams are productivity-constrained when they should be market-constrained.

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The SDR money pit is real. And your spreadsheets probably aren’t telling the full story. Hiring in-house SDRs feels like the "safe" bet — until hidden costs, missed ramp targets, and inconsistent pipeline start quietly draining your budget. We built a tool to help revenue leaders uncover the true cost of in-house vs. outsourced sales development — including factors most models overlook: -Ramp time -Management overhead -Lead conversion efficiency -Hidden tech & training costs -Pipeline impact Don’t guess. Calculate it. https://bit.ly/468xLHD #SalesDevelopment #PipelineGrowth #SDRstrategy #CRO #RevOps #OutsourcedSales #memoryBlue #B2Bsales #SalesROI #GoToMarket #RevenueGrowth

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Top performers in sales aren't just naturally gifted - they're methodical masters of their craft. • They manage 164% more pipeline • Excel at discovery, with 55% better performance • Experience 217% fewer late-stage slips • Win rates are 43% higher than average Why? Because they've turned key processes into disciplines: - Discovery isn't a phase, it's an ongoing practice - Qualification is a science, not a gut feeling - Stakeholder mapping is their secret weapon - Objection handling is rehearsed, not improvised Want to elevate your team's performance? DM me so you can share some details, and then I’ll share a specific plan to engineer success, not just hope for it. #SalesExcellence #PerformanceOptimization #RevenueGrowth

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You don’t have a pipeline problem. You have signal-to-noise distortion. Outbound volume is rising. Sequences are firing. Ads are running. SDR dashboards look active. But reply to quality declines and sales cycles stretch. The root cause is noise saturation. When outreach targets broad persona assumptions instead of verified intent clusters, engagement metrics inflate while buyer seriousness declines. More conversations begin. Fewer deals mature. Activity without signal filtering creates pipeline pollution — opportunities that consume bandwidth but lack progression probability. The strategic correction is signal-first orchestration: intent data, behavioral triggers, and strict entry thresholds before human engagement. When noise is filtered before outreach begins, reply rates stabilize and velocity normalizes. Precision doesn’t increase volume. It increases signal density inside every conversation. #B2BSaaS #SalesStrategy #RevOps #PipelineOptimization #DemandGeneration #RevenueLeadership #OutboundStrategy #SaaSGrowth

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SDR teams book 2.7× more meetings when they stop treating outbound like manual labor. And… They build their system with Salesfinity. This is what it looks like: #1 Fix the data problem first. Waterfall enrichment pulls contacts from 6+ providers, so reps actually have the right mobile numbers. #2 Create more live conversations. The AI dialer runs parallel calls and only connects reps when a human answers. #3 Automate the follow-up. Nurture AI categorizes calls, schedules the next touch, and suggests the message. With this, your list doesn’t shrink; it gets warmer. Here is the truth: outbound shouldn’t feel like a grind. It should feel like compound growth. Curious what that looks like in practice? Watch the full video.

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Want SDRs ramping faster in 2025? Cut the generic onboarding BS. Start with real objection drills from day one. You don’t build closers with slides. You build them through practice.

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A CMO’s weekly/monthly insights cadence part 2. Next up: Pipeline Progression Call: Weekly. This is a Sales X Marketing X Ops call. Each pipeline generating team: marketing, partner, outbound SDR, outbound BDR, fills out a memo style overview of pipeline week on week progress as well as highlighting any challenges. Initially it felt like a weekly call to track pipeline may not yield much because it would be a little too frequent to uncover impact from initiatives the week prior, but actually this intense discipline and focus on weekly pipeline generation by team has been a big unlock. Cross functional issues get surfaced much earlier and get unblocked much faster. Ownership and accountability has improved tenfold. It got everyone focused on discussing the same data vs relying on different views on separate dashboards that made threading the needle of the problem more difficult to diagnose. Importantly this is not a call for marketing to defend their pipeline position and lay blame on coverage gaps with other teams. I see this call as the time to work out how Sales, Marketing & Operations can pick the next best set of actions that will improve our chances of hitting that weeks budget pipeline target & close any gaps that may have built up. Pipeline Monthly Review: Monthly. The set-up for this call is similar to the weekly cadence, but the focus is on looking and uncovering monthly trends that require correction in order to remain on track for that quarters budget number. Are we generating in month pipeline at the same rate as we previously were? Is there a pipeline generation team that has built up a gap? If so what’s the gap, what are the 1-2 biggest causes of that gap and importantly what is our plan for correcting it? For issues identified in the previous monthly pipeline review are we seeing corrective trends in the data as a result of the actions we prioritised in month? Budget Committee: Monthly. This is a marketing leadership call where we build our monthly budget deployment plan. We'll reconcile the previous months spend and performance and use this alongside trending historical data and required deeper investigations to provide the detailed rationale for how we allocate spend for the month ahead. I like these calls to be lively debated. I want my leaders to bring forward strong business cases for how the $ are best allocated in order to hit our goals and how the data shows this is the best approach. It should take us a few iterations before we land on a plan that everyone is aligned on and happy to proceed with. If there is no discussion or debate then I question if my leaders are challenging the data and the approach enough. LinkedIn limits mean I can't fit a review of our final meeting cadence, which is: Quarterly full business review. This call is a deep dive into all of our create and capture demand activities by region and segment. More on that another time. #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing 

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If I ran an industrial sales team, here’s what I’d do Day 1: 1. Transparent comp - Public, clearly stated base & OTE. - No guessing. No surprises. - But make sure you’re at market rate. 2. Match comp to sales cycle - Long deals need long-term incentives. - Stop forcing short-term behavior. 3. Define success early - A 6–18 month roadmap. - Real milestones, not vague pressure. 4. Kill annual surprises - Quarterly check-ins. Real-time adjustments. - Good reps don’t wait a year. 5. Audit loyalty yearly - If comp is below market, fix it early. - Before someone else does. What would you do first as a leader of an industrial sales team? To be clear: I’ve never led an industrial sales team... I just talk to territory sales reps every day who tell me why they’re leaving. If this resonates and you’re hiring → feel free to DM me.

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High SDR turnover isn't just a staffing issue... ...It's a revenue killer. When SDRs leave, you lose more than just a team member. You lose pipeline momentum, incur recruitment costs, and risk demoralizing your remaining team. In the fast-paced world of B2B sales, SDRs are your frontline warriors, they generate leads, nurture relationships, and fuel your pipeline. Yet, many organizations struggle with a revolving door in this critical role. The cost isn’t just hiring and onboarding; it’s lost revenue, disrupted team dynamics, and wasted training investments. Why does this happen? Common reasons include: ✔ Lack of clear career progression – SDRs need visibility into their future. ✔ Insufficient compensation – If pay doesn’t match effort, they’ll look elsewhere. ✔ Burnout from unrealistic expectations – Overloading SDRs leads to quick exits. ✔ Poor onboarding experiences – Weak training sets them up for failure. ✔ Lack of recognition and support – Feeling undervalued drives disengagement. The good news? Turnover is preventable. Companies that invest in retention see higher productivity, better morale, and stronger revenue growth. Key Strategies to Retain Top SDR Talent: Establish Clear Career Paths – Show SDRs how they can grow into AEs or leaders. Offer Competitive Compensation – Benchmark against industry standards. Foster a Positive Work Environment – Culture matters as much as pay. Invest in Continuous Training – Upskill them beyond cold outreach. Implement Effective Onboarding – Set them up for success from day one. Recognize and Address Burnout – Monitor workload and encourage balance. Retention isn’t just about reducing costs, it’s about building a high-performing, loyal team that drives consistent revenue. Want to dive deeper into each strategy? We break down exact tactics, real-world examples, and measurable results in our full article. Link in comments!

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If a sales rep can’t create their own pipeline, they’re not cut out for healthtech sales. Healthcare is a relationship-driven industry. If you need a BDR to fill your calendar, you won’t survive here. Healthtech sales is 6–18 months of relationship building, education, and multi-threading. You’re not just talking to your ICP, you’re navigating: • IT for security and compliance • Finance for budget approval • Clinical leaders for validation • Ops for workflow alignment This is full-stack selling. I’m all for BDRs supplementing outbound, but sellers in healthcare can’t depend on them for their entire pipeline.

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SDRs get comped on a variety of things: quantity of meetings, SALs, SQLs, pipeline generated, but what if we got a little smarter with how we designed the levers they can pull to hit quota? Those SDRs will (hopefully) perform and get promoted internally. And then what? They're chasing those same levers, capitalizing on those same learned behaviors. But if we instead added credit or comp for: - Meetings booked using Show Me You Know Me - Meetings booked with a higher caliber title vs. the standard - Meeting booked with a key mole that can help champion the deal - Multi-threading and piling on to the contacts we have with one deal - Meetings booked via strategic social selling (read: not blank connection requests) - Uncovering a piece of content that reinvigorates a ghosted or stalled deal - Tracking job changes and capitalizing on a buyer's new role Rather than just emphasizing the focus on volume, what if we also accelerated and incentivized based on all the behaviors we'll want to see and that they'll need when they're really in the quota-carrying fire? #samsales

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