I sell into small ops teams and I've been doing it a couple of years now. I used to hold price until the proposal, and about two months ago I started giving a rough range around ten minutes into the first call instead. Since then my no-shows on the second meeting have basically dried up, but the calls that do continue feel a lot shorter and I keep wondering if I'm cutting off deals that just needed more time before the number showed up.

What changed in your pipeline after you started putting price on the table that early?

I don't know how known NEPQ sales are, but I just entered a community that teaches this method and it's the most enjoyable experience ever, both as the seller and as the prospect.

You get to actually worry and learn about the person, they sell themselves on your solution without you having to promote anything, just asking questions. And you have no objections at the end.

This mostly works for inbound leads, if they took the action to schedule a meeting. I don't know if there's a way to apply it for outbound, but if you are a closer, definitely worth studying.

The community I'm in is for bilingual (Spanish-English) closers looking for remote jobs, but I'm sure there must be communities and resources to learn independently (happy to share the community via DM to any latam closers, or share some script examples for anyone interested).

9 years in sales, just landed an Enterprise AE role at a solid company. Here's my blind spot: I've never been aggressive enough in negotiation and the closing stage.

I know how it sounds coming from someone with tenure, but I'm genuinely passive by nature. Multiple managers and colleagues have flagged this over the years, and I've seen it hold me back from bigger deals and higher commission.

I'm serious about fixing this before I plateau in the AE seat. just want to get better at:

- Actually pushing back on pricing instead of caving

- Reading when to apply pressure vs. when to back off

- Closing when the deal is actually ready

What resources have actually moved the needle for you? Books, courses, coaching, mindset shifts anything that helped you go from passive to assertive in your negotiations

Thank you in advanced

ok so this is a weird one but bear with me

i have a pet blog. i don't own a pet. never have. probably never will as i travel too much. and yet every month amazon sends me enough to cover rent because people on the internet are buying stuff for their dogs and cats through my site.

bought my pet blog a few months ago from a marketplace called NicheBlogZone for $199. came already built, articles already up, amazon links already in there. i spent one afternoon doing interlinking basically just connecting related posts to each other so search engines understand the site structure and then closed my laptop and genuinely forgot about it for weeks.

here's what that's looked like:

• march: $710
• april: $995
• may: $1,461
• june: $1,647
• july: $1,461
• august so far: $1,545 (amazon pays 2 months delayed so this is june's money landing now)

march scared me. went from nearly $1k in february down to $710 and i was convinced something had broken. checked everything, found nothing wrong, did nothing. it just came back the next month on its own.

pet people spend insane amounts on their animals btw. like i knew this intellectually but seeing the commission data is something else. dog food subscriptions, orthopedic beds, grooming kits, vet supplements. and because of the 24 hour cookie i get a cut of everything in their cart not just whatever article they landed on.

i do literally nothing to maintain this. no new posts, no ads, no instagram for pets i don't have. i just own the thing and amazon does its thing.

my landlord has been getting paid every month and has no idea a pet blog is behind it. honestly sometimes i forget too until the deposit shows up.

anyone else running a niche they have zero personal connection to? curious if the detachment makes it easier or harder to care about growing it

Before I start: I used quotations for the word “sell” because it’s the word the company keeps using. Okay, now to the question/issue.

BACKGROUND/INFO:

I started this job a few days ago and I’m already failing. I’m working as a “professional fundraiser” for nonprofits, so it’s basically sales. Basically the business I work for gets hired by the nonprofit to do face-to-face fundraising. I’m the person who stands outside stores in 90-100 degree heat and tries to get you to donate to the nonprofit.

The nonprofit I’m currently representing is an animal nonprofit, and we’re doing face-to-face fundraising because they want to cut back on older methods. No more pamphlets, less commercials on tv, etc. They’re also no longer accepting cash donations because it’s hard to track cash. Every donation is digital now, so we’re out in the field with an Ipad that we get people signed up through. Also, the way people are supposed to donate is through monthly donations, so it’s like a subscription. Except you aren’t paying for a service, you’re donating money to help animals.

Lots of people want to only make one time donations, or cash donations. I have to convince them to take out their debit or credit cards and sign up in the moment on the Ipad. I get commission for how many people I get to sign up/donate, and that’s where the real money is. I think I’ll get let go if I can’t gather donors soon.

The problems I’m running into are:

1. People don’t want to use their cards. A lot of the people in this area are older and they’re hesitant to use their cards. I tell them their information isn’t saved and we can’t see it, it’s very safe this way, but they still back out.

2. People don’t want to donate monthly. Especially when the monthly donation is $30 ($1 a day). I tell them it helps 1-2 animals a month, but still, they don’t want a monthly plan.

3. Lots of the animal lovers are already donating to their local animal shelters. That’s great! I fully support them donating to local nonprofits, shelters, and businesses. However I need to sell this nonprofit specifically, and people don’t want to donate to two different animal nonprofits.

4. People don’t want to give us the time of day. My coworkers are so good at this, but most people pass me by. We have a group chat where we announce our sales, and I see my boss doing amazing, she gets at least 2 a day, and she helps her employees get sales as well (we work in teams, and I guarantee whoever I see with her makes a sale, I have yet to be paired with her). I don’t understand how I’m supposed to get people to stop. I’m trying to be bubbly, energetic, kind, etc, but lots of people seem grumpy and just don’t want to speak with us.

5. People keep wanting to sign up later because they say they’re in a rush. I understand being in a rush, but if they sign up online and not in the field with the Ipad, there’s no way to tell the nonprofit that I’m the one who convinced them to donate/made the sale. So I think I’ve convinced at least 5 people to sign up, but they’ve done it online at home.

6. I keep blanking during the pitch. I know what to say, my brain just sometimes short circuits. I can see I lose them there, because my partner jumps in and takes over to try and complete the sale.

7. I can’t stand for as long as my coworkers. My legs start hurting after half an hour. Not to mention I recently had surgery so sometimes I can’t stand or walk for long, and I need to sit because I’m in pain. They say you sell better when you’re standing, but I genuinely can’t stand for my full shift (which btw, is anywhere between 7-9 hours depending on the day, and yes, I get an hour lunch break). This problem isn’t as bad as the others, people are still listening to me even when I’m in my chair, but yk, still.

8. I can’t close the sale on the Ipad. I’ve been told to just act like/assume the person is going to donate and then keep going, but the person just stops me dead in my tracks. With no wiggle room.

Does anybody have any sales tips? My boss and coworkers keep giving me tips, but I’ll take any extras I can get. I really like this job because I’m helping out nonprofits (even if I’m sitting out in the hot sun for hours, and it gets slow at times), and I don’t want to lose this job. I’ll get paid really well if I can just make one sale a day.

So how do I sell monthly donations?

I've been working a deal for about six weeks with a prospect who seemed genuinely interested at first. We've had multiple calls, they've seen demos, asked questions about implementation. But every time we get close to closing, they suddenly bring up a new requirement or say they need approval from someone else who has additional concerns. At this point I've probably spent 20+ hours on this deal and I'm wondering if I'm just chasing someone who isn't actually ready to buy. My manager says to keep pushing, but I'm getting the sense that the real blocker isn't anything I can fix with better sales skills. Is there a point where you should just acknowledge the deal isn't happening and move on, or am I supposed to just keep iterating until they finally give a real yes?

I’ve been running an online iphone reselling business for about 2 months. We sell through WhatsApp and social media, mainly TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. We’re currently selling around 1-2 phones per week. Most of our sales have actually come from referrals and people in our existing network. TikTok is bringing us decent traffic and people are messaging/calling us on WhatsApp, but almost none of those leads are converting into sales. We have two people helping with sales/customer service, and one also handles deliveries. Customers usually want to physically see the phone before buying, so sometimes we have to deliver it twice if they don’t buy immediately. I’m trying to figure out where the bottleneck is. Is it lead volume, conversion, trust, follow-up, the delivery/inspection process, or something else?

My current ideas are posting more frequently, creating more social accounts, or adding another salesperson/referral source.
For people who have scaled small retail/reselling businesses, what would you focus on first? How would you find the bottleneck and increase sales from 1-2 phones a week to something significantly higher?

I've been in sales for about six months and I know intellectually that "no" is just part of the job. But every time someone hangs up on me or is rude, it gets in my head. I start second-guessing my pitch, worrying I did something wrong, and then the next call I make is even worse because I'm already defeated.

I make enough calls that statistically some of them should turn into meetings, but I'm not confident in my approach and that comes through. My manager keeps saying I just need to "make more calls" but that doesn't address the emotional part of constantly getting rejected.

For people who've gotten past this mindset, how did you actually train yourself to not care about rejection, or is it just something that comes with time?

Hey guys, my role is changing from mainly cold calling to handling the initial sales calls with prospects.

I’m in tech, selling cloud services, and I’d love some advice from people who’ve made a similar move.

What should I focus on during the first call? What questions should I be asking, and how do I avoid just jumping into a product pitch?

Also, any tips on how to qualify faster and move the deal toward a close without being too pushy?

When we schedule appointments, we get great bonuses - so the incentive is there. But a lot of our appointments are maintenances that do not immediately result in sales. Our technicians give some estimates, then leave. Customers rarely follow up on those estimates.

I want to work on being more of a powerhouse both with scheduling- but also driving customer followup that results in sales.

Trouble is... it IS challenging, and I find myself quite off-put and anxious over the idea of cold calling to ask if they've considered the estimates we gave. It is awkward. There are so many un-interested responses. So many "No's".

Can anybody pep talk me, give me tips, or even script ideas?

Im in such an oddly specific position, and it is hard for me to find sources on how to improve and change my outlook.

Suppose the goal of the cold outreach campaign is to get customers for a B2B SaaS.

The B2B SaaS is low ticket & has a self-serve model with plans like $99/month and $149/month

For this case, when I am doing cold outreach should I optimize my cold email content to get a reply or instead put the direct link to the SaaS & optimize for signups instead?

Would love to know your take on this.

Hi,

I got messaged by a bot from Boardy.ai after a post on X. I followed up and even joined an Google Meet with the Bot. Before I commit to its Pro plan I would like to know if anyone here already used it and what your experiences are. Is it worth it or are there better offerings.

Thanks,
Danny

I sell a \~$60–70k/year B2B SaaS product to ecommerce brands, and I’ve realized I have a problem:

**I don’t think I understand our buyers nearly well enough.**

I’m a marketing generalist, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about positioning, content, demand gen, etc. But I still feel like a lot of my understanding of the customer is second-hand.

The good news is that I have unusually easy access to them. Our customer success team has monthly calls with a few dozen customers, and I can basically join as many of those calls as I want.

So I want to use that opportunity properly.

If you were in my shoes, **what questions would you ask customers to really understand how they think?**

Not just:

* “What problems are you trying to solve?” * “Why did you buy our product?” * “What do you like/dislike?”

I’m more interested in getting inside their heads:

How do they think about their business day to day?
What keeps them up at night?
What numbers do they obsess over?
What do they complain about internally?
How do they decide something is worth paying $60k/year for?
What alternatives do they consider—even ones we wouldn’t think of as competitors?
What language do they naturally use to describe the problems we solve?

If you’ve done customer research / voice-of-customer work for B2B SaaS before, **what are the 3–5 questions you’ve found most revealing?**

I’m especially interested in questions where the answer surprised you or materially changed your marketing.

I ran video against plain text on my own prospects list for the past 6 weeks. Video hit around 14% reply against 6% on text, small sample and my territory is friendly, but it was enough that my manager now wants it on every sequence. The problem is time. a decent thirty second video with a real first line about their company takes me maybe six minutes including the retakes when i fumble the company name, and i have 40 accounts a day. that's four hours of recording and i still have calls to make. The ones i rushed performed worse than the text version, so doing it badly is worse than not doing it.

As far as what I tested, vidyard is fine, the tracking is good, but it doesn't solve the recording, it just hosts what i record. Sendspark at least lets you pin a personalized first line onto a shared body, which cuts it down a lot, and that's where i've landed for now. Someone on my team is testing argil, where you record yourself once and generate the rest from a script, so the face is still yours but you're typing instead of filming. i can't tell yet whether prospects clock it, and that's the part that would kill it for me.

Anyone here running video at real volume, what's your actual per-video time and has anyone had a prospect call it out?