At ElevenLabs, closing an inbound deal isn't the end of the sales motion; it's the beginning. Once the initial MSA is signed, the sales team immediately launches an outbound effort, using the internal credibility of the first deal to target every other relevant team within that new customer's organization.

Don't "stuff the channel" by forcing your existing sales team to sell an acquired product with a different model. At Cisco, a usage-based product was kept separate from the enterprise sales team, who were incentivized by large deals and wouldn't have prioritized it.

Expecting salespeople to build their own target lists creates a major barrier to action. To get reps to prospect consistently, leaders must take responsibility for organizing the lists, defining the targets, and pointing the team in the right direction so they can focus purely on outreach.

An inbound lead has interest; an outbound lead was interrupted. AEs often treat them the same, opening with "What got you interested?" This is a terrible question for an outbound prospect that immediately derails the conversation and signals a poor handoff process.

Salespeople follow the money. If your compensation plan makes it easier or more lucrative to manage existing accounts than to land new ones, you are financially incentivizing them to stop prospecting. The reward for the difficult work of hunting must be significantly higher.

As companies scale, they shift from inbound to outbound sales. Reps accustomed to a steady flow of leads often lack the desire or skill to build their own pipeline. The CRO guest estimates fewer than half can successfully make this critical career transition, leading to high turnover.

It is exceptionally rare to find salespeople who excel at both acquiring new logos (hunting) and managing existing accounts (farming). The most effective, albeit costly, solution is to stop forcing reps to do both and instead create dedicated roles for each function.

Small companies often overload their first salesperson with both new logo acquisition and existing account management. This is a trap. Prospecting will always lose out to servicing known customers. Plan for account continuity early to protect your growth engine, even before you can afford a second hire.

Never give expensive, company-generated inbound leads to the same team doing cold outbound. Outbound should be the training ground. Only the top outbound performers graduate to the inbound team, ensuring your best closers are on your most valuable leads.