Amplemarket Blog

If you want to understand startup growth, you need to learn the ABCs. Last month we shared the fundamental vocabulary needed to kickstart your startup growth journey without getting lost in logistics and jargon. But that was only the beginning my young padawan. In this blog, you'll find The Growth ABC Level 2. The vocabulary you need to level up your sales & marketing game in the B2B industry. And if you are already an experienced player in this field, you'll find this the perfect tool to send to your team to make sure you're all speaking the same language. Without further ado... <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RV0BQmXnT-g?controls=0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> **ABC - Always Be Closing** Always Be Closing (ABC) is a strategy popularized in the film “Glengarry Glen Ross,” where a demanding corporate representative pressures a group of real estate agents, telling them to sell more property; otherwise, they’d be fired. But ABC is not only executed as in this extreme movie scenario. Many sales teams adopted this strategy and adapted it to their own requirements with the bottom line of always being on the lookout for new prospects, pitching products/services, and ultimately closing deals. **B - B2B & B2C** B2B refers to Business selling to Business, and B2C, Business to Customers. **C - Closing Ratio** If you sent out 20 proposals this month, and 5 of those ended up buying your product or service, your closing ratio is 25%. It’s the number that indicates how many deals were closed from the total sent in a given period. **D - Discovery call, Deal-flow** A discovery call is pretty much what its name indicates: a call to meet your prospect, learn and discover more about their needs, pain points, expectations, and overall situation. When does this happen? Right after, your prospect indicated that’s interested in learning more about what you need to say, and usually, this happens after a cold email or a cold call. It’s the first step in the sales qualification process. Your deal flow is the movement of potential customers across your sales funnel, from prospect to customer. You can visualize, manage and customize your deal flow from your sales platform and/or CRM. **E - Escalations** *Customer Success Managers rolling their eyes* Escalation is the term that refers to the requirement of moving a case with a customer to a higher-authority agent or manager. When does this happen? When the person dealing with the customer’s situation cannot solve the client’s need. **F - Flywheel** The flywheel is the infographic representing a circular sales process and a popular growth strategy. This mindset places the customer at the center and enforces that the sales process must continue even after closing the deal. **G - Go-to-Market Strategy** Is the plan or road map designed to strategize marketing and sales efforts to put on the map a new (or rebranded) product or service. This usually includes optimized outbound efforts, creative inbound strategies, marketing optimizations, and retention strategies. **H - Hyper-personalization** Hyper-personalization is the process of using AI and data to produce highly curated content relevant to the end consumer. Hyper-personalization allows teams to automate time-consuming tasks without compromising the quality of the communication process. **I - Ideal Customer Profile** The Ideal Customer Profile, also known as ICP, is the thorough description of your optimal customer with the objective of learning and identifying your potential customer’s patterns and behaviors and thus curating a tailored approach to their needs. **J - January Effect** The January Effect is a popular theory that refers to the perceived seasonal tendency for some actions taken during this month. For example, the January Effect is theorized to influence the stock market price. **K - Key Accounts** Key accounts are the group of clients that generate significantly more profits for a company. Key Accounts are precious to the company, and they are usually assigned a team or an account manager to ensure that the customer is always well taken care of. **L - Lead scoring, Land and expand** A lead scoring system is a way to pre-qualify leads through a general ranking system that identifies whether a lead is worth investing efforts in at that given time or not. This ranking system considers different aspects that indicate the lead’s warmth, and it’s a way for salespeople to prioritize their pipelines. Land and Expand is the term used to explain that a sales rep must first bring a customer (to Land) and then continue generating more revenue (to expand). **M - Mid-market** Mid-Market is the term that refers to companies within a market that are between small companies and large multinational enterprises. **N - NPS** NPS means Net Promoter Score, and it’s a customer satisfaction metric. It measures on a scale from 0-10 how satisfied your customers are and to which level they would promote your Business to others. This is a great metric to understand your customers and provide a relevant service that increases their loyalty to your product/service. **O - Objections** Objections are doubts, opposite opinions, or statements against what the salesperson is presenting to a prospect. Sales team work on understanding patterns in prospect’s objections to be able to assess their concerns and overcome these hurdles. **P - Prospect, Paint Point, Profit margin** A prospect is a sales term to identify a person or a business with the qualities to be a potential customer. Pain points are the areas that the prospect would like to improve or currently represent a problem to them. The profit margin is the profitability ratio that measures a business’s potential ability or efficiency to yield financial gain (i.e., profits) after all relevant expenses and costs have been deducted. **Q - Qualified Lead** A qualified lead is a term given to a prospect with the characteristics of a person/business ready to buy your product/service. Before naming a potential customer a qualified lead, this one was called a prospect, and it was only after the sales or marketing team assessed how inclined is this prospect to buy that it was moved to a qualified lead. **R - Revenue** The amount of money a business generates during a period of time. The revenue equals the sales of the company. **S - Sales pipeline coverage** Sales pipeline coverage is the metric that identifies how full the sales pipeline is compared to the quota you want to achieve at the end of a given period of time. Managers and sales reps can have better visibility of their growth and design strategies to improve this ratio. **T - Total Available Market** Refers to the total revenue potential for a specific product or service, including its future market imprint. **U - Unicorn** Unicorn is a term used to describe a startup company valued at over $1 Billion. It’s also a mythical animal represented by a horse with a curled horn projected from its forehead. **V - Value chain** The value chain is the group of the steps taken by a company to create value in their product or services. Fundamentally is the process of creating products that are ready to be introduced into a market. The steps can vary from market to market and product to product (or service). **W - Warm Call** When a salesperson contacts a prospect that has been already in contact with their company previously. It may be that the prospect was not ready to buy before and was hoping to be in a different scenario later, or it may be that it was a referral from someone else. **X - X-factor** The X Factor is a popular TV music competition show. It’s also that key aspect that gives you a significant competitive advantage. **Y - Year to Date** Year to date is the period of time comprised between the beginning of this year (or fiscal year) and today. This information can be helpful for competitor and trend analyses. **Z - Zone of Resistance** It’s a reflective action to sales pressure. Humans perceive pressure as a threat, so they shut down. When a salesperson approaches a prospect without understanding the prospect’s availability, the latter usually reacts negatively, entering the Zone of resistance. There are a lot of words to learn in this blog and sales talk can be tricky and intimidating, but understanding this jargon will help you hold more effective conversations with your sales team. However, most importantly, if you are not in that position yet, this ABC will help guide the way towards getting that job!

Cold emailing is a powerful way to connect with potential customers and convert them into paying customers. However, many businesses make the mistake of sending generic, unpersonalized emails that end up getting ignored or marked as spam. In fact, Return Path's 2020 Deliverability Benchmark Report discovered that an average of 8 percent of all commercial emails in the United States wind up as spam. Chances that someone will look for your email in Spam and not have trust issues are very low, and definitely not a good start for an aspiring fruitful commercial relationship. But what’s more, even if your email makes it through the Spam trap, the average response rate of cold emails is still a number that needs some work. Cold email response rates can vary greatly from around 2-5% for some sales emails to 25% or even over 50%. Cold emailing is the sales tool with the highest ROI, and the truth is that it has been heavily misused in the past with techniques like “Spray and Pray”. But a laser-focused outreach can not only secure a place in your prospect's inbox but also increase the certainty that your prospect will reply to your email. The key to success? **Quality over quantity**, and there are several ways you can increase the quality of your outreach; One of them is hyper-personalizing your outbound sequences. In this blog post, we will review why **Hyper-personalization is a key factor to increase your cold-emailing conversion rates** and we will give some tips and resources to put that into practice today! ## What is Hyper-personalization? When someone thinks of the concept of ‘personalization’, they generally think of adding in the prospects’ first and last names. But personalization is so much more. When personalizing your outreach the objective is to be **relevant to your prospect** and that entails, not only knowing your target’s name and last name, but also understanding their likes, dislikes, pain points, current situation, and potential future moves. By having an understanding of these data points you are able to build hyper-personalized outbound strategies that create a more relevant connection with your prospect. A common misconception of hyper-personalization is that it starts when you’re crafting an email and that it’s just half of the picture. Hyper-personalization **starts when you are [defining your lists of prospects](https://amplemarket.com/prospecting-and-data).** You most likely have an ICP, Ideal Customer Profile*. However, within your ICP, you will probably have people with similar interests, or job titles, companies they work for, previous universities they’ve been to, or even previous events they’ve attended. These are decisive pieces of information that will give you the bandwidth to approach your prospects with an argument that will actually resonate with them, and fundamentally, be relevant in time and matter. ***(*If you don't know who's your ICP we recommend you to read our [Lesson#2 of the Series "Outbound for Beginners" where we talk about Prospecting and Lead Generation](https://blog.amplemarket.com/lead-generation-prospecting/))* Up until now it sounds pretty logical but you’ll be wondering, how can you find this data and how can you use it to hyper-personalize your outreach.  ## How can I find information about my prospect? From web scrapers to enormous databases, data is available for mostly everyone that seeks it. But the question is how can you find quality data and a tool that allows you to easily navigate through it. Amplemarket partners with dozens of different data providers to provide the most extensive and accurate business database in the world. On top of dozens of other filters, you can search prospects based on the conferences they have attended, the specific ads they have interacted with or the topics they have been talking about on LinkedIn. ## How can I hyper-personalize my email sequences? If you're familiar with shortcut tags like {{first_name}} or {{job title}} to personalize your emails, then you already know something about Liquid syntax. It's the templating language used to automate the personalization workflow. What you may not know about Liquid syntax is that you can also use it to predetermine what data is selected and how it is displayed. By dictating simple statements of programming logic such as “if” > “then”, the possibilities of customization multiply, giving you the opportunity of tailor-made sequences that are congruent and timely. Additionally, prospects will know that you’ve done your homework and gone the extra mile to grab their attention. At the end of the day, a good first-touch email will entice your prospect’s curiosity while a bad one can even get you marked as spam. Choosing to be relevant will set the tone of the future conversation and will showcase your professionalism in your outbound approach. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DfPNPAqYoSY?controls=0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> ## Why is Hyper-personalization so important? Let’s say you received a couple of letters at home. Your dog gets excited every time you get some mail. But you get even more excited when one of them has your name on and it’s about a new pet shop that opened in your neighborhood. The other one looks like general informative mail. Wouldn’t that letter have a higher chance to be opened and read than the general one? Personalized emails immediately stand out, they are far more enticing in nature as compared to impersonal emails. It also shows that the sender carefully prepared their message and looked for a relevant way to connect with you. They were able to understand your needs and they approached you in a pertinent way. However, hyper-personalization is not only about your first impression and the open rate. Is about optimizing your resources and identifying where to put your sales efforts to get the most out of your work. Essentially it's about using the resources available to work in a more efficient and ## Should I hyper-personalize every email? Hyper-personalizing each cold email would not serve the purpose of automating your outreach. But this does not mean that you can’t personalize a genuine approach according to the lead’s qualification profile. What would this mean? You can use a lead scoring system that can help you identify the matching degree of your prospect with your previously generated ICP and then assign an email sequence that matches the score's confidence level. Leads are scored based on their size, job title, or activities and then ranked with a number that indicates how close they are to your ICP. This score may be used to help prioritize the process of managing leads. The idea behind lead scoring is that you'll get a sense of whether or not the prospect should be added to a more detailed and crafted sequence or whether you need to assign them a more pre-qualifying email. It won't always work perfectly, but it will help point you in the right direction when writing personalized messages. ## 5 tips to seamlessly hyper-personalize your emails - **Choose a tool that can provide a hyper-personalized multichannel approach.** Focus more time on building your playbook and let [tools like Amplemarket do the hyper-personalization](https://amplemarket.com/hyper-personalization) automatically for every single lead and forget about generic emails. You will get better open rates. - **Be relevant and keep your first emails concise and straight to the point.** When you cold email someone you should keep in mind that your prospects did not request your emails. Make your prospects feel special, show them that you took the time to research them and their company. - **Personalize your Subject line.** The first thing you see when you receive emails is the subject line and a snippet of the first sentence of the email. - **Write a compelling first sentence and be concise and personal in the way you start your emails.** The first sentence of your emails is really important because they will have an impact on both your open and your reply rates. Tailor your emails to the person you are reaching out to, i.e. you should have a different approach for C-level vs. Managers. - **Leave the fluff at home.** Create a bridge to connect your intro topic to the reason you are approaching them, expose your value proposition accordingly, and end with a call to action. ### Takeaway Wondering where to start? Check out our free resources where you'll find tips and templates to create your own hyper-personalized approach today. * **[Good Sales emails ](https://goodsalesemails.com/)** The platform to learn how some of the best companies are doing sales, by directly looking at their email campaigns. * **[First Touch Guide](https://amplemarket.com/academy?resource=6993daa7-eefc-4aed-9cc9-47fb20a9f3d9)** A complete guide to the first touch in sales with guidelines, examples, and templates ready to use. Hyper-personalization is what allows you to connect to your lead, which eventually transforms into a relationship built on trust between you and your client. **[Book a demo ](https://amplemarket.com/demo?source=hyper-personalization)and take a competitive edge on your sales today!**

The Product world is fascinating. It requires a combination of different skills that synchronize to bring to the user a successful and useful product. From design, to understanding customer experience, and even managing complex projects and people - it takes the joined forces of a team with great talent to push forward these projects. We are **revolutionizing how people do sales**, and without a solid Product team, we wouldn’t be where our company is today! But, what do product design and management look like at [Amplemarket](https://amplemarket.com/)? We talked with: Diogo Rendeiro, Head of Product; Ana Lourenço, Product Designer; Inês Dias, Product Designer and Joana Amores, our recently joined Product Manager, to learn more about their day-to-day responsibilities and what it takes to be successful in this role. ### What does your day-to-day look like? > “As Product Designers, we pass our day today creating solutions that will be helpful and very intuitive to our users. We must develop creative ways of having a great product that differentiates us from the rest.” ” says Inês. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Odz-bvmFEgU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> ### How would you describe the Product team’s culture at Amplemarket? > “If I had to describe the product team’s culture at Amplemarket in one word, it would be iteration. We are all about speed, being open with each other, and challenging each other every day so that we can always progress while testing ideas,” said Diogo. The Product team launches new features, products, and updates every week, ensuring that our customers are always equipped with the cutting-edge solution in the market. For Ana, the team > “is just the best.” > “We love collaborating with all the teams. I think we are super focused on what we are doing, but things can also get fun, and I just love that. We can sit together and have a serious conversation, writing down some key action points and brainstorming about the product. At the same time, we can also joke around, and I think that’s really great.” <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ykF-a6gkVPY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> ### How would you define the Amplemarket product? > “Amplemarket's products are unique. They have a lot of features, and they are very customer-focused. We take a lot into account our user’s needs. We try to study what would be the best experience for them and design the product accordingly. I think that makes the product unique .” said Inês. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hchApEZ8S_k" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> Working at **Amplemarket** means working on something inspiring: **the future of sales**. Joana Amores recently joined the product team and she said: > "If I had to describe this team in one word it would be Inspiring. They are all so talented, hard-working, laser-focused, and on point, and that's for me truly an inspiration to grow and do better." She also added: > "We’re a fun, young, talented, and hard-working team, and we’re all collectively working together to define what are the best frameworks and processes to enable a great product management culture. This is happening right now. I can’t think of a better reason to join a company". Are you ready to lead the future of sales? We’re looking for Product Owners and Designers who can help us create more exciting tools. Check out our [Careers page](https://amplemarket.com/careers), and apply now!

If you are in sales, you know how complicated conversations can get. Sometimes it looks like salespeople developed their own language to communicate with each other. Conversations can go something like: "Hey, our SDR just moved to AE after constantly overachieving her OTE's. She was also constantly bringing MOFU ideas that can help us increase our ROI." There are enough words to complete ABC a few times, so we decided to create our version the AB with the hopes that will help you understand better the sales lingo. This month we launch The Growth ABC. Action! <script src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/c5f78jximv.jsonp" async></script><script src="https://fast.wistia.com/assets/external/E-v1.js" async></script><div class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><div class="wistia_responsive_wrapper" style="height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;"><div class="wistia_embed wistia_async_c5f78jximv videoFoam=true" style="height:100%;position:relative;width:100%"><div class="wistia_swatch" style="height:100%;left:0;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0;transition:opacity 200ms;width:100%;"><img src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/c5f78jximv/swatch" style="filter:blur(5px);height:100%;object-fit:contain;width:100%;" alt="" aria-hidden="true" onload="this.parentNode.style.opacity=1;" /></div></div></div></div> **A - Amplemarket** The next generation of AI-powered growth sales software. **B - BOFU** BOFU stands for “Bottom of the Funnel”. This is a stage in the sales process that leads sales reps to close new customers. At this point, prospects have already looked around for possible solutions, confirmed that they have a buying intent, and are very close to making the purchase. **C - CI (competitive intelligence)** Is an invaluable understanding of your competitor’s digital footprint when it comes to generating new leads. Amplemarket's competitive intelligence product studies the online behavior giving a clear picture of how best to get ahead in your industry. **D - De-dupe** De-dupe is the process of optimizing data storage by eliminating duplicate copies. For example, if multiple files with the same name exist in different databases, this would be considered de-duping. **E - Enrichment** The action of compiling data that gives sales teams a competitive edge. With this information, reps can better understand how qualified prospects are and what to say when talking with them. **F - FAB** FAB stands for "Features, Advantages, and Benefits" and represents the structure in which a product or service's value is communicated. For example, sales reps can use this format when presenting features, so people know what they're getting into before using them. **G - Gatekeeper** Gatekeepers are often the responsible figure for filtering out unimportant distractions to the decision-makers. Gatekeepers are often personal assistants or other employees who help direct information flow. **H - Hybrid Work makes Sales Rock.** Hybrid work allows employees to choose how they want their day structured. Whether it's in an office, on-the-go or even remote working can be beneficial for some people who need more flexibility with their schedule. **I - Intellectual sale** The intellectual sale attempts to appeal not only to your prospect's emotions but also to their logic. This type of approach can be more "business" than personal because you're trying to outwin them with facts and data rather than emotional appeals or promises. **J - Jackpot** Jackpot is a word that describes something special, like winning an unexpected success. It can also mean the luckiest person alive regarding how much money you make quickly and without too much effort! **K - Kickers** Is an incremental incentive that works as way for salespeople to get higher pay. When an employee reaches a certain milestone, they are rewarded with greater amounts of money and more opportunities within the company as well. **L - Lead, Linkedin, Low-Hanging Fruit, Legal** Lead is the person or company showing interest in a product or service. Possibly they filled out a form, subscribed to your blog, or shared their contact information with the intention to learn more about your product or services. Linkedin, according to Linkedin itself, is the world's largest professional network on the internet. This platform is usually used to find jobs, connect and create professional relationships, find customers and learn new professional skills. Low-hanging fruit is the most easily achieved of tasks or the leads that are warm in the pipeline but haven’t converted eyet. Legal refers to the matters relating to law. **M - MOAT & MOFU** A MOAT in the startup industry refers to the ability of the businesses to maintain a competitive advantage over their competitors. For that, companies consider their revenue sources, the industry they are in, their competitors, and the product or service they are providing. MOFU stands for "Middle of the Funnel." These are the activities that are thought to generate inbound traffic. The most common are blog posts, newsletters, or social media campaigns. **N - NSAs** The time spent on non-sales-related activities is essential to being a successful salesperson. That is exactly what NSAs stands for. These can include administrative tasks, paperwork or making personal calls. **O - OTE (on-target-earnings)** OTE stands for On-Target Earnings. Your OTE is the amount of money you can expect to earn if you hit 100% of your quota, and this number is usually given in an annual figure. **P - Puppy dog close, Proposal** Puppy dog close is the sales strategy that invites prospects to try out a product or service with no strings attached with the objective of making the prospect fall in love with your product, just as they would fall in love with a puppy. After that, you hope the prospects won't want to let your product go and would want to purchase it right away. A proposal, also known as quotations, project proposals, or executive summaries, are documents that pitch your company's services or products to potential clients and customers according to their needs. **Q - Quota** The concept of quotas is a way for companies to motivate their employees. A sales quota can be any type of goal, such as reaching 50% more orders than last year by December 31st or earning $1 million dollars worth in product returns within three years - it all depends on what your company needs. **R - Return on Investment ROI** The return is the profit you make as a result of your investments. ROI is generally defined as the ratio of net profit over the total cost of the investment. ROI is most useful to your business goals when it refers to something concrete and measurable to identify your investment's gains and financial returns. **S - Smile and Dial & Smarketing** Dialing and smiling is a slang term for cold-calling. It was created to boost the confidence of those sales reps reaching out unsolicited to find new customers. "Smarketing" is a portmanteau (the blending sound of two words) of the words "sales" and "marketing." The sales and marketing teams have been aligned to create an integrated approach. **T - Target & Triggers / TOFU** Sales targets are a way to measure the sales performance of a sales rep by determining the number of sales or tasks to be completed in a given period. Sales triggers are events that create a sale opportunity for a potential customer. TOFU stands for "Top of the funnel." These are the activities that take place to generate awareness of the product or service the company is selling. **U - Up and to the Right** A common term within the startup industry that illustrates the rapid growth curve of a company’s business metric. **V - Value Triangle** The Value Triangle is a part of the customer's decision criteria that the seller satisfies while the competition doesn't. In other words, it's a simple visual model that illustrates the interdependency of various business assets that play a critical role in the prospect's decision-making. **W - White Whale** This is the name given to prospects that can generate outstanding revenue for the company. As White Whales, these prospects are rare and precious, and sales teams spare no effort when they land on one. **X - 10X** It's a popular strategy that implies aiming for 10 times(X) better progress over the prevalent 10% growth strategy. **Y - Year-over-year** The year-over-year (YOY) method is the way to compare the results of a given event or metric on an annualized basis. For example, YOY comparisons are a common way to evaluate a company's financial performance. **Z - Zeroed Out** This happens when sales reps "pay back" their draw, a ​​loan the company can provide before the sales rep's commission arrives, with the commissions earned. By understanding this jargon, you'll be able to hold more effective conversations with your sales team and increase your chances of closing a deal. But most importantly, if you are not in a sales team yet, this ABC will help you navigate your way to get [the sales job you are looking for](https://amplemarket.com/careers). Subscribe to our blog and follow us on [social media](https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplemarket/) to learn more sales vocabulary and stay tuned to watch the next Amplemarket's ABC edition coming out next month.

> ***“Change is inevitable, Growth is optional”*** - John C. Maxwell A market downturn may mean tighter budgets for some companies, it also presents an opportunity to reevaluate strategies and focus on growth. It is no secret that the current market conditions are forcing B2B and SaaS companies to reassess their budgets and adjust their growth projections. In fact, leading venture capital firms such as Sequoia, a16z, or Y Combinator have publicly recommended that startups should extend their runway by consolidating costs and investing in revenue growth. The bottom line is that capital was "free" a few months ago, but now is expensive. We have witnessed a recent trend where companies are shifting their investment from marketing activities towards outbound efforts and the reasons are clear: predictability, buying intent, relevance, and funnel optimization. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I predict a significant pullback in paid spend in favor of low CAC strategies (Outbound, SEO).<br><br>Those with a strong mix towards such channels are poised to win as their competitors try to catch up.</p>&mdash; guillaume cabane (@guillaumecabane) <a href="https://twitter.com/guillaumecabane/status/1522586487505707008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 6, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Funnel optimization provides a way for companies to make the most of their limited resources by laser-focusing their outreach efforts on potential customers who are most likely to convert. By taking advantage of these opportunities, companies can ensure that they are well-positioned for long-term success. In this post, I'd like to share **5 actionable tips to maximize revenue growth** during a market downturn. ### 1. Focus on predictable revenue growth The recent privacy updates by Apple and Facebook have caused marketing ROIs to plummet. Now more than ever is time for you to invest in predictability. Outbound is predictable! Research and truly understand your customer base so you can create your ideal customer profile. Uncover their main pain points and focus on crafting relevant [multichannel sequences](https://amplemarket.com/hyper-personalization). Learn and Repeat! Outbound will help you build a strong foundation for future growth. ### 2. Stay ahead of the game with buying intent Next, focus on buying intent. In a market downturn a certain percentage of your prospects might be reluctant to invest. Your goal is to find the ones who are currently looking for your solution. Make sure that you are targeting buyers who are actually in the market for your product (or service). This will help you funnel your efforts and maximize your chances of success. You can find here [6 Buying Intent Signals To Optimize Your Outbound Sales Process.](https://blog.amplemarket.com/buying-intent-signals/) ### 3. Listen to your customers Talk to your customers and listen carefully to what they have to say! Did the current market conditions bring about new challenges for them? Gather customer feedback and learn from it. Use this information to refine the copy you use to attract new prospects and to refine your ideal customer profile. ### 4. Optimize your funnel Are you currently getting the most out of your sales funnel? Are you getting the most out of your sales team? Are you providing all of your leads with the most relevant and targeted approach? Now is the right time to review your funnel and make adjustments. Improving small parts of your sales funnel will compound and yield. ### 5. Keep iterating and learning Growth does not just happen - it is engineered! Run monthly and weekly growth experiments and learn from them. Focus on the task at hand and persevere. Only a team with perfect alignment can succeed. You will come out ahead if your iteration speed is faster than the rate of market innovation. > ***“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”*** - Dale Carnegie Gartner recently reported that SaaS spend will increase by 20% in 2023. Challenges can be turned into opportunities. Companies who adopt a growth mindset during challenging times will set themselves up for long-term success.

Serving and deploying Machine Learning models is a topic that can get complicated quite fast. At Amplemarket, my team and I, like to keep things simple. Let me show you how.

This happened just a few weeks ago: *There's still room in this picture for you.* We organized the first-ever [Amplemarket](https://amplemarket.com/) team off-site, and it was a total success! Not only because we had a blast together, but we also learned a great deal through the whole preparation and execution process of this event, which was a precious experience. I’d love to share with you **the journey and learnings from preparing an international off-site experience for a remote-first team.** As a remote team, we are scattered around the globe in 7 different countries. Some of us work from home, others from our office in Lisbon, others from their van, and a few from stylish cafés. At Amplemarket, we are building a unique team that rows together towards the same goal regardless of their location. At our core, we are here to disrupt the industry and facilitate the means to create connections, so it just made sense that we practiced what we preached. That is why we wanted to take a moment to gather together to spark and strengthen the relationship between us. And that is precisely what we did. Since the last investment round announcement earlier this year, our growth has been exponential. We have tripled our team's size and, are still hiring! We are growing at a rampant speed, and we need to set the ground for what's to come. We wanted to break through the camera barrier, meet the team outside of our slack channels and video calls, and offer an opportunity to connect beyond the screen. And how did it go? It was sensational! But undoubtedly not an easy one. *Kevin and Molly staring at some pasteis de nata.* ## Behind the scenes: getting Amplemarket's first off-site ready. We first managed to get some tips & tricks from our fellow growing companies. Learning from others' experiences is always a good starting point. But soon after we had gathered other's knowledge, our first questions started to arise: Where will it happen? We didn't have to search too far away. It felt just natural and organic to bring everyone, for the first time to the roots of where everything started, Lisboa. Lisbon is the city where our founders joined to give their lives a 360 shift. ### Traveling the team. "Great, Lisbon it is!"- we thought - "Now, how do you get people to the off-site location?" We used [Travelperk](https://www.travelperk.com/), a platform that allows employees to book their own travel arrangements autonomously. We wrote down a step-by-step guide on how to book a flight with Travelperk and shared it on our [Notion](https://www.notion.so/) page. We also shared Q&A’s with the team to make sure that all questions were being answered. It was simple and efficient. People Ops shared the news in our Amplemarket communication channels and was available for any help the team required. Using a tool that promoted a decentralized approach created an effortless and positive experience for the team. At the same time, it relieved the People Ops team from a significant amount of admin work, helping us focus on other tasks that would bring more value to the off-site experience. Once the traveling was sorted, the next step was: ### Finding accommodation. Location, location, location... That was our focus. Our goal was to spend as much time as possible together and make the most out of it. That is why avoiding lengthy commutes or changing locations several times was a must in our checklist. Fortunately, Lisbon comes in quite handy for this requirement. We were able to stay in a very centric hotel and work in co-working spaces that were just a few minutes away. Staying in the city allowed us to move quite easily and reasonably fast, making the changes between activities much smoother. We worked in [Heden](https://heden.co/), a group of co-working spaces centered around the principle of sustainability and accessibility. The spaces were open, full of light, and with stunning views. It was undoubtedly the perfect environment to host our activities. And speaking of activities, the next step was: *Beatriz interviewing our future team members.* ### The Agenda. We thought about splitting the schedule into two main focus areas. **Time together** We dedicated the mornings from Monday to Friday to have an array of activities that would be fun, ingenious, challenging, and inspiring. Some of the activities included: - Icebreakers and team-building exercises - Workshops - City tour - Guest talk - Ideathons The founders also took the opportunity to share the Amplemarket's story, vision, and mission. We opened up the floor for those forgotten questions we sometimes leave behind and we encouraged everyone to speak up their minds and exchange ideas. But that was not all. We knew that we wanted this trip to be an immersive experience. That's why we also allocated time to get to know each other outside of the work environment. We enjoyed dinners together, a cocktail party on a rooftop, and even a boat trip along the river with beautiful views of the city of Lisbon. But we know that sometimes these activities are not everyone's cup of tea. Being a week away from home, constantly surrounded by a big group of people, can, very fairly, feel overwhelming. Especially considering we are a remote-first team. We knew from the start that people needed to be able to choose when and for how long they were going to be engaging with other employees, exploring the city, or even spending time alone to charge batteries! **Time to work** On the other hand, we decided not to stop the clock. We wanted to be there for our customers to continue supporting them and shipping exciting features, as well as onboarding new ones! That is why we allocated the afternoons for our sales motions to continue operating. Teams would gather together and jump into their regular day-to-day work, only that this time they would be working alongside their peers.  *Michael, Beau, and someone's hands discussing Einstein's relativity theory.* ### What did we take away from this? **Take away #1:** Over-communicate and avoid assumptions. What may be obvious to some may not be to others, which is totally normal. Ensure that the details are coming across no matter how small, and make sure all expectations are aligned. **Take away #2:** Plan way ahead of time. A week-long off-site demands excellent logistics and thus a complete planning schedule that will require months of preparation. Make sure that you communicate the event with enough time in advance, allowing the rest of the team to prepare their own schedules. **Take away #3:** It will be 100% off-site focused next time around. If the main goal is to get people together and improve engagement, we should focus on having fun and tightening those bonds. **Take away #4:** Decentralize the efforts and bring other brains to the game. An off-site can be hard to pull off. However, it's not about working harder but about working smarter. Involving the team and bringing different skills can be a considerable advantage and accelerate the process of preparing for the event. Think about an off-site as a product launch. We are a product-led company, why would anything we do not follow the same principles?. ## 5 tips to plan a great team off-site **Create moments to connect** Our job role doesn't change during these events. But the way we perceive each other and the relationship we create with our teammates are susceptible to these experiences. Prioritize engaging and allow the people to gather in smaller groups to have the chance to meet each other. Remember to be inclusive and to create a safe space for everyone. **Get ideas from outside of your People Ops team.** Don't be afraid to involve other teams. It can be a great opportunity to know what your employees might want or need. You can benefit from picking their brains to prepare a tailormade experience for your company. **Choose the right place** Remember location, location, location... Every second you can spend with your team counts, so make sure you choose the right place to stay and be together. An environment that promotes creating positive and enjoyable experiences allowing for both mingling and disconnecting. **Create an inclusive agenda** There are a lot of different people at Amplemarket, and it's essential to know your team, what they like and what they need. This also means allowing space for a remote experience. We can't dismiss this choice as a remote-first team, so preparing in advance for this option will positively impact your team. **Let life happen** Don't overschedule the event and let life happen. Things will go south, but that's ok. You can allow some time for unforeseen circumstances that would either get used to catering to those or allow spontaneous interactions with your team. You can only be as prepared as you can, and once you are there, you should enjoy it as well. <script src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/cg1ucvdxxx.jsonp" async></script><script src="https://fast.wistia.com/assets/external/E-v1.js" async></script><div class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><div class="wistia_responsive_wrapper" style="height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;"><div class="wistia_embed wistia_async_cg1ucvdxxx seo=false videoFoam=true" style="height:100%;position:relative;width:100%"><div class="wistia_swatch" style="height:100%;left:0;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0;transition:opacity 200ms;width:100%;"><img src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/cg1ucvdxxx/swatch" style="filter:blur(5px);height:100%;object-fit:contain;width:100%;" alt="" aria-hidden="true" onload="this.parentNode.style.opacity=1;" /></div></div></div></div> ### It’s just the beginning… It was an amazing experience, a great success and we certainly learned a lot! I am grateful to my team and everyone who made it possible. We’re already looking forward to planning our next off-site! In the meantime, if you want to be a part of the Amplemarket team, [check out our careers page](https://amplemarket.com/careers) — we’re always on the lookout for talented people to come on board. To be continued…

Understanding the intention of your target audience is just vital to help you: 1. Find the right person 2. Deliver the right message 3. At the right time Intent data guides you towards reaching out to your target audience when considering a solution for the problem you solve and helps you craft the right message to successfully tackle their pain-points. -------- Having a process to gather insightful buying intent data makes outbound teams very successful in their approach. **Conversion rates double** and sales reps have more insightful discussions with prospects about how they can help solve their problems. **The question is, where do you find this magic data?** No worries, get your notes because we'll give you a lot of inspiration below 😎 # Here's what we'll cover: 1. [What is buying intent data](https://blog.amplemarket.com/buying-intent-signals/#1whatisbuyingintentdataafterall) 2. [6 buying intent signals anyone can leverage in outbound sales](https://blog.amplemarket.com/buying-intent-signals/#26waysanyonecanleveragebuyingintentsignalsinoutboundsalesthebasics) (The basics) 3. [Consider using case-specific buying intent signals](https://blog.amplemarket.com/buying-intent-signals/#3considerusecasespecificbuyingintentsignalsadvanced) (Advanced) 4. [The next level of buying intent data](https://blog.amplemarket.com/buying-intent-signals/#4thenextlevelofbuyingintentdataextraadvanced) (Extra-advanced) #1. What is buying intent data after all? Buying intent data is behavioral data about potential customers. You can gauge how likely someone is to consider purchasing your product or service by collecting the right data points. For example, suppose someone signs up for a demo with one of your closest competitors. In that case, they may also consider purchasing yours (if they knew about your product). Thus, collecting such behavioral data on your competitor's demo page would probably be one of the strongest buying intent signals. Did you get that? Great. Now let's dive into some practical examples 👇 #2. 6 ways anyone can leverage buying intent signals in outbound sales (The basics) ###1. Identify new managers on growing teams When a new manager with high decision-making power (think a VP or C-level) joins a new team, they will be reviewing the entire team's strategy. This means the company's leadership will have a new vision, and things will be shaken up internally. In a nutshell, managers will be looking for the right tools the team will need to succeed. This is excellent timing to reach out because everyone is in an explorative mindset and eager to hear about any potential solution that could help them achieve their goals. If you want to add an extra level of urgency, you can filter for recent managers on growing teams. This will ensure they are shaking things up internally, have the urgency, and have a budget to spend. 👉 [How to find new managers on growing teams](https://blog.amplemarket.com/uncover-timing-and-budget-when-generating-new-leads/): - Open LinkedIn Sales Navigator - Issue a new search - At the account level, filter for the desired department headcount growth - Change to lead filters, select the tab 'Changed jobs in the past 90 days ###2. Extract lists of competitor webinar attendees Webinars are great proxies to understand which pain points a specific audience is feeling. Suppose someone attends a webinar on building a social following on LinkedIn. In that case, it likely means this person is at least considering building an audience on LinkedIn. If you help with this, you have a great audience there. Your established competitors know this exceptionally well. They have tried multiple content topics and understand what your audience is looking for. The best part is finding exactly who is attending these events publicly on LinkedIn and using it to your advantage. Even before you've reached out, you already know this audience is qualified in terms of need, authority, and timing. How great is that? 👉 [How to find attendees of a company event online](https://blog.amplemarket.com/guide-to-generate-leads-from-virtual-events/): With Amplemarket: - Go to the Searcher - In the events filter, choose an event you want to target - Add any additional filters to narrow the list for your ICP - Gather all the relevant contacts in a Customer Profile Without Amplemarket: - Go to your competitor's LinkedIn page - Select the 'Events' tab - Open a relevant event and click to attend - View the attendees' list - Open a [Phantombuster](https://phantombuster.com/) account and run a LinkedIn search phantom to extract all the contacts in the list* *Alternatively, use Amplemarket's LinkedIn Extension to extract the entire list to a Customer Profile with one click. ###3. Leverage unhappy customer reviews Websites like G2, Capterra, and FeaturedCustomers are great knowledge sources about your competitors. Not only can you use these reviews to learn more about issues that people face, but you can also identify potential new customers from unhappy reviews. In these reviews, unhappy customers post what they dislike about your competitors. If you solve those problems better than your competitors do, then these people are potential happy customers of your product/service. 👉 How to find people posting negative reviews: - Jump right into G2, Capterra, or FeaturedCustomers - Browse for your competitor's reviews - Filter for the worst classified reviews - 90% of the time, you'll get their name, the title, and profile picture - Find them on LinkedIn and see if the name, title, and picture match ###4. Look for companies hiring and using a tool you integrate with Companies that are hiring have a budget to spend and need new tools to accommodate the team's growth. Imagine a growing company is already using a tool you integrate with. In that circumstance, it means they are already familiar with your market and will not have to migrate their current stack to make things work. 👉 How to find these companies? With Amplemarket: - Go to the Amplemarket Searcher - Select a company hub for companies hiring right now - Filter for companies using a tool you integrate with Without Amplemarket: - Find companies hiring on LinkedIn - Use builtwith.com to find which tools they are using - Filter the ones who are using the tool you integrate with on a spreadsheet ###5. Engage with people who downloaded or interacted with a relevant online resource Providing helpful and free resources to your niche is beneficial in many ways. On the one hand, you raise brand awareness with insights people trust. On the other hand, you get buying intent signals about which leads are feeling a specific problem right now. 👉 How to efficiently engage when someone downloads a relevant resource on your website? With Amplemarket: - Create a sequence template with a compelling message for this audience - Make sure the marketing team sends the email to an Amplemarket Inbound Smart Action via webhooks whenever someone subscribes to the content ([see how here](https://amplemarket.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052095832-Inbound-Smart-Actions)) - Turn the Smart Action on and let Amplemarket do the rest *Note: Make sure your sales team is aligned with marketing so that you'll have resources that showcase the highest buying intent possible.* ###6. Spot relevant questions in niche online communities Participating in relevant niche communities like Slack and LinkedIn groups increases your social reputation and helps you find opportunities to help people when they are desperate to solve a problem. With Zapier, you can set reminders in your favorite tools to let you know when someone is talking about something relevant to you. This is a high effort strategy but pays off quickly when people start trusting you to help them in multiple situations. You come across as someone who's there to help them succeed rather than someone who's there to sell. #3. Consider use case-specific buying intent signals (Advanced) Some buying intent signals are specific to each company's use case. Only YOU can leverage those. For example, think you're a company offering services to remote teams. In that case, you should be able to identify growing remote teams that could benefit from a solution like yours. In this specific use case, you have to find companies that are openly hiring new employees remotely or companies that only have 1 office but have employees distributed across multiple locations. This data is difficult to find but has massive potential for growth. Leverage your lead generation data provider for granular insights like this. Alternatively, you might want to consider [Amplemarket's unprecedented search criteria](https://amplemarket.com/prospecting-and-data?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=blog_content&utm_campaign=buying-intent-signals-blog) to understand your prospects like none of your competitors can. #4. The next level of buying intent data (Extra-advanced) Remember the first example about buying intent data in this article? Yes, the one about who's taking demos and talking with your competitor's sales team. What if we told you that you could get your hands on data like this? We just launched [Amplemarket Competitive Intelligence](https://amplemarket.com/competitive-intelligence?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=blog_content&utm_campaign=buying-intent-signals-blog)! With this, we can tell you the exact people evaluating one of your competitors (e.g.: the person taking a demo with your competitor, talking to their sales team, etc.). We do that with an algorithm that leverages the digital footprint of your competitors' sales teams and tells you which leads have the highest buying intent right now. Not fully convinced? [See how](https://storage.googleapis.com/case_studies/vanta/vanta.pdf) we've helped Vanta close 6 figures within the first 3 months of using Amplemarket Competitive Intelligence. [](https://storage.googleapis.com/case_studies/vanta/vanta.pdf) ==Liked the content of this blog post? Subscribe below to get the latest insights into sales and growth 👇==

I am proud to share with you great news. We have raised $12M in back-to-back Seed and Series A investment rounds co-led by Comcast Ventures and Armilar Venture Partners. We couldn’t be more excited about Amplemarket’s growth plan and the impact it will have on our customers.