Ilkka Vertanen

Ilkka Vertanen

@ilkka.rocks

Sales leader in CPaaS & SaaS | Founder of GTM Club GTM Club advises on how to increase B2B tech sales and scale SaaS businesses. Accelerate your sales-led GTM by subscribing to our free newsletter at gtm.club/newsletter 🚀 #SalesLed #GTM #B2BSales #SaaS

269 followers869 following77 posts

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

CHAMP. It prioritises the buyer’s CHallenge. If there’s no pressing pain, nothing else matters. Then you verify Authority, Money, and Prioritisation. Below are two composite examples showing how CHAMP saves you from wasting time on the wrong prospects. #B2Bsales #Champ #Qualification

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Things I ponder about my businesses & #AI: 🤖 Should I keep building on #Notion ecosystem or lean more into raw Google Workspace? 🤖 Is Notion AI a bit behind from the rest while #Gemini seems ready to leap frog in front? 🤖 #ChatGPT is go-to AI but it's isolated from the current stack. What to do?

Ilkka Vertanen reposted

Jason Cohen
@asmartbear.com

If you’ve never run a sales organization, you won’t hire a Sales Engineer soon enough. You’ll just be frustrated that your sales people “aren’t technical enough.” Especially if you’re spoiled with one or two sales people who are both. This is how you scale sales.

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Sales qualification is not a gut feeling. It is a system. It is a system that can be taught and learned. It's not a one time training, it's on ongoing iterative process. So how to get started?

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Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

And the ongoing process? · Don't leave your team alone with just resources. · Adjust qualification criteria based on opportunities, both lost & won. · Review pipeline to align with the selected criteria. · Organise role-playing sessions to reinforce the training. · Track and measure progress.

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Sales qualification is not a gut feeling. It is a system. It is a system that can be taught and learned. It's not a one time training, it's on ongoing iterative process. So how to get started?

View full thread
Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

2️⃣ Engage your sales team to define the qualification criteria Insights from sellers are invaluable. Ensure your salespeople actively participate in selecting and refining the qualification criteria. Let's say you go with CHAMP. What challenges are you looking for? Answer with real-life examples.

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

3️⃣ Provide cheat sheets, CRM integration, and ICP documentation Document your ICP and use it as a benchmark for qualification. Offer cheat sheets and scripts that detail questions to ask, along with clear green/red light indicators for answers. Integrate resources into your CRM to ease the process.

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Sales qualification is not a gut feeling. It is a system. It is a system that can be taught and learned. It's not a one time training, it's on ongoing iterative process. So how to get started?

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

1️⃣ Select a framework & introduce it If you don't have one yet, choose a framework like MEDDIC, FAINT, or CHAMP. Your qualification framework should reflect your sales process complexity, product offering, and overall sales team structure and competence. The framework is in the core of your system.

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Laser-focused sales qualification accelerates your sales-led GTM. GTM Club Newsletter 14 was sent out minutes ago. It is available on our website. Content: Selecting a qualification framework, implementing it & exploring AI. All to eliminate your biggest time sink: Working with unqualified leads.

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Took me quite long to realise that this is not an article from The Onion.

Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social

One of the dumbest things I've read in a long time which is really saying something In These Unprecedented Times (the blodget blog not this one) www.404media.co/business-ins...

404media.coBusiness Insider Founder Creates AI Exec For His New Newsroom, Immediately Hits On Her‘Did the same rules apply to AI colleagues and native-AI workplaces? I didn’t know yet. That was one of the things I needed to figure out.’
Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Slowly but still already fast enough to catch quite a few humans. If it ever comes to that. #Terminator #Robots #Running

TechCrunch@techcrunch.com

Robots run a half marathon, slowly

tcrn.chRobots run a half marathon, slowlyIt looks like humanoid robots have a long way to go before catching up with human runners. Beijing’s E-Town tech hub hosted what it described as the first world’s first humanoid half-marathon on Saturday, with 21 humanoid robots competing alongside thousands of humans. The winning robot, Tiangong Ultra, was built by the government-backed research institute […]
Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Traffic from ChatGPT to GTM.club website has been developing nicely in the past week. So, I did a test ("Tell me about sales-led GTM.") and asked for reasons for choosing the site as one of the sources. Made me happy 🤩 #ChatGPT #GTM #AIO

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

I updated my Samsung S24 Ultra today to iOS 18.4. Sorry, I mean to One UI 7. This is the most iPhone vibe I have had since ditching an actual iPhone for Android about seven years ago 🤯

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

My third test, generated this. (Let's not discuss the second one.) I uploaded a photo I took at Monaco car museum yesterday and asked to add a Triceratops wearing F1-overalls to drive it. Job well done 🚘

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Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

M - Money: Does the prospect have a sufficient budget allocated, and how is the investment evaluated? A - Authority: Who are the key decision-makers, and are you talking to them? N - Need: How urgent and critical is the prospect's need to solve their current problems? #qualification

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

Based on the SCOTSMAN's criteria, tech sales pros can evaluate leads and opportunities and focus on those they can win. From those they can't win, sales should let go of as early as possible. As per inventor of SCOTSMAN, Dermot Bradley: “Be first past the winning post or first out of the race!"

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

SCOTSMAN is an enterprise sales qualification framework. The acronym means: S - Solution: Can your product or service effectively solve the prospect's specific problems and meet their requirements? C - Competition: Who else is competing for the deal, and how do you compare against alternatives?

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

O - Originality: What makes your solution unique and differentiates it from competitor offerings? T - Timescales: When does the prospect need the solution implemented, and what is their decision-making timeline? S - Size: How does the opportunity's value compare to the sales team's required work?

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

“Do they need what I’m selling? Can they afford it, and are they ready to buy?” These are the fundamental questions for a seller to answer when qualifying a sales lead. 🧵 #B2Bsales #GTM

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Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

🔎 Customer Needs and Challenges: "Can you help me understand the specific challenges your team faces with your current process?" 🤝 Decision-Makers: "Who are the key stakeholders we should involve in our discussions?"

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

“Do they need what I’m selling? Can they afford it, and are they ready to buy?” These are the fundamental questions for a seller to answer when qualifying a sales lead. 🧵 #B2Bsales #GTM

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

After analysing eight qualification frameworks (such as BANT, CHAMP, MEDDIC...), their similarities can be summed up in four shared qualification criteria. The perspective can vary, but in one way or another, all these frameworks cover the following aspects:

Ilkka Vertanen
@ilkka.rocks

The FT article lists Europe's best #startup hubs. Unfortunately, Helsinki has not made it to the list. Closes we get is Stockholm and that does not really count from Finnish perspective.

AI-Led Company@ai-led.company

European Startups Leverage AI to Innovate Business Models European startups are increasingly integrating AI to transform traditional industries, aiming to close the innovation gap with the US and China. Hubs in Munich and Paris foster companies driving new business models. #StartUps #AI #Europe​

ft.comEurope's start-ups are using AI to reimagine business modelsThe region can compete with US tech at the application level of artificial intelligence

Ilkka Vertanen reposted

AI-Led Company
@ai-led.company

AI is Disrupting GTM Strategies Technology leaders believe Generative AI is revolutionising sales and marketing by enabling highly personalised customer interactions, automating complex processes, and providing deep data-driven insights. #GTM #Sales #Marketing #AI

businesswire.comTechnology Leaders Believe Gen AI Will Disrupt Go-to-Market Strategy, Customer Experience and Product Development According to Marketbridge SurveyA new independent survey revealed that Generative AI is revolutionizing sales and marketing across technology companies by enabling highly personalize