#55 Why B2B sales in 2021 is all about human conversations with the one and only Aaron Ross

Aaron Ross is one of the true grandmasters of B2B Outbound Sales after building it up at Salesforce, writing Predictable Revenue and Impossible to Inevitable and more than a decade helping sales teams coach and build SDR teams. Here are 3 things among the many more I learnt from him: 1) "Done for You" is not a silver bullet: Predictable Revenue offers both "teaching you how to fish" and "going fishing for you", but running both at the same time is hard. Also, it is a lot about expectation management. 2) Western Europe is still attractive for cold outbound: Applying state-of-the-art cold email outbound practices in the US yields <5% reply rates at scale. Applying similar practices in Europe, especially in Switzerland / DACH can get you to 20-40% reply rates quickly as the market is less mature (or crowded by 8-12 step sequences from Sales "Engagement" software). 3) A players (like Aaron) want human conversations: More Slack channels, virtual conferences and Q&A forums are not solving the puzzle of building a trusted, connected, flexible B2B Sales Acceleration partner ecosystem. Travel to meet physically is a challenge, but desirable for dedicated meetups. Until then small 2-5 people Zoom "Fireside Chats" can help. The other not B2B sales-related feat which I find even more impressive than his sales track record is that Aaron takes care of his 9 kids as an actual father by limiting himself to 20 hours for (the better part of) the last decade, currently also across the ocean between Los Angeles and the UK.