Aligned

🚨🚨HIRING ALERT- or "RIP to my inbox" as the kids say these days 🪦 🤪 Hiring at Aligned for: (1) SMB AE (575k quota) U.S Based (1) Senior AE [Mid-Market+] (900k quota) U.S Based THE UPSIDES 📈 1.  Invaluable experience as a founding AE. Autonomy to be creative and make a big splash. 2. Our team is simply THE BEST. Caring, hard-working, smart professionals who check their ego at the door. We're kinda fun too! 3. We’re hitting aggressive ARR targets (Triple, Triple... path), BUT growing efficiently; ±150% NRR, 10-month CAC Payback, 80% GTM Efficiency Ratio. 4. PLG is magical; read; WARM LEADS! You've also likely seen us on Social- which drives ±65% of our leads. And we're just getting started... 5. AEs have enough leads today they are not having to outbound (yet). THE DOWNSIDES 📉 1. We’re hiring Remote-First; If you thrive in-person, this might not be for you. 2. We're juggling PLG, PLS, and Top-Down Sales motions. It’s powerful, but very messy to execute. If you’re not comfortable with complexity or prefer a single-road, please do not apply. 3. We have 6-fig clients today, but will need to consistently drive higher ACVs; That means our GTM will need to constantly (and painfully) adapt. And so will you. 4. Selling to Sales Leaders is a different beast. Yes they 'just get it,' but on top of evaluating the product, they are evaluating our sales skills every step of the way. 5. We move quickly and need you to keep up. If you work better at a calm, predictable pace, this is NOT the place for you. HOW TO APPLY: 🧑🏽💻 👩🏼💻 Our jobs on live on Linkedin! Any questions/notes, DM our recruiter Gareth Arnison Excited to see who joins our team!! ✨ 💫

Our sales team is growing - Give Saad Khan a cold email or cold call to apply 💚🧡 (RIP Saad's inbox)

Tips and tricks to ensure you are well-equipped in prepping your demo

“I’ll have to run this by our CFO” killed way too many deals in 2024. But the truth is, Budget was never the REAL reason you lost. Most of us fell victim to a deeper problem—misunderstanding how buyers really approve spending. We all blame the CFO. But companies don’t buy the way most sellers think. They don’t only spend from predefined budgets. No one walked into the CFO’s office in 2023 and said, “Let’s put budget aside for Aligned because we’ll probably see posts from their CEO, understand it can solve critical problems and decide to check them out”. Budget can come from: - Spare pockets of cash - Other departmental line items - Unused allocations across the P&L - Even new budgets can be created mid-year - And rarely do these changes require board approval “No Budget” is almost never a real technical issue. What it really means is: “No Justification” for the value YOU have conveyed. If you don’t equip a champion… If you don’t facilitate consensus… If you stay single-threaded… Of course you’ll hear: “We have no budget.” Budget is out of your control. But 'budget creation selling' (a.k.a enabling) is: 1. Running discovery for them; Not for you 2. Building business cases; Not sending 25 slides 3. Co-creating ROI/COI; Not dumping generic stats 4. Supporting decision meetings; Not letting champions wing it 5. Identifying potential blockers; Not only selling the positives 6. Facilitating multi-thread buy-in; Not ignoring key stakeholders 7. Digesting resources in deal rooms; Not 50+ email-links-chaos —— Master these, and you’ll finally influence how your buyer creates budgets. CFOs aren’t the villains. Budget isn’t the villain. Poor buyer enablement is. Shift from ‘selling’ to ‘facilitating’. Stop missing deals you should’ve won. P.S. We built Aligned to help enable buyers and fight budget scrutiny. A 100% FREE Deal Room used by 30,000 sellers and over a million buyers. You can try it here: https://lnkd.in/d_49kHZE

🚨BIG Hiring Alert! We are growing our SDR team! Why work at Aligned? We’re just ready. PMF, GTM-Fit, Scalability, Culture. This is the hottest category in revenue tech right now! Growing to $10M ARR is going to be an exciting ride. THE UPSIDES? 1. Our team is simply THE BEST. No ego, no BS, caring, hard-working, smart professionals who also don’t take themselves too seriously and have fun. 2. We’re hitting aggressive ARR targets (Triple, Triple... path), BUT growing efficiently; ±150% NRR, 10-month CAC Payback, 80% GTM Efficiency Ratio. 3. Our SDR's are SMASHING Qualified Pipeline Target, we have cracked the Code on PLS and Signal Led Sales which its leading to Closed won revenue 37% faster. SDR's contributed 60% of our revenue in Q3 alone. 4. We cracked Social as a strategic channel driving ±65% of leads. But it’s more than lead-gen. It’s a business strategy, a MOAT, and we’re only getting started… 5. Our SDR's Ope Ojekale, CPA and Debdutta Saha 🧘♂️ have become SDR thought leaders and are backing up their work. 6. You get to work with a mad scientist of an SDR leader aka yours truly. I'm one of the sales leaders that has been doing PLS and Signal Sales since 2022 before it was even called "Signals". I cold call with my team everyday and I prospect everyday! We learn and win together! Student of the game! 7. Every rep I ever managed is now a successful AE or a sales leader. Every company I have worked at over the last 3-4 years I was referred in by a former colleague or a teammate followed me along. 8. You get to work with the cutting edge tech, training and enablemet. 9. Highly competitive salary THE DOWNSIDES: 1. We’re hiring Remote-First; If you thrive in-person, this might not be for you. 2. We're juggling PLG, PLS, and Top-Down Sales motions. It’s powerful, but very messy to execute. If you’re not comfortable with that complexity, don’t apply. 3. We have 6-fig clients today, but will need to consistently drive high ACV; That means our GTM will need to constantly (and painfully) adapt. And so will you. 4. GTM tech is noisy and competitive. We need to keep pushing our boundaries to win. 5. I'm incredibly empathetic but very intense when it comes to work and demand excellence! You're not joining my team because you're good, you're joining because you want to become one of the greats! HOW TO APPLY: Email me or cold call me (PLEASE NO LINKEDIN DM'S). Stand out and try to get creative! Please do not just send me your resume with a summary of your career. Exciting times, let’s go! P.S. Do me a favor. Like/reshare this post to help someone find their next role! p.p.s RIP MY INBOX #sales #khantent #management

She was afraid she’d lose her job if she said this publicly. Last week, a top AE (3x SaaS Unicorns) DM’d me after one of my posts: “Almost all companies I’ve worked for enforce their ‘perfect’ sales process” “And if I don’t follow it like a robot, I’m branded ‘incompetent’” “It’s like I can’t use my brain or EQ” “What if I feel that deep discovery would hurt this call?” “What if I can’t access the DM but trust my champion?” “We’re ignoring how buyers buy” “And it’s costing deals” Wow. I spoke with 100+ VP Sales and CROs last year. And I get it. I really do. We all want consistency and predictability. But hard process enforcement is a VERY slippery slope… Real-life selling and buying are not that easy to 'hack'. The best sellers ‘dance’ their deals. They are experts in the buying process. They use the sales process as an anchor. But break it often. Too much enforcement can kill their intuition and creativity. And make them force a sales process on their buyers. Instead of facilitating their buyers’ process. But what about the more junior sellers you ask? Yes, they need structure. But that doesn’t mean burying them in CRM blockers or scripts. What if it makes them believe buying is linear? What if it makes them think less—and just comply? Over-enforcing won’t make them better. It only gives us leaders a false sense of control. So what's the solution? 1. Show ‘What Good Looks Like’ Make sure every rep has access to the best demos, best business cases, best POC/MAP frameworks, etc. Especially at large companies, this is a big mess, and deals are black boxes. 2. Enforce What You Must Stay strict on Qualification Criteria or Discovery Framework so everyone speaks the same language in pipeline and forecast meetings. But don’t overload your CRM with blockers that cripple your team’s agility. 3. Teach Sellers the ‘Why’ AND When to Break the Rules Don’t just hand them a checklist. Explain the reasoning behind your process and encourage them to adapt when the buyer’s reality requires it. Their creativity is their secret sauce, not memorizing a script. 4. Trust Frontline Managers to Coach, Not Micromanage Instead of forcing top-down compliance, empower your managers to do real coaching. The more they guide reps day by day, the more your process becomes a competitive edge—not a bottleneck. —— I get it. I’m a process geek, too I love having clean data and predictable forecasts. But going hard on enforcement is not the answer. It risks harming team morale. And your buyer’s experience. A sales process is an anchor, not a cage.

How NOT to do follow up in 2025 Ft. Leslie Douglas & Will Aitken

You are probably not ready for Enterprise Sales. I’ve led teams closing $1M deals but also seen CEOs fire half their teams after their enterprise push failed. While your board might be right about ACV, trying to go upmarket can kill you. Here are the 5 biggest lies companies tell themselves about enterprise sales (and how to really grow ACV): 1. “We’ll Just Use the Same Product Up Market” Enterprise introduces new buyer personas, new competition, and new business needs—all of which force you to change your roadmap. InfoSec teams will make you implement SSO, ISO, SOC2… Meanwhile, higher product usage will break your architecture or create chaos in implementation. Your product won’t scale. 2. “Our Current Sales Team Can Close Bigger Deals if We Just Book Apple” Enterprise AEs are a different breed. They’re strategic, detail-oriented project managers who are experts in buying (not just selling). Even if your current reps can learn, there’s no way they’ll successfully juggle between fast (1-3 month) and long (12+ month) cycles effectively. It’s just a completely different world. 3. “If We Hire Rockstar Enterprise AEs from Oracle We Will Crush 2025 Targets” Hm… Goodbye 2025 targets. Most likely you’ll hire them in March, they’ll ramp until September, shift 30% of your roadmap, take 20% of your team’s time for RFIs/RFPs, and require management’s involvement at every step. You might see progress with big logos but end up closing only 1–3 low-ACV pilots. 4. “We Just Need Meetings with Bigger Logos” Easier said than done. A brand and demand-gen motion that attracts enterprise executives is not the same as the one that attracts SMB buyers. Your SDRs will also get mostly low-level meetings that waste everyone’s time. You’ll probably need partnerships for executive referrals, ABM strategies, and relevant events to reach the right people. 5. “We Just Have to ‘Level Up’ Sales” Wrong. Good luck transferring a $1M account to a CSM who’s used to juggling 70 small accounts and holding casual syncs. Your CSM must be AS SKILLED as your enterprise AE, or you risk losing a major logo. Imagine that board meeting. —— 2025 ACV plan: Instead of trying to punch above your weight. Create a strategic plan of incremental changes that drive ACV up: - Level up complex selling skills - Update your pricing tiers or model - Split AEs to SMB and MM/Small Ent - Prioritize enterprise deal-making features - Build a playbook on involving your management - Invest in Buyer Enablement tools (e.g. Deal Rooms) —— Enterprise isn’t just bigger deals. It’s a whole new GTM motion. New company. New set of risks. Growing ACV over time is critical. But try it too fast, and you will get burned. Learn what this GTM means–first. Communicate back to your board. Then move. No shortcuts. P.S. We built Aligned to help manage the deal complexity of Enterprise Sales. A 100% FREE Deal Room used by 30,000 sellers. You can try it here:  https://lnkd.in/d_49kHZE

You don’t see this every day in sales… But on Dec 31st, when most AEs ‘call it a day’, Aaron Rosenberg, pulls off the impossible—closing 8 (!) new logos in a single week. And as if that’s not enough, he set the biggest ACV record in Aligned’s history, landing us 3x ARR YoY 🥳 How?! 1. Grit Grit Grit Sales is freaking hard. Late-night cold sweats, high-highs, low-lows—You can't afford not to master the mental game. It’s your only true force multiplier: (Product Knowledge + Skills) x Winning Attitude. With only a couple of wins pre-Dec 23rd, Aaron designed his reality. How? Using challenges as fuel. Bad news? Feels like crap. Quickly rebounds stronger. Impossible situation? Tells himself “A worthy villain, LFG!”. 2. EVERY Minute Counts Days count, hours count, even minutes count. You know the cliche: “Time kills deals”. Plus, a fast rhythm sets the tone for the other side. Prospect needed an Order Form tweak? Aaron sent it out within minutes, not allowing competition to counter. Fast-moving EU deal? Woke up at 2-4am. No response? Aaron used quick calls, text, LinkedIn voice notes—whatever it took to keep deals warm. 3. Uses EVERYONE Lone wolves don’t get far... Multi-threading with your own team is just as important as with buyers. A strategic deal needed a roadmap? Aaron gets my Co-founder Gal Deitsch ✨ to join from Tel Aviv at midnight. 12 closeable deals and two weeks left? Loops Head of Sales, Meredith Chandler to send exec-sponsor notes and personal videos to *every* deal, embedded in each Aligned deal room. 4. Daily Standups and Strategy Most AEs try to be the ‘hero’ and run solo. Top reps like Aaron know that surrounding yourself with other smart people is a strength, not a weakness. You get mental support, strategy, thinking buddy, and management pressure down. Aaron and Meredith synced every day for 10 minutes until EOY. They identified the 12 deals that actually had legs and discussed updates but, more importantly, strategy. Most reps just throw their hands in the air. —— As you’re taking time to recoup, There’s no better time to set a mental intention for Q1 than now: How are you going to show up every day? How can you learn from what you did well, or not so well? Invest in your skills and product knowledge. Set a clear plan for every deal. But, whatever you do. Put your mental game first. Be like Aaron.

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