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You will win MANY more deals then you will lose being persistent in follow-up.

I'm talking multiple emails over a month (minimum) - regardless if you've talk to the person before.

will you piss some people off? yes

will some people appreciate it? yes

If you're not following up, you're not trying

And 'no' is always better than no response

Stories you should know

The wool sneaker brand that became the unofficial shoe of the Silicon Valley set agreed to sell all of its assets and IP to brand management firm American Exchange Group

Companies are swapping after-work drinks for rage rooms, ax throwing, cold plunges, and corporate botox parties.

My brother works at one of the hottest companies in his space.

Inbound everywhere. Quota demolished every quarter. He's sharp, he earned the spot, none of it fell in his lap. But on a call a few months ago he said something offhand I haven't stopped thinking about.

"Half the time, I'm just taking orders."

He’s not complaining - just being honest about what the job actually is right now.

Now think about the 500 reps OpenAI just hired. Anthropic scaling fast behind them. Customers lined up begging to see the latest and greatest - inbound so hot the job is basically order processing with a quota attached. Those reps are going to crush their numbers, stack president's club appearances, and cash their logos in at the next hot shop in two or three years.

The job market rewards logos first, then skills. That's just the game on the field.

Every hot market has a cooling moment. Cloudflare's CEO admitted in 2023 that most of their team had succeeded by basically taking orders. Then the economy shifted. They fired 100 reps who'd contributed 4% of new business combined. Salesforce had their moment. Oracle. Microsoft.

Fish stop jumping. They always do.

I started my career at a smaller company - not because it was the safe bet, but because I wanted to actually do things that would drive impact. I touched sales, marketing, strategy, partnerships and Customer Success. Got to figure out what I was good at before anyone handed me a playbook. That range is worth something that doesn't always show up on a resume but shows up later in your career.

The logo path is legitimate too. Just know what you're trading.

Early stage gives you impact and range. Big company gives you the brand.

The reps who win long-term are the ones who made the choice on purpose and extracted everything available while they were there. Not the ones who stumbled in and stumbled out.

Pick your path. Just pick it consciously.

This did well on Twitter so I’m drinking my own kool-aid here.

For your Friday eve:

Until next week,

TG

P.S. I reply to all emails