How Warmly went from 0 to 100+ Paying Customers in 2023

Warmly, went from 0 to 100+ paying customers in 2023. More importantly (for the hyper-critical founder inside me) we went from founder-led sales to a repeatable sales process.Here how I (tried) to build a repeatable sales motion this year:

Overview:

?Q1: Founder Led Sales

?Q2: Sales-Leader Led Sales, Founder Involved

?Q3: Seller-Led Sales, Founder Involved

?Q4: Seller-Led, Sales Leader Run

Q1: Founder Led Sales

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???Customers: 0-10

???GTM Strategy: Design partners & founder friends

??? Key experiment: messaging

??Key questions: (1) can we sell this thing at any price point? (2) can I stand up a basic funnel? (3) can I find 10 most common objections and solve them?

???? Key new tools: HubSpot (CRM), Mixmax (SEP), ConnectTheDots (Warm Intros), DocuSign, Spreadsheets

??? Who: Max, ?? Alan, Nabil

Q2: Sales Leader Led, Founder Involved

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??? Customers: 10-30

???GTM Strategy: Founder friends & startups, email sequencing

??? Key experiment: LinkedIn sequencing

??Key questions: (1) can a strategic sales leader who is a non-founder roughly hit projected quota? (2) can I as the founder hit quota and also reasonable terms (no opt-outs, annuals only, discounts)? (3) can I build trust with this leader to sell my vision and build a team around them?

???? Key new tools: Warmly/6sense (Website de-anonymization), Warmly (AI Website Chatbot), Outreach (SEP), Seamless.AI (ContactDB), Sendspark (video-personalization), Warmly/Salesflow.io (Auto-LinkedIn sequences)

??? Who: Max, Keegan, Nabil

Q3: Seller-Led Sales, Founder Involved

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???Customers: 30-60

???GTM Strategy: Omni-channel (linkedin/email), inbound (Warm Calling on the website with Warmly), territories

??? Key experiment: Conferences

??Key questions: (1) can an AE and ISR ramp and hit quota in the last month of the quarter? (2) can our sales leader enable the sellers to ramp and hit quota? (3) can we build a V1 sales process that can be understood and executed?

???? Key new tools: Warmly (AI auto-emails), Warmly (AI auto-linkedin), Hubspot Quotes, Tourial (Pre-made Demos), Spekit ?? (Sales Process documentation), AccountAim (Territory building)

??? Who: Katherine, Terence, Keegan, Nabil, Max

Q4: Seller Led, Sales Leader Run

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??? Customers: 60-100+

???GTM Strategy: No change from Q3 (repeatability!), just optimization

??? Key experiment: Linkedin social to drive inbound

??Key questions: (1) can I as the founder step away from closing altogether? (2) can the sellers hit quota each month across the quarter? (3) can we find repeatability in our core metrics (meetings held, SQOs, closed/won) and rates

???? Key new tools: Letterdrop (LinkedIn Social), Alysio (Gamified daily sales metrics), Warmly, (Full cross-tool autonomous sales orchestration)

??? Who: Katherine, Terence, Keegan, Nabil, Max, Marijana

Please tag any founders or early stage GTM leaders this might be helpful to in their journey’s!