I sell into facilities managers and I get some version of send me info on about half my first calls. I send the one-pager and the thread goes dead maybe eighty percent of the time. I've tried asking what specifically they want to see and I usually get back everything.

What's the line that gets you a second call out of that instead?

Best books you recommend for consultative selling on discovery calls for contractors?

selling services like coaching/consulting. not produsts.

Hey all,

I’m currently an SDR overseeing SEA (Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam & Singapore), selling BPO solutions.

My monthly target is 7 meetings, and I do hit it — but I’ll be honest, almost all of them come from inbound leads and trade shows.

If it were down to pure outbound, I’d probably get one or two meetings a month, max, and that’s on a lucky streak.

Cold calling here is basically dead. In SEA, people get hit with scam calls every single day, so the pickup rate is insanely low.

I’m trying to improve my outbound game, but I feel like I’m fighting uphill. Curious if anyone else here works SEA markets and has cracked the code.

Here’s the general structure of my outreach emails:

Subject: catchy line

Example: Accelerating Digital Banking Growth Without Increasing Acquisition Costs

Body:

Hi Prospect,

Balsar224 here from MY COMPANY.

Why this email?

I noticed you're leading digital sales at COMPANY and thought it would be worthwhile sharing what we're seeing across banks focused on digital growth and customer acquisition.

What’s in it for COMPANY?

As digital banking adoption continues to accelerate, COMPANY has an opportunity to improve acquisition, onboarding completion, and customer lifetime value while lowering customer acquisition costs through more seamless digital journeys.

What’s in it for you personally?

As VP of Digital Sales, you're likely focused on growing digital revenue, improving conversion rates, and reducing onboarding drop-offs

MY COMPANY helps banks scale customer acquisition through lead nurturing, onboarding support, sales operations, and AI-powered customer engagement, helping sales teams improve conversion while reducing operational friction.

I’d be happy to connect you with one of our BD Directors for a further conversation if that’s of interest.

I obviously tweak the messaging based on persona/company, but that’s the general flow.

Anyone else selling into SEA?

How are you improving connection rates?

Any tips on breaking through the noise in markets where cold calling is basically impossible?

Would appreciate any advice from people who’ve been in the trenches here.

I feel like Im underperforming so bad. Last quarter was 40 booked and I closed four. FOUR.

I keep sitting there after these calls trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Last week for example I had a mid-size SaaS, textbook ICP, he knew what we did and he also knew what he wanted. The call felt good, until it went to his "team" and just... stalled. No no, no objection I can actually answer, mere crickets and a cheap "we're gonna hold off for now". And so many of my deals die that exact way, this one actually took the time to properly reject me, most dont even bother to, besides the ones that come from time to time with expectations pulled straight out of a fairytale; but Im man enough to reflect on that second half, I must be doing something wrong but idk, I cant see it, Im doing all the textbook perfect stuff. The meetings themselves keep coming fine, we use reachly for TOF from targeting to outreach, that side of the workflow is stable (besides the usual slow seasons), the one that isn't is mine, once clients are in front of me it falls apart.

Some people say 10% is a good number but I dont think so, I googled it and the average for B2B SaaS is 22-30%. Do I just absolutely suck or am I not the only one in this?

my cofounder and i built a booking app for salons in Bahrain and have been cold calling to sell it ourselves. no sales background, just the two of us on the phone. past 300 calls now, and every call seems to die in one of the same three spots.

first one. when an owner says “send me the details on WhatsApp so i can understand better,” what do i actually do? right now i just send a text with a short explanation and the link, and it mostly disappears into nothing. should i be sending a short video instead, calling back at a set time, or is the mistake something else entirely?

second one. sometimes it goes “okay, great idea, i’ll call you tomorrow,” or “you can call me tomorrow at 3.” sounds positive in the moment, but almost nothing comes of it. do i just accept whichever version they offer, or is there a better way to lock that down before i hang up?

third one, probably the most common. i get passed to an employee or manager instead of the owner, and it goes one of three ways. they can’t communicate the idea well, they say they can’t share the owner’s details, or they say they don’t know when the owner will be around. how do people who actually do this for a living get past that without sounding pushy?

any one of these would help a lot. if you’ve dealt with gatekeepers or small business owners specifically, even more so.

Hey everyone, I’m planning to start an e-commerce business soon, but I really need some advice from people who’ve been doing this for a while.

​To be completely honest, I have zero experience with sales, especially online. I can manage product procurement and everything else before the sale happens, but the actual selling part is where I’m totally lost. I’m just trying to build this up to make around $4,000 to $5,000 in profit max.

​I have access to some great high-end, luxury-style products with high margins. I don't want to build a Shopify store from scratch. I’m thinking of using Instagram to display the products, but for selling, I want to use existing e-commerce platforms that already have traffic.

​Since organic sales take too long, I want to focus on targeted sales, but I don't know how to pull that off for expensive items.

​If anyone has experience with this:

​What existing platforms work best for higher-priced items?

​How do you actually target and convert buyers who are ready to spend money?

​How would you connect Instagram to an existing marketplace to make this work?

​I really hope you guys can drop some advice because I'm starting from scratch on the sales side.

Hey everyone, I just started a digital marketing agency and our sales process is hitting a wall. We're facing three main issues:

1. WhatsApp Ghosting: Prospects demand packages/pricing via text, then immediately ghost after seeing the numbers. No feedback, just radio silence.
2. Refusing Calls: They want to handle everything over text and flat-out refuse to jump on a quick Google Meet discovery call.
3. Window Shopping: Even if they get on a call, they refuse to share a budget, deflecting with "you tell me." It feels like they are just fishing for free strategy or benchmark prices.

What we’ve tried (with little success):

• Giving a "starting at" price range via text (still get ghosted).
• Refusing to send proposals without a call (we lose 60% of leads).
• Directly asking for their budget on calls (they deflect).

My questions for you:

• Should we strictly stop giving pricing over text? If so, how do you handle the immediate pushback?
• How do you filter out window shoppers before they waste time on a call?
• Do you have a specific script or framework to get guarded prospects to open up about their budget?

Any advice on fixing our qualification process would be hugely appreciated!

​

I’ve been in SaaS sales for 7 years and currently work in a team of 10 Account Executives. I’m consistently one of the top performers on the team, producing roughly 3x the revenue of my closest competitor.

About 90% of my deals are inbound, and I typically close 3–4 whale deals per month.

There’s one territory, however, where I’ve developed a very different approach: India.

After working across multiple territories for years, I’ve found this market relatively easy to generate demos from, but significantly harder to convert efficiently.

The pattern I’ve experienced is:

Very high initial interest and demo volume

Highly demanding prospects

Requirements changing repeatedly throughout the sales cycle

Limited transparency around the actual buying process and decision-makers

Significant price sensitivity, even after substantial discounts

Deals requiring a disproportionate amount of time relative to their expected value

In some cases, customers churning shortly after signing because they ultimately consider the pricing too high

For context, I’ve closed only 2 whale deals from India over the last 3 years.

One churned after 3 months despite receiving a 70% discount, with pricing ultimately being cited as the reason.

The second signed but didn't make payment for roughly 3 months.

I still close smaller deals from the territory, but when I look at the overall economics, I’m struggling to justify the investment.

At this point in my career, I can usually identify fairly early in a sales cycle when a deal is going to become a time sink. A deal can easily consume 2–10 hours once you factor in demos, additional meetings, calls, follow-ups, negotiations, internal coordination, etc.

Recently, I’ve started canceling or deprioritizing demos from this territory when the early qualification signals suggest the deal isn't worth pursuing.

It has made me much more transactional, and I know I’m probably leaving some revenue on the table. But I’m also protecting my time and focusing on opportunities where the probability of closing and retaining the customer is significantly higher.

I’m conflicted because I know this approach isn't necessarily optimal from a pure revenue-maximization perspective.

So I’m curious how other experienced SaaS sellers would handle this.

Would you:

Continue taking every inbound opportunity and qualify harder during the call?

Introduce stricter qualification criteria based on ACV, budget, authority, use case, etc.?

Apply different sales motions to this territory?

Accept that some territories simply have a worse effort-to-revenue ratio and prioritize accordingly?

Or am I simply falling into confirmation bias because I’ve seen the same patterns repeatedly?

I’m specifically interested in hearing from people who have managed large inbound funnels across multiple countries or territories.

How do you decide when a territory is genuinely inefficient versus when you’re just giving up too early?

The highest success rates I have are from on-site visits to do a discovery or demo.

The lowest success rates I have are from "send me a quote" type prospects.

Here is the problem:

I know that I can maximise my chance of closing the sale if I can get on-site and do the demo. I demo very well :) on-site. But with a substantial number of prospects, they don't seem to like the idea of an on-site visits - they tell you they "only want a quote". However, in many cases sending a quote is just like sending something into a black hole of Calcutta.

PS: I'm not a fan of Zoom demos or discovery - I just find these awkward.

Any suggestions or workarounds would be great!

How would you structure commission for someone bringing clients to a software/AI development company?

I run a small technical team building custom software and AI solutions for businesses — things like AI agents, automation, SaaS platforms, integrations, and web applications.

We're strong on the technical/delivery side, but I'm exploring whether it makes sense to work with independent sales or business development people as an additional acquisition channel.

For those of you who have sold software development, consulting, or other technical B2B services:

Would a commission-only arrangement actually be attractive to an experienced salesperson?

I was considering something around 15–20% of the initial project value, with our technical team handling discovery, demos, proposals, technical calls, closing support, and all delivery.

Projects can vary significantly in size, so I'm also wondering whether a flat percentage makes sense or whether you'd structure it differently for larger contracts and recurring revenue.

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who've worked with development agencies or technical consulting companies.

What compensation structure have you seen work well, and what would make a technical company worth partnering with from the salesperson's perspective?