Jaakko Paalanen's guest appearances

Jaakko Paalanen

The Modern Selling Podcast

Social Selling and Tech Show

Mario Martinez Jr

Paul Watts

Kurt Shaver

Aaron Ross

Stu Heinecke

John Barrows

Doug Landis

Steve Maxwell

Mario Martinez

Allison Pickens

Lars Nilsson

Mark Roberge

Amit Bendov

Scott Miller

Rand Fishkin

OwlTail

Over the past two years, the business landscape has dramatically shifted. The days of taking a ‘spray and pray’ approach are long gone and have been replaced with much more targeted sales tactics to attract an eager and ready-to-buy B2B audience.  There are a host of unique account-based selling techniques that leading organizations are using to bring in millions of dollars in new sales. From how to identify the best target accounts, to pinpointing the buyer personas to engage, to the highly personalized strategies to use to book more meetings – we cover it all (and more) in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast. And, my guest is one of THE industry leaders in helping companies redefine how they prospect to keep their pipelines full and their calendars booked. In this episode, I welcome Jaakko Paalanen, the Chief Sales Officer of Leadfeeder. Under his guidance, Jaakko has grown his global team across 9 different countries and propelled the company from $0 - $2M ARR within 2 years. The sales insights he shares in this conversation are equivalent to an elite MBA in sales! Be sure to download the episode, grab a pen and paper, and get ready to learn some of the industry’s best kept sales and prospecting secrets. What is Account-Based Selling? Many people have often heard of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) as a function of driving new leads to sales teams. However, Account-Based Selling (ABS) goes beyond just the marketing arm and focuses on who to target. Rather than looking for individual seller profiles, ABS relies on identifying those target accounts or companies that are most interested in your offering.  At Vengreso, we leverage Leadfeeder to get insights on what companies are visiting our website. From there, we narrow down the list to zero in on specific companies that fit our audience parameters. That way we know exactly where to focus our attention, so we can dig deeper into the buyer personas within those companies to prospect on.  I wanted to get Jaakko’s take on ABS and the importance he saw in using this as one of your prospecting strategies. Listen into the full conversation to hear how Jaakko recommends sales teams implement a robust account-based sales approach. Is Account-Based Selling For Every Sales Organization? Like with other prospecting strategies, when it comes to sales – it is not a one-size-fits-all model. The same thing is true for account-based sales. I was curious to hear Jaakko’s perspective on what it takes to do account-based sales effectively and what organizations he thought were best suited for this sales strategy. He shares an interesting set of criteria:  B2B companies that sell to large-sized companies. Account-based selling works well when you’re looking for corporate customers. If you’re selling to individuals or small businesses, more traditional prospecting methods will likely be more effective.  Longer sales cycles. How long does it take to close a deal? If it’s longer than three months, then account-based selling could be the best approach to shorten the sales cycle and help sales teams close the right deals – faster.  Complex buyer profiles. Is there one or many stakeholders that influence the buying decision? If there is only one, then account-based selling won’t be the best avenue to pursue. However, if there are multiple buyer personas within a single organization to navigate, then account-based selling is the way to go.  Join the episode now to hear his fourth criteria or “rule” and what you should do first to get your winning account-based sales strategy off the ground. What Are the Best Practices for Account-Based Selling? When it comes to kicking off an account-based sales strategy, it’s important to consider the best practices to put your sales organization on a path toward success. I ask Jaakko what best practices he recommends based on his extensive experience with Leadfeeder. He outlines four specific steps:  Get internal alignment. For an account-based sales model to work, you need to have buy-in at all levels, from the executive team down to the individual SDRs.  Create an ideal customer profile. This will be essential to know what customers you want to attract, what requirements accounts need to meet to pursue, and what specific pain points you can address for your ideal customer.  Establish a personalization strategy. Knowing what accounts or companies to target is only part of the sales equation. Sales teams must also personalize their outreach messages to truly speak to the individual buyer persona within the account.  Track metrics and reiterate. As with anything in sales, the truth is in the numbers. Monitoring the success of your account-based sales process will be key in knowing what’s working, what’s not, and how to elevate your approach to be even more effective.  Jump in the episode now to hear how Jaakko implements these steps with his team to close more deals using their highly unique account-based sales strategy. What’s the importance of personalization with account-based selling? I always say that in order for sales reps to be ‘interesting’ to a prospect, they must first be ‘interested.’ Because the difference between an account-based sales process that gets minimal results and one that helps your sales team consistently hit their quota comes down to the level of personalization done. At Vengreso, our PVC prospecting model is centered around the need to customize our sales messages to fit the person we are reaching out to. There are a number of automated tools that can quickly scale your prospecting efforts, but it is through personalization that will get you more booked sales calls. Here, we leverage a host of sales enablement tools such as Leadfeeder, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Seamless.ai, and HubSpot – but our secret sauce is in how we tailor our prospecting to our prospects. I go into this in more detail as well as our 18-step prospecting process in this episode. Make sure you listen in today to also get the inside scoop on the one prospecting strategy we use to close millions in NEW sales revenue like clockwork. (It’s not at all what you think… be sure to listen to the end to get this sales gem!)

Over the past two years, the business landscape has dramatically shifted. The days of taking a ‘spray and pray’ approach are long gone and have been replaced with much more targeted sales tactics to <a href="https://vengreso.com/blog/what-is-linkedin-training" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">attract an eager and ready-to-buy B2B audience</a>.  There are a host of unique account-based selling techniques that leading organizations are using to bring in millions of dollars in new sales. From how to identify the best target accounts, to pinpointing the buyer personas to engage, to the highly personalized strategies to use to book more meetings – we cover it all (and more) in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast. And, my guest is one of THE industry leaders in helping companies redefine how they prospect to keep their pipelines full and their calendars booked. In this episode, I welcome <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaakkopaalanen/?originalSubdomain=fi" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Jaakko Paalanen</a>, the Chief Sales Officer of <a href="https://www.leadfeeder.com/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Leadfeeder</a>. Under his guidance, Jaakko has grown his global team across 9 different countries and propelled the company from $0 - $2M ARR within 2 years. The sales insights he shares in this conversation are equivalent to an elite MBA in sales! Be sure to download the episode, grab a pen and paper, and get ready to learn some of the industry’s best kept sales and prospecting secrets. What is Account-Based Selling? Many people have often heard of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) as a function of driving new leads to sales teams. However, Account-Based Selling (ABS) goes beyond just the marketing arm and focuses on who to target. Rather than looking for individual seller profiles, ABS relies on identifying those target accounts or companies that are most interested in your offering.  At Vengreso, we leverage Leadfeeder to get insights on what companies are visiting our website. From there, we narrow down the list to zero in on specific companies that fit our audience parameters. That way we know exactly where to focus our attention, so we can dig deeper into the buyer personas within those companies to prospect on.  I wanted to get Jaakko’s take on ABS and the importance he saw in using this as one of your prospecting strategies. Listen into the full conversation to hear how Jaakko recommends sales teams implement a robust account-based sales approach. Is Account-Based Selling For Every Sales Organization? Like with other prospecting strategies, when it comes to sales – it is not a one-size-fits-all model. The same thing is true for account-based sales. I was curious to hear Jaakko’s perspective on what it takes to do account-based sales effectively and what organizations he thought were best suited for this sales strategy. He shares an interesting set of criteria: <ol> <li>B2B companies that sell to large-sized companies. Account-based selling works well when you’re looking for corporate customers. If you’re selling to individuals or small businesses, more traditional <a href="https://vengreso.com/blog/what-is-prospecting" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">prospecting methods</a> will likely be more effective. </li> <li>Longer sales cycles. How long does it take to close a deal? If it’s longer than three months, then account-based selling could be the best approach to shorten the sales cycle and help sales teams close the right deals – faster. </li> <li>Complex buyer profiles. Is there one or many stakeholders that influence the buying decision? If there is only one, then account-based selling won’t be the best avenue to pursue. However, if there are multiple buyer personas within a single organization to navigate, then account-based selling is the way to go.</li> </ol> Join the episode now to hear his fourth criteria or “rule” and what you should do first to get your winning account-based sales strategy off the ground. What Are the Best Practices for Account-Based Selling? When it comes to kicking off an account-based sales strategy, it’s important to consider the best practices to put your sales organization on a path toward success. I ask Jaakko what best practices he recommends based on his extensive experience with Leadfeeder. He outlines four specific steps: <ol> <li>Get internal alignment. For an account-based sales model to work, you need to have buy-in at all levels, from the executive team down to the individual SDRs. </li> <li>Create an ideal customer profile. This will be essential to know what customers you want to attract, what requirements accounts need to meet to pursue, and what specific pain points you can address for your ideal customer. </li> <li>Establish a <a href="https://vengreso.com/blog/sales-methodology-that-will-explode-your-sales-pipeline" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">personalization strategy</a>. Knowing what accounts or companies to target is only part of the sales equation. Sales teams must also personalize their outreach messages to truly speak to the individual buyer persona within the account. </li> <li>Track metrics and reiterate. As with anything in sales, the truth is in the numbers. Monitoring the success of your account-based sales process will be key in knowing what’s working, what’s not, and how to elevate your approach to be even more effective.</li> </ol> Jump in the episode now to hear how Jaakko implements these steps with his team to close more deals using their highly unique account-based sales strategy. What’s the importance of personalization with account-based selling? I always say that in order for sales reps to be ‘interesting’ to a prospect, they must first be ‘interested.’ Because the difference between an account-based sales process that gets minimal results and one that helps your sales team consistently hit their quota comes down to the level of personalization done. At Vengreso, our PVC prospecting model is centered around the need to customize our sales messages to fit the person we are reaching out to. There are a number of automated tools that can quickly scale your prospecting efforts, but it is through personalization that will get you more booked sales calls. Here, we leverage a host of sales enablement tools such as Leadfeeder, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, <a href="http://Seamless.ai" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Seamless.ai</a>, and HubSpot – but our secret sauce is in how we tailor our prospecting to our prospects. I go into this in more detail as well as our 18-step prospecting process in this episode. Make sure you listen in today to also get the inside scoop on the one prospecting strategy we use to close millions in NEW sales revenue like clockwork. (It’s not at all what you think… be sure to listen to the end to get this sales gem!)

The Power of Account-Based Selling with Jaakko Paalanen, #206

In this episode of the Social Selling and Tech Product Review Supplement, Bill Banham and Jaakko Paalanen take a look at Leadfeeder. Jaakko Paalanen is the Chief Sales Officer of Leadfeeder, where he helped to grow a global team across 9 different countries and took the company from $0 - $2M ARR within 2 years and now pushing towards $10M ARR.

Product Review - Leadfeeder w/ Jaakko Paalanen