Josh Etim

Startup sales: No process. No playbook. No onboarding. Just vibes and a quota that keeps changing 😂 Sales at a bigger company: Process. Playbooks. Forecasting. CRM updates. And 17 meetings about the meetings. Both will test you in different ways. One throws you in the deep end and hopes you swim. The other buries you in process and hopes you don't drown. Neither is easy. Some reps thrive in startups and hate bigger companies. Others need structure and can't stand startup chaos. And honestly, some environments will set you up to fail regardless of how good you are. The reps who've done both They're usually the most dangerous ones in the room. Which environment made you a better seller?

My worst month on LinkedIn this year? 15 meetings booked. 5 deals closed. $17k in revenue. My best month? 33 meetings. 220% of quota. $28k in revenue. No cold calls. No cold emails. Just LinkedIn DMs with structure. The difference between my worst and best months wasn't talent. And it definitely wasn't luck. It was how consistently I followed the system. Most reps think LinkedIn doesn't work. Meanwhile, people are just sending the wrong messages to the wrong people. That's why I documented the exact framework I use for LinkedIn DMs. It contains: ➤ Why 90% of outreach gets ignored ➤ The psychology behind replies ➤ The DM structure that turns cold prospects into conversations ➤ The follow-up approach that generates most of my meetings Want the LinkedIn DM guide? → Like this post → Connect with me → Comment “CHAT” I'll send it straight to your DMs. P.S. If you're an SDR or AE and want support building an outbound system that helps you hit quota consistently each month, DM me "OS", and I'll share the details or book a call with my team - https://lnkd.in/dRKezcRW

Nobody told me sales is just FBI work without the badge and with a quota. 😂 Think about it. We investigate targets before we reach out. We build profiles on decision makers. We track job changes like we're monitoring suspects. We wait for the perfect moment to make our move. The only difference is that the FBI has a whole team and unlimited resources. Most sales reps have 6 tabs open and a prayer. 😂 And we're still expected to find: → who got promoted → who changed jobs → who owns the budget → who makes the final decision By the time we're done, we know more about the account than people who work there. The problem is all that research takes time. And most reps spend more time collecting information than actually using it. That's why I connected FullEnrich inside Claude. I just ask: 'Find the VP of Sales hiring SDRs at SaaS companies.' Claude finds who I should be talking to. FullEnrich hands me their verified email and number right inside Claude. Less time playing FBI. More time actually selling. What's the most FBI thing you've ever done while researching a prospect? 😂 P.S. If someone asks what you do for a living, just tell them you're a SaaS FBI. 😂 #FullEnrichPartner

Taking time off in sales doesn't feel like a break. It feels like a punishment. Every day you take off is one less day to hit quota. One less chance to earn your commission. One step closer to a PIP. So most reps don't take time off at all. Even if the company offer unlimited time off. And the ones who do? They're checking Slack on the beach. I once worked at a company that did something different. They offered quota relief. If your monthly quota was 10 meetings and you took a week off, they'd calculate that week out and reduce your quota accordingly. You could actually rest without the guilt. You came back recharged, not behind. It was one of the most humane sales policies I've ever seen. Most companies talk about work-life balance. But they keep the same quota whether you worked 20 days or 15. That's not balance. That's pressure dressed up in HR language. Sales is hard enough. Time off shouldn't feel like a crime. Does your company offer quota relief?

Nothing prepares you for the death of a loved one. Last month, I travelled home for my grandmother's burial. Two weeks later, my dad passed away. Same month. I didn't see that coming. And honestly, it completely crushed me. Last week was the first time in a long time that I didn't post anything on LinkedIn. It was the last thing on my mind. One thing I've learned through all of this is that life doesn't stop when you're ready. And work doesn't stop when you're hurting. The emails still come in. The meetings still happen. The month still ends. That's one of the hardest parts. You're trying to process loss while the rest of the world keeps moving like nothing happened. May has been one of my lowest months for meetings booked since joining Outbound OS. But strangely enough, I still ended up crushing my revenue target. A reminder that sometimes the scoreboard doesn't tell the full story. Sometimes success is just showing up when everything in you wants to disappear for a while. If you're going through something difficult right now, give yourself some grace. It's okay to not be okay. Just don't quit on yourself. Keep going. One day at a time. I'm back this week. Fully. ♻️ Repost if someone needs to hear this today.

Sales is brutal. Some reps are ending this month at 200% of quota. Others are staring at the scoreboard stressed out. That’s the part people outside sales don’t understand. You can work hard every day and still have a rough month. You can crush one month and feel pressure again the next. Because in sales, the counter always resets. And honestly? That pressure burns a lot of people out. But if you can survive the pressure, you build a level of resilience most people never develop. You learn how to hear “no” without breaking. How to keep showing up. How to fight through slow weeks without quitting on yourself. So if this month didn’t go how you wanted, breathe. I’ve seen reps flip the script in a single day. Not saying that happens for everyone. But don’t quit mentally before the month ends. One more day to go. And if not, we fight again next month. To every rep still grinding today: I see you. 💙 ♻️ Repost if this hits home.

Prospect changes jobs and boom 37 LinkedIn DMs 12 cold emails Multiple calls All saying the same thing Congrats on joining company 👏 Everyone rushing the same signal at the same time. Most of my meetings come from paying attention to intent signals. Job changes. Funding rounds. Hiring sprees. New partnerships. Downloaded a resource. Even profile views and connection requests. Meanwhile some reps are still opening with: "Hope you're doing well." 😭 Signals work. But only if you don't sound like every other rep reacting to them or reciting the same script. Timing matters. But relevance matters more. Successful outbound is just the right signal at the right time with the right message. Now I run multiple sequences in lemlist. Depending on the intent signal. When someone changes jobs, I don't just send "Congrats." I reference the exact pain their new title inherited and I send it within 48 hours of the signal, not within 48 hours of me noticing it. Do you reach out when prospects change jobs or skip the signal completely?

I once had a teammate who did way less activity than me. Fewer dials. Fewer emails. Fewer DMs. But she booked more meetings. It annoyed me. Because I was working harder. Or so I thought. Almost every account she targeted, booked. She wasn’t doing less. She was doing less wrong. She targeted tighter. She qualified harder. She ignored bad fits. Average reps are addicted to activity. Top reps are addicted to alignment. Quality over quantity. Every time. Are you an activity rep or a results rep right now?

I was going through my old chats and emails recently. The amount of messages I was sending just trying to break into sales honestly shocked me. It was a full time job in itself. Every day I'd build a list of companies, find hiring managers, craft personalised messages for each one, record videos for some, send voice notes for others, ask for referrals, schedule follow-ups, etc. Prep for interviews with multiple companies from different industries. All of that. Without a single penny. I got a lot of no's. A lot of silence. A lot of being ignored. I just needed someone to give me a shot. The job market is tough. It was tough then and it's still tough now. But I kept going anyway. Today I work remotely, book meetings that bring revenue, and I do it from wherever I want. Sometimes we get so focused on where we want to be that we forget that where we are right now was once everything we prayed for. And for someone reading this, your current position is still somebody else's dream. Gratitude doesn't make you complacent. It actually makes you work harder. Just needed to say that today. 🙏 Did you get into tech sales intentionally or did life just somehow push you into it? 😂

The things you can do with Claude right now honestly feel endless. If you told me 3 years ago that I'd be asking AI to find decision makers, give me verified emails and phone numbers, research accounts, and draft outreach angles inside one conversation I genuinely wouldn't believe you. Mainly because AI data back then was so messy and unreliable 😂 I used to think prospecting was supposed to feel chaotic. Ohh, you don’t want to know how many tabs I used to have open at once. One tab for LinkedIn. Another for enrichment. Another for CRM checks. Another for writing the email. Another for researching the company. By the time I finished jumping between tabs, half my prospecting block was gone. Last week I started testing something different. I connected FullEnrich MCP inside Claude. Now I can literally stay inside one conversation and say: "Find VPs of Sales hiring SDRs at SaaS companies and give me their verified emails and phone numbers" Then Claude will: → identify the decision maker → provide verified email and phone → research the account → draft the first outreach angle All without opening another tab. 3 years ago this would’ve sounded completely fake. And the data from ChatGPT or Claude would have been so inaccurate haha The crazy part isn't even the automation. It's how much mental energy it saves. Less context switching. Less manual work. More time actually thinking about the prospect and the message. Feels less like juggling tools and being a full-time tabs manager lol and more like having a GTM assistant sitting beside you while you prospect. What AI workflow or integration has genuinely changed the way you work lately? Or at least reduced the number of tabs you have open 😂 #FullEnrichPartner