How Top Reps Run Outbound in 2026

James Buckley: 00:00

Welcome back, everybody, to the Sell Better Daily Sales Show. We give you daily sales advice to help you sell better. I'm gonna launch this. question in the room. Who are you? What do you do? That's what we would like to know. Today, we are here to talk about how top reps are running outbound in 2026, and there is a lot of heat around this topic right now, because so many things have changed. I have a legend of Sell Better in the room with me. This is, I think, is this your third or fourth appearance with us? Every time it's fire.

Shara Davoodi: 00:28

I'm losing track, let's go, let's go third. Let's see…

James Buckley: 00:31

You're gonna say third, I think it's fourth, we'll confirm, we'll confirm. But this is Shara Davoodi, he has been on my show several times. Him and I have great energy together. He is director of sales over at our friends at Nooks. Shara, welcome back to the show. I'm excited to hear what you have to say today. Scan this QR code. You guys know how we do. Find out why we do this show. It's for you, the people on the front lines, and the leaders that are responsible for your success. Right? Explore the YouTube channel. Go over there and subscribe. Will Aitken doing a great job running our YouTube channel. You get a lot of great tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways there. Big thanks to our partners, our friends over at Nooks, doing an incredible thing for callers all over the world. Partners like you make this show what it is. I love to drop fire for everybody that's in the chat, so if you're tuning in, pay attention to the chat, and if you're listening to the podcast, make sure you check out the show notes. If you guys want to see how the fastest growing outbound teams are turning LinkedIn into Pipeline.

James Buckley: 01:24

Join Nooks for this very live session, where they break down exact workflows, messaging, and AI-powered outreach strategies that their team is using every day to create more conversations and more revenue. I'm gonna drop the link in the chat so you can all sign up for this other live event. It's not one of these, but it's a live event, and you want to be there. And then, of course, the dominant audience member, check out the poll, here it goes. Look at that. SDRs and AEs? Heavy. Heavy in the room. Shout out to the 23% leaders coming to the show. We need more folks like you that do change, induce change. In your businesses. And then frontline managers, the folks doing the job.

James Buckley: 01:59

the folks that make the motivation. If you are an account executive, one of the 32% that is in the room, this one is for you. You're being asked to prospect more than ever. So we're gonna give you Ryan Goetz's signal-based approach. This helped him hit 243% quota in Q1 of this year by ditching his checklist and just focusing only on high-intent prospects. If you want to learn how. There's a link in the chat. Now, 26% of you are SDRs in the room. I want to give you the exact playbook behind Ryan Goetz's $3 million in pipeline that he was able to generate. Grab these guides, okay? We give you guys this stuff so that you can take it, you can use it, ingest it, start putting it into practice right away. There's a reason that we do it, so go grab it. Shout out to Nooks for providing great resources for our audience. Best audience in the world. Here's what you're gonna get from Shara today. What does modern outbound even look like?

James Buckley: 02:52

In 2026, who knows? There's no silver bullets, right? We're all learning together. I think I've said that publicly a few times now. And then, of course, multi-threading and multi-deal management, this can get very frustrating. Multi-channel approaches. how do we manage it all and stay coordinated? And then I don't think we can do a single show in 2026 without talking about where AI fits into all of this. So there it is. Let's keep going and talk about this opening piece. There's a bottleneck, and something has changed over the last, I'm gonna be generous and say year, but it's probably more like 3 months. Shara, talk to me a little bit about what we've got going on here with this image. What does this represent to you?

Shara Davoodi: 03:34

Yeah, I think what we're trying to show here is that the bottleneck has definitely changed, right? It's shifted. It used to be a lot about, like, activity, how many volume metrics are you putting up, how many dials are you doing per day, how many emails can I send, but now we've seen it totally shift to a few things, such as who to reach out to, why you're reaching out to them, and then what the heck do we say when we do get connected, right? And when you get the opportunity.

James Buckley: 03:58

Is anybody shocked? Drop a 1 in the chat if you're still kind of like, oh shit, when somebody answers the phone, I feel like… I still am, like, a little bit shocked that somebody answered the phone. But, you know, my wife is a leader at her organization, she's someone I always admire, and and I look up to professionally, and she told me something really interesting. I can't have the… I can't have the feature on. That says, block unknown callers. I have too many important unknown callers coming my way. So we can't use that as a crutch to not be dialing. It's interesting that this shift has taken place from, like, volume to quality. Here's what I'm seeing on my end. I'm getting far less messages that are, like, canned messages. I'm getting more like, I saw this, and I noticed that, and I liked what you said here, and those are getting my attention much more. Are you seeing the same shift?

Shara Davoodi: 04:50

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. The biggest thing that I would say also is, you know, once you're on the call, it's mainly about, like. Logging things too, and then remembering to go back to it, but in general, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

James Buckley: 05:04

What do you see reps missing when it comes to actually using the information that's out there? Because there's a ton of things coming at us right now, and I think It's not like a lot of data exists that we don't have access to.

Shara Davoodi: 05:18

No, for sure, like, there's a lot. There's a lot of data out there, there's a lot to, like, sift through and, like, understanding why you're reaching out to it, but I think the most important thing is, you know, usually when you're on a call, you learn something, but do reps actually properly log it back, right? Like, there's a lot of tools out there that help you remember the next time that you're reaching out, but in general, it's just… it's not a matter of lack of information, it's just more of…reaching for that information when you need it, so that's what I see a lot of times people miss here, yeah.

James Buckley: 05:48

You know, I'm always looking for continuity in my messaging threads, and I feel like we jump from thing to thing quite a bit. So, you know, like when you watch a movie, and something happens in the movie that's completely out of context, and it, like, throws your focus, you're like, wait. That doesn't make sense, that car shouldn't be there, or something to that end, right? Whatever the disruption is, that's how I feel when we start a new thread about, like, a new value prop. Too soon.

Shara Davoodi: 06:15

Yep.

James Buckley: 06:16

Yeah, yeah. Alright, so I'm gonna launch this right now, see what you got here. I wanna know, because we're gonna talk about a lot of challenges today that you guys might be dealing with. So, what's the biggest challenge for you right now? Some people are really heavy on volume, but they're not getting a lot. Other folks are, like, reaching out to several people, and it's hard to keep track of it all, and how do I do it right and efficiently? So I'm gonna keep that going. Shara, off the path here, if you had a tip for somebody that was a new caller today. And that was the channel that they were given. that they had to start with. What's, like, the number one thing you would tell them to be effective in 2026?

Shara Davoodi: 06:58

Yeah, we listen to a ton of calls. I think, the number one thing that I…see is people… you want to assume it's the right person when you're calling them, right? Like, rather than confirming. Now, this… people go both ways here, but it's as simple as just assuming you're talking to the right person. If it's not, they will correct you. So that gives you the confidence of, like, just jumping into why you're calling them. Yeah, the value of that.

James Buckley: 07:21

That's pretty good. You know, I do this thing where if the name of the person that I'm calling on my record is Timothy, my opener is, hey, is this Tim? Do you go by Tim? Is it okay if I call you Tim? And I'm amazed at how many people are like, Timothy is fine. And you're like, alright, Timothy, and you go right into the call. It's very, like, disarming, right? And I think it kind of puts a human touch… what do you think about that opener?

Shara Davoodi: 07:45

Yeah, no, I love it. Like, look, you gotta do what works for you. I think this is the one thing that you do a great job here, James, is we're giving you guys tools, but you have to try what works for you. I'll never forget when the first time my wife heard me cold call, she was like, dude, take a damn breath, like, calm down, like… but it's because I was just, like, going non-stop, like, super fast, and so it's just a matter of, like, doing it enough to, like, have the confidence, and then finding your own voice, I think it's a big thing, yeah.

James Buckley: 08:12

Yeah, yeah, everybody says that I talk fast on the show, and I feel like I… I feel like I actually slow down when I start calling. It's weird, but I… I don't know that I'm the same persona on the show that I am on the phone, even though I… I'm the same persona, right? It's just a different speed of persona, maybe? Yeah, yeah. Alright, cool, look at these results right here, check it out. Everybody's on the volume play. Look at that, 61% of our voters are on the volume play, but not seeing replies. Okay, same question. If we've got a ton of volume and they're sending, I think that's an indication that they're DMing and they're using email mostly, right? Written word. You know, since we're talking about how to run an outbound successfully in 2026, Why don't you think… what's the top reason people don't get replies when they're sending high volume?

Shara Davoodi: 08:55

I would assume the message is not relevant. I would also assume, like, taking it to the very first step, is your message even landing if it's an email in their inbox, right? Like, is it spam? Is it automatic? Like, the protection, and it's getting better and better, so it's even more important to do multi-channel, more important to pepper it with a call, pepper it with a LinkedIn connect, hell, even just, like, if there's in-person stuff, like, go talk to people. If you can. So, the more the merrier in terms of multi-channel, yeah.

James Buckley: 09:25

I like that. Alright, drop the number of years you've been in sales in the chat, because we're gonna talk about something that might hit some nerves for some veterans. I got 7, I got 4, I got a 10-year veteran. Chris, what's poppin'? Was that a 6 or 7, or a 67? Because, geez, man. Alright, 2-year, 15-year… okay, so we got some good, we got some heavy-hitting veterans up in here. I want to talk about old habits that die hard, and that are hard to kill. Alright, so these are old habits that I think we can let go of. Talk to me a little bit about why these are dying or have died, and what some of the best tactics are to not have this creeping into your pipeline.

Shara Davoodi: 10:09

Yeah, I mean, I would just… look, you have to anchor on… first of all, personalization. I think everyone's like, oh, wow, like, you gotta get as personal as you can. I don't think so. I think you have to provide value. I have to… you have to make assumptions, and one thing that, if you guys are selling to sales leaders, or just leaders in general, making assumptions is not bad. I think it gives them a chance to correct you, and if you get it right, hell, you get even more kudos for it. Like, putting two and two together. But, like, spray and paint dialing, for sure, that's done. Mass emails, I think that's done. And I'm gonna go on a little bit of a…kind of, like, not-so-popular thing here. I think local dialing, where you match it to the exact area code of the person that you're calling, 5 years ago was the sexiest thing. Today, I don't think it's as, effective, because people know it's a sales call.

James Buckley: 10:56

Alright, we're gonna park it right there for a second. I want the opinion in the chat. First of all, put a 1 in the chat if you use a local dialer, meaning you're calling Canada, but it comes up a local number. Right? Put a 2 in the chat if you're just dialing straight from your number. I just want to identify, like, who's dialing from where. Okay, we got one, we got one, a lot of people using local presence. A lot of ones! Most people… okay, I have more twos than ones, but I'm surprised at all the people that are still calling through a local presence right now. Okay, Shara, defend your position. Why is this not a good thing in the modern world?

Shara Davoodi: 11:34

Yeah, first of all, there's a caveat here. There are multiple… so when I say local dialing, I just mean when you just connected to the, like, same area code as the person. Little bit of a shameless plug here, in Nooks, we have what's called local presence, if you will, where you're able to see what area code that prospect picks up, and then match to that. So it's a little bit nuanced here, but what I'm talking about is just matching it straight to the area code that they have.

James Buckley: 12:02

I've actually gotten responses that have been like, I thought you were my kid's school, and that was a negative start.

Shara Davoodi: 12:08

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. But if you are using it, I think, and someone has that reaction of, like, oh man, I thought you were my kid's school, it's always good to just be upfront, transparent, and tell the truth, like, hey, we're using a dialing system. I think that's a very, noble way of, like, getting past it as well. Yeah.

James Buckley: 12:25

Alright, that's fair, that's fair. I saw enough ones in there that I feel like some folks might be looking at, what are we doing? Are we local dialing? Are we local presence? Which one are we? So that's good, a little education for everybody there, slightly different. Let's talk a little bit about the, the one that bothers me most, and I think you mentioned it, you alluded to it earlier. When you first started calling, you would talk really fast and you wouldn't take a breath. I have gotten… I'm a cold caller, but I also take cold calls, and I will get a cold call, and somebody will say, is this James? And they'll start off strong with that opener, and I'll say, yes, how can I help you? And then they will talk for 5 minutes. take no breath whatsoever, and I think I get about 1 minute in before I'm like, hey, hey, hey, stop! I'm, like, waving my arms at my phone, going, stop this madness. I'm curious, Shara, how far do you get into these conversations before you're done? Is it a quick…Quick convo, and then you stop and take a breath so they can talk? Or how do you earn that time?

Shara Davoodi: 13:19

Yeah, I mean, look, like, one or two sentences in, it's great to get a pulse check, right? And the whole idea here is jumping in into the conversation, like I mentioned, but what you say in those first few lines are the most important things, right? Do you get a chance to earn an extra 30 seconds? Is this relevant to, you know, you could ask open-ended questions there. But yeah, to your point, being calm, having them hear you, actually what you're saying, goes a long way in terms of getting a yes-no, yeah.

James Buckley: 13:48

And what about this motion that we've all been conditioned to have, where all of our cold emails and our cold DMs and our cold calls begin with this intro that no one asked for? How do we eliminate this old habit? I think somewhere along the line, a generation of salespeople was taught that this is how every sales conversation begins.

Shara Davoodi: 14:09

Yeah.

James Buckley: 14:10

And it's so hard to break that habit. How would you recommend people go about it?

Shara Davoodi: 14:15

Yeah, I would say part of it when you're cold calling is, like, the law, in the sense of, like, TCPA, of, like, naming yourself, why you're reaching out. There are some aspects of that, but I think what I'm hearing you say is, like, jumping into the value, like, what the hell's the reason of you reaching out, right? Like, you have to provide that, very, very early up front to earn more time. So, yeah, the less words, especially early on, I typically just say, Jim. And then, like, jump into the value, like, whatever it is, like, why you're reaching out, know who I am. If you wanted to look me up, you could click on my LinkedIn link on the bottom, you know what I mean? So, that's all wasted space, yeah.

James Buckley: 14:51

I agree with you, and I feel the same way about the email that starts with my name's this. Now, keep in mind, lots of automated emails go out in my name that say, I'm James. Like, we're all using automation, we're all using AI to do things. I'm not saying that there's not a place for that. I'm saying in your…Quality outreach, there's no place for it. You don't need to introduce yourself if it's in your signature, right? Just like, they don't care who you are if you're calling.

Shara Davoodi: 15:18

Exactly.

James Buckley: 15:18

You can skip that part. They'll ask you, oh, sorry, who's this? And then you've earned the right to give them your name, right? I think I've said that a couple of times. Here's my next question for everybody, and this is the channel question. Which channel is earning you the most responses right now? A lot of people agreed, 61%, I think, said they were sending messaging in a ton, so that means it's probably gonna be mostly email and DMs, I would imagine, but I'm noticing a lack in voice notes right now. I don't see voice notes getting any votes. Somebody jump in there and represent voice notes, yo! Do you think voice notes are dying, Shara? Or do you get a lot of voice notes?

Shara Davoodi: 15:54

You know, like, when you're sending it, it's cool, but on the receiving end, you actually… it's hard, because you have to stop everything else and listen to the voice note. So one thing that… I forgot who mentioned it, they send the voice note, and then they send the text of what the voice note said as well, which is interesting. That's something that I've heard, yeah.

James Buckley: 16:13

Okay, so, this is interesting. Melissa Ingraham, I think I'm… or Ingram, I think I'm saying her name correctly, forgive me if I butchered it. Might have got it right the second time. She says, I never get voicemails, and I don't think we're talking about voicemails here. Voicemails are different, right? That's call stuff. I'm talking about voice notes on LinkedIn, or in a text message, or even in, like, Facebook. You can send voice notes on almost every social media platform. At this point in DMs. So, why don't you talk a little bit about voicemails for Melissa there? Are you leaving voicemails right now? Is that part of your flow in 2026?

Shara Davoodi: 16:45

Oh, 100%. If that was to me, sorry, I didn't catch that, but yes.

James Buckley: 16:48

Oh, no, it was in the chat, I just wanted to ask you for Melissa.

Shara Davoodi: 16:51

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

James Buckley: 16:54

So you are leaving voicemails as often as possible.

Shara Davoodi: 16:56

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I think your voicemail needs to point to the next step in your sequence. That's something that I've always, like, led by, is, like. well, I'm sure we're gonna get into here next, but, your voicemail's just another chance to get, like, a transcription shown up on the person's cell phone of, like, who's reaching out, right, and pointing them to the next step, be it an email, a LinkedIn message, whatever you're doing next. Yeah.

James Buckley: 17:18

Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm a voice note person, but I typically don't leave my phone number. That's the thing that I… I don't do. I will avoid leaving my phone number in almost every voicemail, because I don't think people really listen to voice…mails and call you back. My phone… I leave a lot of voicemails, and my phone is almost never ringing off the hook. You know, nobody's calling me back, but I do get a lot of emails back that say I got your voicemail, which is nice!

Shara Davoodi: 17:43

There you go.

James Buckley: 17:44

Those of you that are out there, look at this, 37% of our audience cold calling, that's their dominant channel, getting the most responses from cold calling. Shout out to you, you guys have my heart, because that's… that's my thing, I will always cold call before I do anything, and that brings us very nicely to this flow. This is your flow for 2026. You feel like this is a 1-2-3. Is all this happening in the same day?

Shara Davoodi: 18:05

Yeah, for me, absolutely. 100%.

James Buckley: 18:07

5 minutes, right?

Shara Davoodi: 18:09

Yeah, yeah, right after each other. But you bring up, and I don't want to jump and steal your thunder here, but I love the flow of the 123 as well, yeah.

James Buckley: 18:18

I… this right here has been my go-to for a first touch for 15 years. Since I've… since I've been in sales, this has been… or at least, you know, doing…internet-based sales before I was door-to-door in B2B, but that's a little bit different, and door-to-door residential. But since I started doing this, you know, online, this has been a go-to for me for a long time. And I don't care which channel they…engage with me on, right? That doesn't matter to me, I'm… I'm waiting for the engagement.

Shara Davoodi: 18:47

Yep, no, 100%. And I think one thing to call out, and for everyone on this call here today, I would just, beg you, almost, to look at your sequences and look at what your step one is, because a lot of times what I see is the calls are buried into, like. step 3 or 4, so you have to do, like, so much work before… but if you just call them and you connect, like you guys said, your best channel is the calling, you no longer have to spend time, or extra time doing all the other work.

James Buckley: 19:13

Yeah. Yeah, and I'll say this, too, because, and this is a good question for you, look at all this, right? One day, I'm hitting these people in 5 minutes with all these channels. What actually looks like when a rep is using multiple channels for real intention versus what's just adding noise in our buyers' lives? How do we know?

Shara Davoodi: 19:33

Yeah, I mean, you know once you're getting responses, but I think in general, like, the one thing that I just want to call out, like. No doubt, meeting booked or, like, using the phones to, like, book meetings is the prime number and everything that we're trying to get to, but what I always teach our team, and one thing our team, and especially SDRs and AEs, do a great job here, is even if you learn one thing, right? Are they with a competitor? When their renewal is, they don't like a certain feature, hell, maybe you could tell your engineers to build that feature. Whatever the case is, even if you learn one thing. That is gold. That's what we're looking for. And that will help you guys the next time you reach out, or help you craft that email when you're reaching out, i.e, all back to providing value. So, yeah, that's how you know it's working, when you're getting answers, when you're able to provide a thesis, an assumption, and value.

James Buckley: 20:22

Value-led messaging has been a theme for many, many years, but I think it's becoming more and more prevalent now, as effective, as being effective ways. Somebody asked me, do I mention their number? Absolutely. Here's why, right? Most of the time, when you get a direct dial. You're gonna dial, but then you don't know, like, if you don't label it as a direct dial in your CRM, you know, your dialer or whatever, it'll just come back up, you don't know, right? So what I do is I'll shoot the email out after I dial, and if I get their voicemail and it's them, I know it's a direct line to them. Hey, you've reached Sherry, you know, I'm not available right now. That's a direct line to my Sherry person. So then I note that, and then what I do is send the email, and the email starts like this. Hey, Sherry, just dialed you at… and then I put their number. This is, like, a subtle way of them knowing, like, I've got your number. I'm going…

Shara Davoodi: 21:10

to keep…

James Buckley: 21:11

I, like, literally, I've got your number, I'm going to keep calling you, right? So you get that response to your…your email that says, got your voicemail. Right? Because I just left you a message at this number. It's a wonderful way, it's very organic, it doesn't feel like you're being, like, a pushy salesperson, and I think people drop their guard because you just became a human being.

Shara Davoodi: 21:32

Yeah. Yeah, and then what you just said there is, like, confirming that, hey, I have your number, I'm gonna try to reach out to you, if it's easier on email, just reply here. That's essentially what we're asking them to do, is to get back to you. Yeah.

James Buckley: 21:46

Yeah, and then, of course, that third touch is that LinkedIn touch, and I think this is the one, right? Because so many people live their lives on LinkedIn. And I think this tendency to see a notification that I got a connection request and swipe right and see who it is, that's very real, right? For those of you that are not paying attention to this in 2026, if you look at the amount of people you're reaching out to, look at the names of the people you're reaching out to in your sequences and the people that you're dialing. And then go to look at the people that viewed your LinkedIn profile. Guaranteed, you will see very similar names in those lists. That's an email. Thanks for coming by my profile. It's a connection request. Thanks for stopping by my profile, right? Nobody does this. You just became a human.

Shara Davoodi: 22:26

Yep. Yeah. We got, we got, we got a great question, regarding, regarding LinkedIn notes, whether sending it, like, blank or sending it with, like, a message. Man, this is like… same thing with local dialing, right? You're gonna hurt some feelings here, I think. On the receiving end, and I'm only speaking for myself, because I do get quite a few. I think… I think blank ones are the winner. But then you have to remember, once you're connected with them, to then go back and send a message. That's my personal take. Blank ones are the winner.

James Buckley: 22:59

I think that the moment, whether it's coming my way, or I'm sending it out. When it… when they accept, you give it a little time, and you send a voice note. And this… I think we play on people's curiosity very well with voice notes. My need to hit that play button and know what this person said to me is so great that I have to hit it. I don't care if I wait all day for it. Eventually, I'm gonna hit that play button and listen. Now, whether or not I respond is depending on the quality of the message, but…you know, that's a different story. I'm trying… I'm trying to express to you guys that sending a blank connection request to get that first-degree connection, yeah, it's a voice note in LinkedIn. If you don't know how to send one of those, all you do is open up the mobile app, go to your message.

James Buckley: 23:48

hit the button of the thread, and then right here, there's a little paperclip, and you can send a voice note, you can send a video on the right side there, and on the other side, if you're first degree, there's a little microphone. A little blue button that pops up. Just hold the button down and talk. Very difficult for people not to use this. They… yeah, exactly, Mac.

Shara Davoodi: 24:08

Yeah, yeah. I will say, practice with, like, send it to a loved one first, because the first time I did it, you… I don't know if it's changed, but when you… when you let go, it sends the message, so you don't get a chance to hear it. Has that changed, James?

James Buckley: 24:22

So, if you're holding it down… Yes, I love that we're having this conversation. If you're holding it down and you mess up, all you have to do is move your thumb up away from the button and let go, and then you start fresh.

Shara Davoodi: 24:33

See? We learn, we learn. Outbound 2026.

James Buckley: 24:36

Alright, let's keep going, we got so many good stuff here. Okay, so multi-channel, that's what we just covered, and now I want to talk about multi-threading. For those of you that are still with us in the chat here, how many people do you typically reach out to, or have to go through. to close a deal. Not to start a deal, to close a deal, right? So drop that in the chat, I'm interested in the numbers. 3 people, 2 to 3… if you're Enterprise, it's like 30, right?

Shara Davoodi: 25:03

Oh man, yeah.

James Buckley: 25:04

We got 5 to 6. Emily McCleary, dropping 5 to 6. 945,000? Yeah, 9 million. That's good, that's good. Okay, talk to me about this one, because I think this one is one that we all struggle with. There's a lot of people that we should be reaching out to. When you have 6 to 10 stakeholders per deal at that, like, mid-market enterprise level, what happens when a rep is only talking to, like, 1 or 2 people? Who gets ignored most often?

Shara Davoodi: 25:32

Yeah, no, I love this. This is so important, especially in today's age. There's more people, in the buying cycle, but multi-threading is the name of the game. Like, we've done… we do it here at Nooks, where not only the reps reach out, but managers. Rep's managers reach out to other managers if that rep hasn't talked to them. So I think it alleviates the pressure of the rep having to always, like, reach out. So…Yeah, we're all aligned here, we all work together, even our… Dan, our CEO, sends emails, Hannah, our CRO, Justin, our VP, so the more that we get our leadership multi-threaded with theirs, the better the deal is.

James Buckley: 26:12

I will tell you that I think that's the secret hack to getting early momentum in your deals. I work with Chris Merrill. Chris Merrill's our CEO, our founder. Him and I work very closely on the sales side together. The first call that I have with people, if he's available, him and I will tag-team that, high-five somebody, and really build a strong foundational relationship with them. This creates momentum in ways that you can't imagine. These people talk at a different level than you do as an SDR, as an AE. They speak at a higher level. It's not necessarily like thinking about, oh, I know just as much as they're. It's not like that. It's just the way they communicate. is very different than the way a salesperson communicates with their prospect. They communicate as peers. That's totally different. That's why you bring leadership into that deal. Love that. And you said you train your teams to have mutual action plans. This is an enormous…for anybody that's working deals, full cycle. So talk to me about mutual action plans.

Shara Davoodi: 27:11

Yeah, mutual action plans, Hannah, our CRO, she, like, really institutionalized this at Nooks, but essentially, you know, you… you work with not only the prospect, of, like, hey, dates and timelines, hey, you're doing this, I'm doing this, it's… it's together, right? It's a mutual action plan to get to the end goal, so you're kind of working backwards. But on top of that, we also internally, the internal mutual action plan literally has an org chart for the reps to fill out, and it points out, like, hey, how far up are you? Are you above the line, below the line, second line? Do their leaders know that you're doing this, right? And of course, there's a ton of great sales methodologies out there, like MEDDPICC, Medic, Challenger, you know, there's so many, right?

James Buckley: 27:52

Oh, yeah.

Shara Davoodi: 27:53

But just… the whole point is that you're making sure that you're speaking with, the correct people to keep the deal moving forward, yeah.

James Buckley: 28:01

I think we think we're moving for… okay, here's a good question. I want to say this to y'all, and it's going to mess with your brain a little bit, but I don't want to throw you off too much. Title doesn't always equal power.

Shara Davoodi: 28:12

Hmm.

James Buckley: 28:13

Title doesn't always equal power. Anybody ever reach out to a manager or director that talked a big game, and then it turned out they needed approval from above to buy something? I better see everybody hitting the chat right now, going, oh my god, this happens to me every day, right? Titles sometimes can be a little deceiving. Let's talk about titles for a minute. Shara, you and I agreed, there's one title in particular that is an upcoming title. Let's talk about RevOps, and how 2026 is the year of RevOps as my decision maker.

Shara Davoodi: 28:47

There you go.

James Buckley: 28:48

Yeah.

Shara Davoodi: 28:48

Yeah, look, RevOps in general is becoming more and more important in every deal. CEOs, companies, they're leaning on RevOps. The entire org is essentially run on RevOps. So, absolutely, yeah, we keep seeing that pop up.

James Buckley: 29:02

This is an off-the-beat path here. RevOps being one of the dominant players in the game right now, and we talked about 6 to 10 people. How do we protect our deal? with multiple stakeholders, some of which we have limited access to. In 2026, Everyone has an agenda, a problem they're trying to solve, and it impacts them professionally and personally. With 6 to 10 decision makers, you can bet all of those agendas probably gonna collide, a couple of them at least. How do we protect our deals in those situations?

Shara Davoodi: 29:35

Yeah, you know, you're really leaning on your champions and finding out, like, what is most important in the org. Most of the time, and it's no secret here, revenue, right? Like, I think that's the biggest indicator in terms of, like, even pain funneling when you're talking to your people. There's technical pain, there's business pain, there's personal pain. Yeah, you have to get to all of that, but the meatiest part is business pain, and understanding, does your initiative help them get to whatever, you know, that revenue goal is, and constantly tying that back to them, and earning time, for them to introduce you to the right people, and yeah, you gotta help them sell it internally as well.

James Buckley: 30:15

arming your…champions, your advocates, to sell internally effectively is a challenge for sellers unto itself. You're almost working two pipelines in that one deal. One pipeline is an educational pipeline for your champion. And the other pipeline is the actual signer being worked on in the background, which you have very little control over. That's a nerve-wracking scenario for anybody, a recipe for stress and anxiety. But you said something really interesting there. You said, we have to know what's important and work with our champions. I think some people, especially some of the veterans in the room, will understand there's a difference in how we speak to our veterans, our champions, versus how we speak to our economic buyers. Let's talk a little bit about that.

Shara Davoodi: 30:58

Yeah, yeah, I sprinkled this earlier. I think, business pain, right? Like, the entire business compared to personal pain. A lot of times. as mentioned, it comes down to ROI again, but, you know, why are we even meeting in the first place? Because the better the business does, the better this initiative goes. Like, your champion gets promoted, or gets a new job, or it looks good for them, so that's their, like, personal win. But for me, there… again, as I mentioned, there's surface-level stuff, like. The technical pain, the frontline managers, like, in terms of what their pains are. But above all metrics, it's ROI. So if you can speak to that, if you could arm your manager to then go to the executive and, like, share, hey, these are the outcomes that we're pushing towards. Of course, cost is a big one there as well. That'll just keep helping your deal move forward, throughout it, yeah.

James Buckley: 31:51

I think if we can get to numbers quickly, when we have a lot of stakeholders in the deal at the table, things get much easier. I don't know if anybody's ever read Todd Caponi's The Transparency Sale? Right? It's a great sales book, if you've never seen it or heard of it, go pick it up. This is about just being upfront and honest and transparent with every move you're about to make. I think I watched a movie once called Seven Pounds, it had Will Smith in it, and he did this thing at the beginning of the movie where he says, you tell him what you're gonna tell him, then you tell him, and then you tell him what you told him. Right? And this is something that rings true for a lot of salespeople, right? We have to consistently reinforce our ideas with our buyers, and get them to get that buy-in. What is the difference in features, outcomes, and impact

James Buckley: 32:38

when we're using… when we're on a call with all three of these individuals. I doubt a frontline person is gonna end up on the decision-making call with the economic buyer, but sometimes it is a group effort. Do we mix it up? Do we talk about everything at the same time? Is it separate email threads afterwards? What's the process look like?

Shara Davoodi: 32:55

Yeah, no, it's definitely not all at once. I think you have to speak to your audience that's in the room 100%, in terms of why they should care, what's important for them. You know, frontline, frontline, it's… it's generally, like, like the picture shows here. The features, the, like, bells and whistles, like, their day-to-day, helping them have, like, better days, right? Easier way to prospect, if you will. Manager cares about the outcome, and then executives cares about the numbers, if you will, but it's all tied in together, too, so…The conversation is different based on, kind of, who's in the room, for sure, yeah.

James Buckley: 33:29

My experience has always taught me, and this is John Barrows yelling in my brain, if you talk about features and functions, you're going to get connected with people that deal with features and functions. If you talk about economic impact, or business impact. you're gonna end up getting pushed upwards to the people that care about the business impact. Y'all, you want to be pushed upwards. Right? Features and functions, that's a side order. That's not the… that's the stuff that earns us the conversation, but then we have to take that conversation and make it about business impact. So, I just wanted to point that out, because There's a lot there, right? A lot to unpack. We talk to people very differently. Let's answer a couple questions. We've got a couple good questions here, and I don't want to leave them out. For those of you that put questions in the chat earlier, please drop them in the Q&A, because they do get buried in the chat. This one is from Julie Rasmussen, and she says, are you primarily calling cell phones or calling their business? This is a good one to unpack a little bit. What do you think, Shahara? What's working in 2026?

Shara Davoodi: 34:25

For our team, we are cell phone heavy, if we have the cell phone number. Absolutely. That's… you move that phone field to number one. And, you know, there's a ton of great data providers. I'm hearing less and less, where'd you get my number from? From prospects, so I just want to give you guys more conviction out there, like, it's still happening, but it's… there's so many ways of getting people's numbers right. Like, we use ZoomInfo, we use whatever the data provider is.

James Buckley: 34:52

It's 2026, and everything that you've ever done in your life is captured online somewhere, and that's, you know, that's… are you living under a rock? Don't say these things, I'm just making a joke. My opinion is call both. I think you should call both, and I think the more times that somebody recognizes that you're trying to reach them. the more opportunities you're gonna have for them to think one day, fine, I'll call this person back. Even if they do it with some level of, like, contentment. That's okay. You have to respond positively when they call you. Here's a tip. If you have a direct line, save it as a phone number in your phone. That way, when they do call you, you can pick it up and go, Tom, what's happening? Great to hear back from you, instead of scrambling through your CRM trying to figure out who belongs to this phone number.

James Buckley: 35:36

I know that for some of you, you're like, I don't want to store all those contacts in your phone. You might think twice when you start closing $50,000 and $250,000 deals, because you knew exactly who that was, and had all the context for the conversation right away. So, if you have a direct line, label it as a direct line, save it in your phone, answer using their name, this goes a long way. Julie, great question right there, I really appreciate that. This one comes from Lori Reynolds. She says she struggles with LinkedIn messaging. You got some tips for LinkedIn messaging?

Shara Davoodi: 36:07

Man, it's so vague, right? It depends on what you're trying to do, the message, are you trying to book a meeting, just trying to say hi, just trying to get a connect? I would just say…I love the no-ask stuff. I love the earning the time. Like, it takes… it's a relationship. I… I'm on the side of, like, being authentic in the sense of, like. sharing your perspective, telling them why you're even reaching out in the first place, but also realizing, like, no one owes you an answer. That's the other thing, too. I think we get so caught up of, like, oh, it's personal, they don't want to answer me or whatnot, but just, like. do your best, reach out, try to find something that you like that they said, look at their other posts, do you agree with it, do you not agree with it, teach them something, share something, and then I think that'll spark some good replies. Yeah.

James Buckley: 36:50

That's not bad, that's not bad. Okay, Lori, here's my 10 cents. Go engage outside of the DM box a couple of times. Go to their posts, if they're active. This works specifically if they're active. If they haven't posted since 2016, you're wasting your time on LinkedIn anyway, right? But if you go and they're active, if they've posted in the last couple weeks, leave a thoughtful message. A thoughtful comment, right? Hey, this is great, I like this because… it can't just be, like, great pic, nice post, fantastic job, these are meaningless. But if you leave something meaningful, and then, next day, a couple hours later, send the DM, That says, hey, I really enjoyed that post. I'd like to talk with you about it because you said this. This is a person that's paying attention. Right? So, Lori, I would recommend that you be as personalized as possible, but also diversify. If you're gonna be really direct in the first message, be more explicit with why in the second.

James Buckley: 37:47

Then, on the third, send a voice note instead of the written word, right? This kind of keeps it fresh and new and exciting for your new connection, instead of just the same old ask. Can I have 15 minutes of your time? That sounds like, can I sell you something? And nobody wants that.

Shara Davoodi: 38:03

James, I actually… I think it was the Netflix CEO who was like, we see all the comments. We see all the thoughtful comments. We see, as leaders, like, we see everything, so keep it up. I was like, oh, wow, okay. They might not reply, but they see it.

James Buckley: 38:16

Just because they're not calling you back saying, we want your money, or we want to sell this to you, or we want everything from you, doesn't mean that they're not seeing it, right? And no answer does not mean no action. Alright, let's talk about signals. That's the big… that's the big thing we've been talking about for probably the better part of 5 years, signals. But what signals actually work has kind of shifted a little bit with the AI push, and all the different tech that's out there, and all the different solutions that are out there for us to choose from. So let's talk about what noise looks like for our buyers, and what real signals look like for a minute, Shara.

Shara Davoodi: 38:51

Yeah, right on. I love signals, right? Like, I think the idea of signals, especially when it first happened, it makes a lot of sense, but, like, you have to action on it, and it needs to be, again, relevant, so…Funding… funding is an interesting one. You know, back…Usually, when funding news is released, it's already been months or weeks that they've had that money, and, you know, they've already known. It's just, like, marketing timeline of when they're announcing it, so…

James Buckley: 39:16

Yeah.

Shara Davoodi: 39:16

So, yeah, I would always, like, reverse it. Like, hey. great that you got that funding, but I bet your goals went up now, right? And, like, expectations went up even higher to do even better. So, not reaching out about, like, oh, the $70 million, but rather the work that needs to happen now, I think that's how you earn, some more… some more replies there.

James Buckley: 39:37

That's pretty good. I'll tag on to that with the new hire one, and this is a funny one, right? Because we see somebody that just changed their title to VP of Sales, or VP of whatever, and we think to ourselves, well, that person just got promoted. So we start sending messages that says, congratulations on your recent promotion. Well, if you know anything about being promoted into leadership, anything manager and above, you know that you can't just change your title right away. You can't. If you do, every salesperson that sells to that persona is coming at you full force, and it's impossible. to deal with all that noise while you're trying to onboard as a new leader. Chances are good, they were promoted 6 months ago, but they didn't change their title till just now. So you're already outdated, and it kind of feels fake and authentic. And inauthentic, rather.

James Buckley: 40:27

Right? So, I love that. That's good. I think the one that stands out to me most is the outbound activity. Have I been reaching out, and what's their level of activity? Are they opening my emails? Have I been able to have at least one conversation with somebody? If I can do that, I feel like that signal is enough for me to ride that wave all the way to a real convo.

Shara Davoodi: 40:46

Yeah. Yeah, and look, like, signals are specific to your ICP, your work, what you're selling. For us at Nooks, we reach a lot of sales leaders, SDR leaders, so knowing, like, job postings on the exact job posting, it says. what tech they're using, how many calls they're expected to make, so that's a great signal for our team reaching out and connecting, and confirming, those, right? Like. First-party signals are amazing, at that, yeah.

James Buckley: 41:11

Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna use funding, if your leadership is forcing you to use funding, which I know of you probably… a lot of you probably have that problem. Right? Then I would do it like John Barrows does it, and say, congratulations on the funding, I hope it means something for you personally and professionally. Right? And, like, that… what does it mean for you personally and professionally, right? A lot of people will respond to that with what it means to them personally, and that's… you're touching a nerve right there. This is a great question from Mike Klein. He says, when you leave a voice note on LinkedIn, what's your message? Sales-based or relationship-based? Shara, you send voice notes. What do yours sound like? I'll do one.

Shara Davoodi: 41:47

Mine are more relationship-based today, if I'm being honest, because…Yeah, in terms of, like, selling straight deals, I now lead teams, so it's just shifted a little bit, but it's more relationship-based, and, like, we mentioned, multi… multitasking, multi-threading in. I'm generally reaching out to other leaders, that my AE is, like, selling to, essentially, yeah.

James Buckley: 42:08

Not bad, not bad. Mike, these days, I am based on, like, new launches, new products being released, new features being released, that's my main trigger, so my voice note sounds like this. What's up, Mike? I saw that you released Demo Plus, and that's a very interesting platform. I love things that help people do better demos. I'd love to learn more about your product. Let me know when you get some time to chat. I think it could be really good for our audience. And that's how I say it. And that's it. It's very like, I saw you do this thing, I'd like to learn more about it, it might be good for the people I present stuff to, let's chat. So it's sort of both. It's very sales, but it's also very relationship, very casual, right? I'm not saying, let me sell you something. That's the thing we want to avoid. Last question here, we need a quick one. What is an example of a LinkedIn voice note? Oh, wait.

James Buckley: 42:56

Yeah, what's an example of a LinkedIn voice note that you would sound like? We just did that one, right? So, two different voice… I want to talk a little bit about what you've got going on in the next coming days. What's on your agenda while we wrap up here? Great questions from Cody and from Mike. Thank you very much.

Shara Davoodi: 43:13

That was for me specifically.

James Buckley: 43:14

Yeah, what do you got going on in the next couple of days?

Shara Davoodi: 43:16

Oh, yeah, nothing too crazy. I'm just excited about Nooks in general. We've rolled out our sales engagement platform piece of this, so in terms of…Helping teams make this more efficient, make the emails easier, make the calls easier, help you guys have more conversations. If you guys are using Nooks today, ask your leaders, like, hey, can we look at the sales engagement platform if you don't have it? And if you're not on us, give us a call. We'll definitely help you guys crush it. Yeah.

James Buckley: 43:44

Oh man, every time you come on the show, you drop some good fire. I appreciate everybody coming and spending time with me and Shara today. Check this out, sellbetter.xyz, that's what we're at. Learn while we're doing this. You're all gonna get a survey. Let us know what you liked about this show, what you want to see more of. Once again, thank you to our partners over at Nooks for making this possible. We will see you guys right back here tomorrow with another stellar episode of Sell Better. Go get them, everybody!