The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 26 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Jiménez: Founders, not the head of sales, must build initial sales playbooks
“I think the founders are the right folks to create it for a few reasons.”
Jiménez: Early startups should hire junior sales talent over big tech logos
“So I'm a big believer in you can really do great things with maybe a more junior, perceived junior talent because of the creativity they can bring, and they don't have kind of a bias from a previous experience.”
Jiménez: Sales forecast inspections must happen in good quarters, not just bad
“So oftentimes you'll see like the forecast inspection happens when you're having a down quarter forecast inspection needs to happen In the best of quarters, because if you just only pivot to when you're down, then it's in a fear based moment and you're making …”
Lori Jiménez: Top Sales Performers Usually Learn to Love Sales Over Time
“Honestly, I think it's the latter. And I say that even though that wasn't my experience, because I think there's a perception sometimes about sales, that it is just this like kind of robotic, anyone can do it, go and run a script. And there's not a lot of huma…”
Jiménez: Google's size prevents individual execution without broad stakeholder partnerships
“You can't do anything on your own at Google. It is so big. It's so complex. There's so many layers and crossover of teams and initiatives and budgets and structures that you have to learn quickly that the stakeholder partnerships you make are critical to how y…”
Jiménez: Sales playbooks should act as guides, not rigid scripts
“A playbook should be a, think of it as a more of a GPS. So it doesn't have to be a script, like each step down to the minute detail. I'll think of it as a guide. So depending on where you are in a sales process where there it's very early and you're doing disc…”
Lori Jiménez: Founders should hire sales reps only after proving repeatability
“So I think it's that moment where you find a repeatable, you've got enough customers and you find enough of a repeatable process that can take your good work and grow it, you know, and take and get and have feedback.”
Jiménez: Startups should hire sales reps in batches, not individually
“I think you should hire more than one at a time for a few reasons. Less about the competition. I think they're, you know, that's kind of going to happen maybe naturally, but it's more about you can work. It's work for scale. I think if you're onboarding one pe…”
Jiménez: Excessive 'I' usage in sales candidate interviews is a red flag
“If you hear too many mentions of I mean, of course it's sales and you want folks to be proud of their performance, but if it's too much on just what they did independently, for me, that's a red flag because I think no one wins, you know, independently. It's a …”
Jiménez: Sales case studies should evaluate candidates on the hiring company
“I like putting in front of the candidate about the company they're gonna come join, not because I'm looking for like, The perfect answer, but more I like that they just do go and do homework. Like how are they curious? Like are they, it demonstrates if they're…”
Jiménez: Sales candidates focused solely on cash OTE lack startup staying power
“And if it comes down to just a dollars on OT, I'm always a little bit like, that's a little, it's not a full red flag depending on, you know, where the conversation goes, but it's something that I concerns me because that will come back You know, in the future…”
Jiménez: Inflated titles for early startup hires create future organizational problems
“It's a very individual conversation, but I also think it's important to keep in mind, and this is hard to do what you're setting up For will impact the future. So if you get too aggressive on title, then you're a couple of years down the road and your next per…”
Jiménez: Incentivize SDRs on sales stage progression to ensure high lead quality
“And I think the way to mitigate that is a few ways is having, you know, a qualification criteria that has to be met. So if it's a band, if it's a, you know, whatever the structure is that identifies kind of the core drivers of that call. But also I think what …”
Jiménez: Sales reps must generate a portion of their own pipeline
“But I do think it's very important for sellers to create
Some of their own pipeline. They're not fully responsible for it, but they have to have skin in the game on creating pipeline.”
Lori Jiménez: Lack of economic buyer access is top cause of deal delays
“So a lot of the core of that, like if it's A result of the salesperson's engagement. It's because there wasn't access to the economic buyer. That's usually like the number one part of medic that makes it fail is you're just not, you're not there.”
Jiménez: Multi-threading requires securing buy-in from primary champion first
“First you got to get the buy-in with the champion instead of like going around and trying to meet a bunch of people, you know, going on LinkedIn to figure out who else in this company do I know? It's like first get the buy-in from the champion of why, like it'…”
Jiménez: Traditional wining-and-dining enterprise sales is now purely additive to virtual selling
“I don't think it's fully dead. I mean, it was the play when I started. Like, that was it. You know, you flew out to Texas, you took them to the steakhouse, you did all that stuff, right? I think with COVID and realizing what we can do remote, that is Absolutel…”
Jiménez: Early-stage sales discounts must always be traded for references or referrals
“I think it's all about a trade-off. It's like, what are you demonstrating from a value trade for that? Is there something that, Hey, I'm going to give you this discount, but exchange for that especially in the early stages, I need references. You know, I need …”
Jiménez: Upfront agreements for customer testimonials must depend on proving value
“I think you have to, that's bold, but I think you have to and I'm a big fan mark, but you have to say there's a caveat around that. Like we've got to prove value. So we've got to prove what we've been telling you for whatever this selling motion period is. We'…”
Jiménez: Account executives should attend QBRs to show ongoing customer commitment
“I think the account executive needs to join those QBRs. They need to listen. They need to participate. They need to not be maybe the one driving the QBR that the customer success manager is leading, but they need to show up. And what that shows is like, I care…”
Jiménez: Use title-matching executive outreach to re-engage unresponsive accounts
“Go title match, go to their leader and try to get a call and kind of shake something loose that oftentimes can do it. Cause sometimes it's just the person below who doesn't have the time, right? So they just need someone to kind of bump it up on their priority…”
Jiménez: Sales deal reviews must identify process gaps, not be story time
“Also deal review should not be story time. I always say this. It's not your time to tell me a story like Don't say, oh, I met with this person who's connected to this person. I talked to this person. This is what we said. And they said this, I was like, no, I …”
Jiménez: Bad sales losses stem from poor customer discovery against competitors
“Bad reason loses. You didn't anticipate the competition and how they were engaged or how much the competition was positioning, like what really the customer cared about how the competition could answer that question and how we could answer that question. So it…”
Jiménez: Curiosity and active listening are key traits of great salespeople
“One of the most important characteristics, in my opinion, with a great salesperson is being curious. It's someone who can ask a question, who can ask the next question that's connected to that first question. Really listen to the first answer, not just for the…”
Jiménez: WorkRamp shares exemplar sales calls publicly in Slack
“So for example, with my current team, we do a lot of real listening of calls. Like we just, and we publicly in a Slack channel, mark them when they're perfect. And we say, this is a perfect call. And we want to highlight why this is perfect.”