Stuart Barnes

𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 2𝒙 𝑷𝒊𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑽𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 2𝒙 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒕𝒚 Pipeline velocity beats pipeline size. Yet most CROs still chase volume. More dials. More sequences. More “leads.” It looks busy. But velocity stalls. The RevOps operators who win? They treat velocity as a system: Unified data definitions Clean handoffs with exit criteria SLAs between marketing, SDRs, and AEs AI pilots that flag stuck deals When one client rebuilt their handoff framework, forecast error dropped 40%. Pipeline velocity doubled — without hiring a single SDR. More activity ≠ more revenue. The right activity, at the right time, with clean data = velocity. Audit → Realign → Scale. That’s the playbook. Where’s your biggest velocity drag today — activity, alignment, or data?

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Many of us in Enterprise sales have read the JOLT effect, very similar premise of leading with a provocative / Challenger point of view. And I've heard every excuse as to why an AE hasn't done this for a specific opportunity...most centre around how difficult it is to do it right, the work it involves...and all of that effort for an early stage lead doesn't feel worth it. Makes sense.   Cuvama have taken away that excuse! The 10-Ks, the investor reports, the press releases, Gong recordings, the email threads nobody re-reads, the notes from call one - what comes out is a compelling VALUE point of view on that prospect specifically, with the narrative and the numbers hypothesis already in it.....all delivered to your inbox when an opportunity moves stage. JOLT at scale!

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Prospecting at the enterprise level can feel like navigating a maze—it takes patience, insight, and the right data. In its beta so far, we’re seeing Sales Assistant change that. It helps sellers find the right people faster and build stronger relationships at scale, turning prospecting from a chore into something they actually enjoy. This is important for new logo acquisition AND for building new relationships required to close bigger deals in large existing customers. Just look at all the organizational change happening across most companies in the past 12 months alone. It's daunting to stay on top of it all. Experience it yourself—join the waitlist so your team is in next in line to get access: https://lnkd.in/gHP8Ct2s #WeHeartProspecting #SalesAssistant #SalesNavigator #LinkedIn Catherine,Alyssa,Erin,Hui Yen, Randy

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A channel platform has to be built with cloud commitments as the unit of record. This is because a Channel Partner's world isn't "I have a product and need buyers." It's "I have two thousand customers, five hundred of whom have signed multi-year cloud commitments they're going to under-spend, and three hundred ISVs who've authorised me to sell to them. Match them."  The inventory and orchestration of cloud marketplaces looks like a trading desk with some of these traits:- 1. An Authorisation register. Every resale authorisation extended to you, across AWS CPPO, Azure MPO and REO, Google RPOP (Resale & Private Offers from your strategic vendor partners).   2. A Commitment ledger. Your own data is the moat here that produces a meter for every customer; contract value, start date, anniversary, consumed to date, burn rate, projected forfeiture at expiry, and the drawdown cap. Three clouds, three sets of rules. 3. A Rules engine where each of the 3 major hyperscalers operate differently. AWS is architectural, where ISVs need the "Deployed on AWS" badge. Microsoft is commercial where you need to be IP co-sell and Azure benefit eligible which flows through to MACC decrement eligibility. Google seems to be procedural where their reps need to associate the purchase.  4. An Offer Factory. Generate, submit, amend, co-term, renew, across three clouds and three generations of offer machinery. A customer with fifteen million remaining commitment, seven months to anniversary, a known workload profile and a set of live authorisations, the system should return a ranked list: which ISV, which cloud, which offer structure, which payment schedule. What it does to burn. What margin it earns. What services attach. It needs to make sense of drawdown caps, eligibility, existing renewal dates so you can co-term, and consolidation opportunities where retiring an incumbent tool funds the new one through the commit. 5. A Reconciliation engine. AWS pays margin only, Google recognises topline, Microsoft pays the partner under a reseller-enabled offer. Three revenue recognition treatments for one commercial Cloud Marketplace motion. You probably need to pay your sales reps in advance if you want marketplace parity with traditional channel sales. In Cloud Marketplaces every offer produces an outcome, and after a couple of hundred of them you know which combinations of ISV, workload shape and commitment position actually convert, at what margin, with what services attach rate.  Omdia forecast that enterprise software sales through hyperscaler cloud marketplaces (AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud) would go from $30 billion in 2024 to $163 billion by 2030.  A lot of Marketplace Listing platforms seem to only prioritise the ISV tenant. Procurement intelligence platforms are on the buyer-side but they miss the critical Channel and Partner Economics behind most deals. Cloud commerce for Channel Partners is big business.

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Some weeks I feel like I’m living inside my calendar. Call after call. Meeting after meeting. Running, switching context, trying to stay present while silently worrying about the last conversation I still haven’t followed up on. And the truth is… most of us don’t fail in sales because we don’t know what to do. We fail because we don’t have the time or mental space to do it consistently. Here’s what research reminds us: • We spend close to 30 percent of our time in meetings • We forget 80 percent of what was discussed within days • Poor or delayed follow-up drops conversions by 25 percent • 42 percent of sales cycles drag longer than they should • And when teams use meeting intelligence properly, cycles shrink by 30 percent None of this surprised me. What surprised me was how normal we’ve all become to this chaos. Because the hardest part isn’t the meeting. It’s what happens after, when you're already in your next call, trying to remember what the buyer actually said, what mattered to them, what objections were unresolved, and what you promised to send "right after this meeting." This is the frustration that led me to build Skwill's Conversation Intelligence. Not as another note-taker. Not as a transcript machine. But as an AI assistant that quietly works behind the scenes, doing the work sellers never have time for: • Finding the next best sales actions • Picking up the buying signals you missed • Flagging risks before they turn into silence • Helping you follow up within hours, not days • Making sure every meeting actually moves the deal forward While you stay focused on the part only you can do — showing up with intent, building trust, and creating impact. If you want to see what this looks like on one of your existing calls, I’m happy to run a sample for you. No pitch. Just a small moment of clarity in a very noisy sales week.

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I’ve been reflecting on the evolution of the BDR role and the broader value this function delivers beyond first impressions and early-stage pipeline creation. In many organisations, BDRs are positioned as tactical executors, but what if we reframed them as a strategic engine for long-term revenue talent? “If we reconceptualise the BDR organisation not as an entry-level lead generation function, but as a high-impact talent incubator, how does that shift the way we design their training, compensation, enablement, and career architecture to consistently produce future top-performing Account Executives?” I’m a firm believer in building a strong “people pipeline”, and I’m interested in hearing how peers across the industry are thinking about the BDR journey as we look ahead to 2026. How are you shaping this role to drive both immediate revenue impact and long-term organisational capability?

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