Read a stat last night that made me do a double take.
Cold call meeting rates are going UP in 2026.
That's right, more sellers are booking meetings on the phone this year than last.
Top performers are converting 16.1% of their dials into meetings. Average reps are under 3%.
The key: great data. Dialing isn't dead. Dialing with bad data is.
Every team I coach this quarter is dialing again. The ones complaining about email reply rates aren't.
$2 to acquire $1 of new ARR.
That's the B2B SaaS median in 2026. Stop blaming the macro.
The real story: everyone with a Clay seat and an OpenAI key is firing 1,000 emails a week. Inboxes are saturated.
You're paying for the noise everyone else is making.
Signal-triggered outbound: 10% reply rates. Generic AI-spun lists: 1-3%. Same buyer, same product, 5x the conversion.
Want to cut through? Pick up the phone.
Nobody's dialing anymore. Your prospect has 200 unread emails and zero missed calls. Three rings is the new pattern interrupt.
Pick 30 accounts in real buying motion this quarter. Friday: research. Monday: phone first, email second.
Most events suck. Too many speakers, too much small talk, not enough time to actually connect with anyone.
My bet is that you learn more about someone in three hours on a river than three days at a conference.
So this year, I'm hosting six events built around that idea. Get interesting people in PE, VC, and GTM together to do cool things.
Fly fishing. Golf. Hiking. Skiing. No conference rooms, no agendas.
The first one is a month out.
In February, I'm taking a small group to Northern Georgia to fly fish for trout on the Soque River. Three days. A cabin a few miles from the water. An up and coming river guide who knows every run and ties a mean fly.
Every night a private chef cooks dinner. We hang out, smoke cigars, drink whiskey, and swap stories about what we caught (or didn't).
You don't need experience. You just need to want to have fun and learn.
If this sounds like your kind of thing, let's talk.
The biggest mistake founders make when hiring their sales team: hiring for industry experience.
Hiring for attributes like coach ability beats hiring for industry or experience every day.
Matt is directionally correct. If you want to build a mass-market consumer product, you need a massive TAM.
Not every big business is built by going broad. Some of the strongest business models come from high-concentration TAMs where you can penetrate deeply, own the category, and deliver more value per customer.
A small TAM is only a liability if you are selling a low-priced, low-retention product. If you’re selling a mission-critical system into a tight vertical, a concentrated TAM is an advantage.
Vertical SaaS (construction, healthcare), industrial services, and other operational systems prove this. These markets reward depth, not breadth. When the TAM is smaller, the economics and GTM fundamentally change:
-You can't run a high-velocity motion because the account universe is finite and contact fatigue is real.
-You can build a higher ACV product because the problem is sharper and more painful.
-You can dominate market share because the buyer group is concentrated and the switching costs are high.
You can reach meaningful revenue milestones without needing 25 million potential users.
My TAM is anyone with a brokerage account that has at least one single stock in it.
If your TAM doesn't have 25 million people or more in it, you are too niche.
My favorite part of cold calling is when you connect with a prospect and they immediately hang up or say:
“I’m not interested”
Then you call them again a week later and they don’t even remember you.
The best managers don’t evaluate their people.
They develop them.
Coaching cultures always outperform because feedback is continuous, growth is visible, and alignment is constant.
Quarterly reviews? Dead.
Weekly Coaching? Necessary to win.
The biggest mistake that most companies make when hiring sales professionals?
They hire for the resume. Ex: I want to hire someone who worked at XYZ.
Instead you need to hire for character. The top 3 qualities that determine if they will be successful are:
-Growth mindset
-Work ethic
-Coachability
@AllyTaft Have your guest check their phones before the ceremony starts.
Give them back during cocktail hour or the start of the reception. Guest get a few hours uninterrupted to enjoy the scenery, music, and company while you get out wish of limited phones.
Win win.