Suji Goetzke

Head of GTM at Trellus. Cold calling, sales leadership & startup growth. Sharing what works, what flops, and life as an American in Athens.

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

@TheSalesRoo Way better to reach out to the manager NOT the recruiter. The manager will put you to the front of the line

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

@fivosaresti Signals get the right door. But make sure to sound human when reaching out and don’t go big brother mode

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

@morganjingram And of course playing pickleball

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

@ImAntCalabrese Having something very specific to bring up on the call helps too

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

@builtwithrubel Yea I have no idea how X works tbh

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

@pierreeliottlal The Mom Test is a great way to figure out the right questions to ask.

We’re YC backed and the founders had the same problem of people agreeing to whatever with no intent

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

If you’re using Grok Bot for GTM, how do you think it compares to Claude or Codex?

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

This is why I can’t have a pen and paper during a meeting…

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

@jaredccohen Going to try and will report back with results 🫡

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

Prospect: "Is this a sales call?"

Don't panic and say "not really." Own it:

"Yep, totally a sales call. Give me 20 seconds and you can decide if it's a bad one."

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

Me before a cold call: rehearses the opener 11 times in the mirror.

Prospect: "Yeah?"

Me: "Hi. Yes. Hello. Hi."

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

Do people not ready their screener messages?

Called someone who was confused when I referenced getting through the screener so that was awkward 😬😂

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

If I get one more person asking me for a link exchange…

I didn’t even know what this was until I got SPAMMED by people asking (although I still don’t fully understand it).

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

Prospect: "How did you get my number?"

Me, looking at the 3 webinars they signed up for this year: "Great question."

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

I could NEVER go back to corporate after working for a startup.

I like my freedom and a team who actually cares.

I’ve been swayed to the dark side I guess ��

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

Honest Friday fail:

I wrote a talk track I thought was clever.

It was clever.
It was also 4 sentences too long for a cold call.

First live pickup, I heard myself mid-sentence and wanted to hang up on myself.

Short beats clever. Every time.

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

Hot take from watching a lot of sales teams:

More dials are great.

The fun part starts when someone actually picks up... and half the team freezes like they didn't expect a human.

Dialing gets you to the door.
The call is the whole sport.

[Suji Goetzke @SujiGoetzke]

AEs telling the engineer to say yes to all prospect feature requests