Seema Kumar’s Post

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Chief Marketing Officer, Expel

I started a new role a month ago and the cold outreach from BDRs, AEs, and CSMs trying to get my attention has been...relentless. It's been interesting to see how many assumptions these folks make about me when reaching out. Nearly 100% of them have assumed that I am a college sports fan and referenced my undergraduate alma mater in an upcoming sports game in an attempt to connect with me. Ok, so they get a tiny bit of credit for scrolling to the bottom of my LinkedIn profile to see where I went to school. But, they lose a LOT of credit for ASSUMING I care about college sports or any sports for that matter. If they had bothered to spend a few more minutes learning more about me through my LinkedIn posts, articles I'd written, or podcasts I'd been on, they'd have noticed I have never ever ever mentioned sports. In fact, I even joke about not being a "sports ball person". Trying to connect with me about college sports is the best way to never connect with me. I'm curious how many people will read this post and stop trying to connect with me through sports. Anyone want to place a bet?

Parthi Loganathan

CEO at Letterdrop | Stop pitch slapping; start social selling

3mo

As a fellow sports ball person, I think a lot of people in Sales are into sports. It's also lazy personalization that anyone can sniff through. The best personalization is someone actually having an informed hypothesis on your business and showing you a better way.

Jonathan Spier

CEO of Rev | Helping GTM teams improve account targeting with AI ICP modeling

3mo

I've started automatically deleting any email with the words "quick question" in the subject line! (Hopefully, my team doesn't have any quick questions for me! )

Yanek Korff

Co-Founder and Chief of Staff at Expel

3mo

Sportball people unite.

Matt Green

CRO of Sales Assembly | Investor | Portfolio Advisor | Decent Husband, Better Father

3mo

Good thing this has never happened to Helen Baptist 🫣

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Sahil Patel

CEO @ Spiralyze | turning b2b SaaS websites into lead gen machines

3mo

Hi {{first name}} I saw that we both went to Harvard. Isn't that great! Go Crimson!

Leon Markham

VP - Customer Advocacy & Market Strategy, ServiceNow

3mo

So it took me so longer to figure out this nuance of US culture. Not only do all educational institutions have sports teams - they all have names that are different from the institution itself. Who decided that there should be a Bruins or a Cardinal? And EVERYONE does it. Anyway - divided by a common language. And congrats on your role.

Michael King

Executive Recruiter - Marketing || Build Marketing Teams || Build Careers || Writing A Book On How I Conquered Epilepsy and Went From A Bartender In LA To One Of The Top Executive Recruiters In Silicon Valley

3mo

Oh No! Since you mentioned that you are a Ted Lasso fan - Let the floodgates open! 😎 I hope all is well.

Rahul Awasthy

Product & Marketing Leader | B2B SaaS | PLG + SLG Wins

3mo

did you watch that game ? - i never know what on earth are they talking about so I assume its Bridgerton

James Moran 🦄

The HACK podcast 🗣️🎙️ 🌟Founder @ Sociable🛡️ 🔍 Seeking Partners 🤝

3mo

I doubt any of them actually visited your profile, just used a basic crawler to extract your info and then cross-reference with whatever is the most popular referential story. You should use Pitchfire and make them do the work to earn your business!

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Keith Neighbors

2nd degree connection to your next job! :)

3mo

less than 1% Curious on the outreach how much of it has been recruiters looking for business?

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