Your Weekly AI Sales Rep Newsletter | Volume 33

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TODAY’S PICK 🎯

Sales Operating System 101: What It Is, Why It Matters, and Why Hive Perform Built One

Two questions define sales leadership in 2025:

1. Have we set the right strategy?

2. Is our team executing it?

For most GTM leaders, the answer is “not really.”

Sales stacks have exploded with dashboards, enablement tools, and forecasting tech. But they don’t connect what leadership plans with what reps do.

That’s why Hive Perform built the first Sales Operating System, a platform that connects your GTM strategy with real execution in the field.

👉 Learn how a Sales OS tracks strategy, prioritizes based on buyer signals, and gives leaders visibility into what’s actually working. Read the full article here

📣LEADING VOICES 

INDUSTRY NEWS 🌐

How AI Tools Are Enhancing Satisfaction and Revenue for SMEs

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are harnessing AI productivity tools, like Zoom's AI Companion and Betterworks' platform, to enhance employee satisfaction and achieve revenue growth beyond industry averages. These tools streamline processes, cut meeting times, and improve performance reviews, leading to higher retention rates and significant ROI for companies investing in employee training. For investors, focusing on platforms and startups supporting SMEs in these areas can offer promising returns and competitive advantages.

The Early Days: How Deel Went From $1m to $100m ARR in Just 20 Months

Deel’s meteoric rise to $1 billion in ARR wasn’t just timing—it was execution. Co-founder and CRO Shuo Wang shared the hard-won lessons behind their journey from $1M to $100M ARR in just 20 months, including:

• Pivoting fast when their initial product flopped—discovering that compliance, not just payments, was the real customer pain point

• Riding the remote wave early, building for global-first teams before it was mainstream

• Scaling sales without RevOps (and paying the price) before building a world-class ops function

• Turning customer success into a revenue engine, using proactive QBRs to uncover expansion opportunities

• Doubling ARR in 3 months by investing in account management and upsell

• Building global infrastructure early with micro-teams in key regions

• Obsessing over data to guide every GTM decision

• Treating sales like engineering, with processes, systems, and iteration

• Interviewing the first 400 hires personally to maintain remote culture

• Creating tight feedback loops from frontline teams to guide product direction

Her biggest takeaways? Go global early, build strategy on data, and plan for everything to break.

Scaling SaaS in the Age of AI

AI is no longer just a feature—it’s becoming the backbone of how SaaS companies grow. At the “Whole Revenue Summit,” leaders shared how AI is driving smarter GTM decisions, from churn prediction to lead scoring. Key takeaways included:

• AI is powering unified sales, CS, and product strategies

• Exec buy-in and cross-team adoption are essential

• Start small (churn, pricing, lead intent), scale fast

In 2025, winning SaaS firms aren’t just using AI—they’re built around it.

Venture Capital's Shift as Precision Sales Over Growth for Startups

Venture capital's shift towards a private equity-style focus on profitability demands startups redefine their sales strategies for efficiency and precision. This involves honing in on narrow customer profiles, leveraging product usage data, and optimizing sales teams for high output with minimal resources. Emphasizing sales productivity over volume ensures startups meet investors' demands for tangible returns and financial discipline.