In today’s issue, I’ll share what you can do to make Q4 your best quarter of 2025. Q4 is go-time in sales. This is the time when everyone is back from their summer holidays (even people without kids), remaining budgets have to be spent, and 2026 budgets are being decided now.

But most salespeople take it easy in October. They think they have 3 months left to make their targets, but they don’t realize we only have 60 business days to go. And forget doing anything but chasing deals between Christmas and New Year.

That’s why I’m going to share a simple 3-step process I’m putting in place to close $450,000 in Q4 (so you can copy it):

Step 1: Do an ambition check

The first step to reaching your goal is to do an ambition check. It’s the exact opposite of a reality check. Instead of focusing on all the things that can go wrong, all the limits, all the delays, you focus on setting a big, bold, ambitious goal.

For me the ambitious goal is to close $450,000 in Q4. I’ve never done that since working for myself, but the traction I get as a sales creator agent makes me believe it’s possible (it will be hard, but I can do it).

Step 2: Write down weekly goals

I have recently started writing down weekly goals and the results have been impressive. I had the goal of selling $30,000 in September, and I ended up closing $61,279.

This all comes down to writing goals every week. I don’t know exactly what’s at play here, but it wired my brain to relentlessly hunt for opportunities, versus letting business come my way for the last 2 years.

And I insist on writing goals with a pen on a paper. Having a goal in your CRM isn’t enough.

I’d also encourage you to account for the Holiday season. It’s quite hard to close anything between Christmas and New Year and there’s a big gap for Thanksgiving too.

For me, the goal is to close $40,000 every week. If you multiply by the 14 weeks remaining as I’m writing this newsletter, I could reach $560,000. This gives a good margin if my month of December is slow.

Step 3: Save 30 min to prospect every day

Finally, all this planning is worth nothing without action. If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I love my prospecting routine. I start every single weekday with:

• follow up with prospects in active sequences
• find 5 to 10 new prospects to contact
• add them to the sequence

All this takes 30 minutes or less per day, and it’s the healthiest habit you can develop when working in sales. And let me be clear. Prospecting doesn’t mean going for long shots and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. It’s about contacting people you already know, old customers, partners, friends, etc.

Your goal should be to start conversations so you can understand if the person in front of you has a problem you can solve, or knows of anyone who has that problem.

And these are the 3 steps you can follow to make Q4 your best quarter of 2025. Set ambitious goals, break them down into weekly goals, and prospecting every day for 30 min.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

In today’s issue, I’ll share how I built $98,576 in pipeline in the last 3 weeks, and how I closed $50,432 in the same time frame. I’ve been working for myself for 7 years and these have been the most exciting 3 weeks since I left the last job I ever had.

2025 is a rough year for most salespeople. Budgets are slashed everywhere, layoffs happen daily, and economic uncertainty prevents a lot of businesses from making purchasing decisions.

But not everything is going wrong. The basics of prospecting and sales still work, and buyers are still making purchasing decisions to solve their problems.

Here’s how I manage to build all this pipeline in 3 weeks only:

Step 1: Build a monthly plan

For the last 2 years, I’ve been working without discipline. I was in a period of my life where I didn’t really feel like pushing to work more, so I took work as it came. In September of this year, I decided to do things differently. I started the month by giving myself the public goal of closing $30,000 in September.

I broke down this goal into smaller goals and I listed 4 ways I would make money:

• Agent work
• Affiliate revenue
• Sponsored content
• 1:1 coaching/training

With these 4 revenue streams, I had a clear idea of what I needed to sell, and what type of message I would need to use in my prospecting.

Step 2: Write down weekly goals

My first week started pretty well, but I got lucky. I was at the end of a sales process that had started in August, and I closed $4,000 with a brand to create a video, 1 sponsored newsletter, and 2 LinkedIn posts.

I also had asked one of the companies I’m an affiliate with if they could recognize a deal they closed thanks to an online course one of my customers took. They accepted, another $4,200 closed on my first week.

But on the first Sunday of the month, I realized that my first week was a lucky shot. So I decided to write down my goal to make $10,000 on the second week in my notebook. And that week, I closed $32,630! I then skipped a week (don’t ask me why, I don’t know myself) and I didn’t close anything that week (not surprising).

So I wrote down $20K on my notebook on Sunday, and I closed $6,250 at the moment of writing (with another $14,944 I can potentially close before Sunday). Writing down your goals really work!

In today’s issue, I’ll share how I almost lost an $18,500 deal by celebrating too early. If you’ve been in sales for a while, this happened to you for sure. You go through a smooth sales process, get a verbal commit, and then start dreaming of what you’ll buy with your commission.

This happened to me last Friday, and I almost lost the deal because of contract terms I didn’t think of bringing up during the negotiation. Here’s the story, how I dealt with this roadblock, and how I turned it into a potential upsell opportunity:

The story

As you may have seen, I recently started representing creators as their agent. In short, I take care of all the commercial part for my creators working with brands. I negotiate deals, check contracts, and make sure my creators’ interests are protected.

Last Friday, one of them introduced me to a brand that was interested in working with them. We exchanged a few emails and got on WhatsApp to negotiate.

After a few messages exchanged, we agreed on the terms and settled for $18,500 to sponsor 3 of my creators. I got confirmation that paperwork was on the way, deal closed.

Or so I thought.

The weekend passed, and I was already calculating my commission, looking at which Jeep Wrangler this money would help me buy (I really want to buy a Jeep Wrangler), and I was pretty happy to see that my agent work was working.

Until Sunday, when one of the creators shared that the contract had an exclusivity clause. The brand wanted to have exclusivity and their definition of it was pretty large. Only problem was that all 3 creators were in contract with a brand they considered to be a competitor.

Oops.

How I fixed it

I could not believe this was happening. I sent a WhatsApp to my contact, explaining that the 3 creators were in contract with a brand that could possibly be competing with them (I hoped it wouldn’t be a problem).

But she told me they were definitely considering this brand to be a competitor. They then told them we would most likely have an issue to work with these 3 creators.

But then I explained them how exclusivity would be something they’d have to pay for, how their definition of exclusivity would prevent them from working with most top creators in the B2B sales space, and I gave them an example of a successful collaborations when I used to work with 2 competing brand.

And it worked!

They told me they were pretty new to this, and they were willing to alter their definition of exclusivity, so they could work with the creators.

How I turned it into an upsell opportunity

I was relieved. I managed to get rid of a roadblock and to keep the deal alive. But even better, this obstacle turned into an upsell opportunity. The brand asked me when the contracts with the potential competitor were ending, so they could negotiate exclusivity at that moment.

And exclusivity with creators is something worth a lot. You have to estimate the total value of the contracts that will be lost for the creator if they only work with one brand. This is where 6 figure contracts can be negotiated.

Key learnings

I learned a ton from this experience. I got reminded to never calculate your commission before the deal is closed, but I also learned a lot of things about negotiation:

• contract terms are always negotiable, nothing is fixed
• brands will pay a lot of money to get exclusivity from a creator
• a deal is not closed until a contract is signed, or an invoice is sent
• roadblocks can turn into upsell opportunities when tackled the right way

And these are my learnings from this experience. I’m happy it came early in the process of becoming a sales creator agent, so I don’t learn it the hard way on a bigger contract.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

In today’s issue, I’ll share how I build and execute a prospecting sequence in 2025. Back in July, I met with Alan Ruchtein and we worked together on building what we consider the best prospecting sequence you can do in 2025.

Most salespeople have a hard time booking outbound meetings. Between spam folders filtering every unsolicited email, LinkedIn being completely flooded with AI content, and cold calls getting screened on Apple devices, it’s harder than ever to start conversations and book meetings.

That’s why we went back to basics and shared how we build a sequence from scratch.

Let’s dive in:

In today’s issue, I’ll share how I reached a 36.3% reply rate, and booked 3 meetings, only 2 days after starting prospecting.

Most salespeople are struggling to book meetings through outbound these days. They try moonshots and only focus on landing meetings with C-level at Fortune 500 companies. That’s a recipe for failure in 2025.

So, today, I’m going to show you I find prospects to contact, start conversations, and book meetings that turn into real opportunities. Without having to wait for weeks to get a reply.

Let’s dive in:

Step 1: Ask yourself these 4 questions

I always recommend mixing total strangers (prospects) and people you know when starting a prospecting campaign. This will help you get more answers faster, because a part of your list is made of people who have already heard from you.

Here are 4 questions you can ask yourself to find people you’ve been in touch with:

• Who did I speak to, but wasn’t interested at the moment? → closed lost opportunities
• Who recently commented or reacted to my/someone else’s posts? → people with potential problem you can help with
• Who recently visited my profile? → people who were potentially looking for information
• Who’s a really close person I can contact to get insights? → potential for introductions

Step 2: Build your lists

Now that you have 4 different tiers of prospects, you can start building a list in your sales engagement tool. I personally have experience working with Amplemarket and La Growth Machine, and they have som pretty advanced segmentation features for your lists.

These lists should be segmented, based on the questions you’ve asked yourself in step 1. I recommend to do a bit of list building every day instead of building a massive list. If you use your posts or other people’s post, new prospects will pop daily, so you can keep feeding your list as you go. The same is valid with profile viewers.

Step 3: Contact them where they are

This final part is critical. Most salespeople would take a list and drop it in a standardized sequence. It used to work in 2018, but in 2025, you need to be more agile.

For example, I contacted people on the following channels:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Whatsapp
• Limelight (I had a chat with a prospect who used to work with me)

I’ve been going back to my past conversations with every single person, and I reached out to them where they replied last. This is a critical step to start more conversations.

Another important point is the way I wrote my messages. I avoided using long sentences or buzzwords and wrote like I speak.

I contacted 22 people, got 8 replies, and booked 3 meetings from these conversations. When prospecting, never forget that a dollar from a stranger is worth the same as a dollar from someone you know. And it’s easier to reach out to people you know than total strangers.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

In today’s issue, I’ll share how AI has changed sales forever. Since ChatGPT became mainstream, salespeople are using AI daily (and if they are not, they are trying to). This means a lot of untrained people are using a tool they don’t understand, which creates negative results for everyone.

So today, I’m going to share a few aspect of sales AI has changed forever, some other that haven’t changed, and common mistakes to avoid. These points are the results of our conversation with Dominic Klingberg during my summer Sales Creator Content Party in Berlin.

Let’s dive in:

What has changed with AI

AI has had a massive impact on buyers. Back in the days, they could only access information through salespeople. With internet, they got more and more disconnected from salespeople, finding relevant information by themselves.

AI has accelerated that trend. You now have AI summaries on Google searches, making it even easier to access all the information you need to make a buying decision. This makes sellers who only pitch features completely irrelevant. They are slower, less informed, and more annoying than any AI could be.

Another key aspect that has changed with AI is the quality of cold outbound messages. It’s now impossible to spend a single day without being flooded by AI-written emails, DMs, and comments on LinkedIn. This reduces the attention of buyers even further, making it important to use multiple channels (cold call, email, LinkedIn, etc.) to get some attention.

What hasn’t changed with AI

Luckily, a few things didn’t change with AI. Specifically, being able to build authentic relationships with prospects, either in virtual sales calls or in person is more important than ever.

In a world where prospects are constantly asking themselves if they are speaking with a human or getting tricked by an AI, standing out and showing your human traits makes all the difference. That’s why LinkedIn DMs are so important when prospecting. I use them to start conversations with messages like “what’s up?” because it stands out in a sea of corporate jargon.

Another aspect that remained the same is the ability to connect specific problems with specific solutions for buyers. Some AI tools help you surface information that is relevant to your prospect, but they don’t replace reflection and critical thinking. It’s still very easy to see if an email has been written by an AI or a human.

Mistakes to avoid

Finally, I see 3 common mistakes that are easy to avoid when using AI. The first one is to believe that AI tools can be configured to run everything on autopilot on your behalf. For example, most AI agents are completely failing at making any significant impact on meetings booked.

Second mistake is to let an AI write emails and DMs for you. The act of writing your own copy is what makes you different in my opinion. It helps build your voice, and it makes you more knowledgable about what your prospects really need.

Finally, some people are completely opposed to using AI. This is a mistakes because it makes them too slow. For example, taking notes during a call when an AI notetaker can do it for you is a mistake I see all the time.

And this is how AI is changing sales forever. Most aspects of sales are impacted, but the basics remain the same. If you can show how human and unique you are, while using AI to free up some time, you’ll win big time.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut

In today’s issue, I’ll share the exact process I follow to book meetings with LinkedIn. This is a tactic I detail in my Prospecting Engine, and if you can replicate this system, you’ll increase your chances of getting replies and booking meetings.

The main goal of this tactic is to use the digital footprint that can be found everywhere on LinkedIn, and use it to prospect as scale.

Here’s how, step-by-step:

Step 1: Find a relevant LinkedIn post

If your customers are active on LinkedIn (logging in at least once a week), then it’s highly likely that some people have built large audiences speaking about your prospects’ problems, and how to solve them.

I’ll take sales as an example. The domain is filled with thought-leaders who have built massive audiences on LinkedIn. Same goes for marketing, HR, and operations.

Your first step should be to build a list of 5 – 10 thought-leaders who post regularly (daily is best) on LinkedIn. Go check step 3 of this article if you want to know how.

I’ll take my one of my posts as an example

Mistake 1: Not coming prepared (or having the time to prepare) to a meeting

A lot of salespeople (me included) don’t come prepared to sales calls. They are either too busy or too lazy and they end up asking questions that could have been answered through preparation. This creates a poor buying experience for prospects who often feel like they are wasting time speaking to a rep.

To avoid repeating that mistake, I recommend using WINN AI’s AI Meeting Prep. It provides smart prep summaries so you can catch up in minutes, including: deal status overview, key info about the account and who’s attending and suggested focus points based on unanswered questions, playbook gaps, and more.

Mistake 2: Not sticking to a methodology

We’ve all hear of methodologies like BANT or MEDDIC. These methodologies often include questions to ask in a specific order, making sales calls sound like interrogations for prospects.

As a result, salespeople prefer winging it, and go in the complete opposite direction. They focus on having a sincere conversation, but end up forgetting to ask questions to qualify their deals.

This is where the Playbook Tracker from WINN AI makes a ton of sense. It integrates directly into your call, guides you through the playbook your sales team is using, so you can focus on the conversation instead of trying to stick to your script.

In today’s issue, I’ll share the exact process I follow to find prospects’ problems. If you can replicate these steps, you’ll be able to catch the attention of your prospects, because you’ll show them you understand what problems they are trying to solve, in details.

Understanding prospects’ problems is a big mindset shift for many salespeople because they are trained to sell a product, and pitch features and benefits, instead of trying to put themselves in the shoes of their customers.

That’s what I’m going to show you, step-by-step:

Step 1: Understand their goals and metrics

Every prospect you are trying to reach has one or more metrics they are evaluated on. A VP of Sales will be evaluated on revenues, a CFO on bottom-line, a CPO on shipping speed and so on. Your prospects get promoted or fired based on their performance against these metrics.

Your goal when finding prospects’ problems is to get a clear understanding of these metrics, and the goals associated with these metrics.

Here are a few places where you can get an idea of these metrics and goals:

• Podcasts/webinars where your Ideal Customer Profiles are interviewed
• Job descriptions
• Current and past customers

When you have an idea of the metrics your prospects are evaluated on, your next step is to understand their goals. You can ask yourself the following questions:

• Are they trying to maximize or minimize this metric?
• What happens if they miss it? What are the concrete consequences on their jobs/lives?
• Do they have stretch goals?

Below are some examples for different types of prospects: