James Simpson

Readers are told to stop consuming posts about the latest "magic wand", accept that the job is hard and get on with it.

• This is more than motivation: it is an argument for improving through application and time on the phone, rather than a tool, hack or script.
• It sets Simpson against quick-fix advice and anyone selling one method as the answer to a stalled outbound function.

The whole post is the argument: "The secret to Sales Development and appointment setting is that there isn't one! Stop wasting time reading LI posts on the latest 'magic wand' and accept that it is hard, roll up your sleeves and get on with it!"

Read original

They quote the sequence as a recurring pattern and argue that failure lies in how the function is staffed and led, not in the model. Run properly, sales development becomes the company's number one source of revenue.

Simpson lists phrases heard in the field — "We are going for the cheap option", "Our ex Enterprise Account Lead is going to manage the SDRs" — followed shortly by "Sales Development doesn't work, we'll never do it again". They then state: "Sales Development isn't a box ticking exercise folks, do it right and it will become your number 1 channel for revenue creation."

The post revisits writing from a period when the SDR world was "heating up" and concedes that two years on the title could instead be "The rise and fall of Sales Development". The argument is unchanged; the reading of the trend is gloomier.

Read original

The demands on the team — intensity, passion, attention to detail and commitment, every day — only work once that structure exists. They also describe the cost honestly: days of exhaustion, offset by the thrill of generating opportunities, hearing the bell ring and being part of a team.

Simpson recalls the working floor in concrete terms — "the whistle has blown - LET'S GO!!!" at 8.30am on a Wednesday, and the bell that rings when an opportunity is generated — rather than describing culture in the abstract.

Read original

Being a problem solver is the purpose, and that produces results.

• The surrounding advice builds the same picture of a rep: treat the hardest feedback as the most useful, look for another gear, review every interaction to ask what was learned and what could be done differently, and manage the professional brand you present.
• Winning habits come from maintaining standards consistently, not inventing something groundbreaking.

The fourth of five pieces of career advice: "Yes an SDR engages prospects over the phone and pitches them, but that doesn't create success.

• Be a problem solver and that purpose will create success."
• The list closes on the same idea: career success "isn't necessarily about creating something entirely unique and ground-breaking, it is about maintaining certain standards consistently that develop into winning habits."

Read original

A prospect asks for a long-term partnership because the sales cycle is long, then asks to pause thirty days later until the engagement shows revenue. Simpson presents the contradiction as absurd — a six-to-twelve-month cycle cannot produce revenue in a month — and notes that sales development work "requires a strong sense of humour" to absorb.

The dialogue itself: "We need a long term partnership as we have long sales cycles / 30 days later.... / Can we pause until we see some revenue from the engagement? / But you have a 6 - 12 month sales cycle? / Yeah I know... / errrrmmm"

Read original

Marking nearly 20 years in technology sales development, Simpson offers five pieces of advice: take the hardest feedback, find another gear, review every interaction afterwards, separate purpose from function, and manage the outward brand you present.

• The fourth point carries the argument: an SDR 'engages prospects over the phone and pitches them, but that doesn't create success' — being a problem solver does.
• The post closes on the belief beneath the list: career success comes less from 'something entirely unique and ground-breaking' than from 'maintaining certain standards consistently that develop into winning habits.'

For brands planning a campaign

A B2B SaaS rebuilding SDR onboarding can use the purpose-versus-function distinction as the spine of an enablement piece or training series for reps and first-line managers, rather than another list of tactics.

Open it to see how Simpson thinks about leading and holding together a sales development floor.

Drawing on a Jürgen Klopp statement, Simpson describes how they run sales development floors: 'getting the science and structure correct, then building a culture and art of success.' The post names what they demand of a team — intensity, passion, attention to detail, commitment — and acknowledges the cost, 'days when you feel exhausted', alongside the pull of generating opportunities, hearing the bell, and being part of a team.

For brands planning a campaign

Relevant to vendors selling team-performance, coaching or floor-management products: this shows Simpson speaks to the management layer, where budget holders with SDR problems sit.

The contrast with the longer, reflective posts shows their range of tone in a few lines.

A short, blunt post arguing that appointment setting has no shortcut. Simpson tells readers to stop 'reading LI posts on the latest magic wand' and to 'accept that it is hard, roll up your sleeves and get on with it.'

For brands planning a campaign

Works for campaigns that need a credible voice against tool-driven hype — for example, a CRM or enablement provider arguing that process discipline, not another add-on, fixes outbound.

Revisiting an earlier piece written when sales development was booming, Simpson argues the function is being written off for the wrong reasons: companies choosing 'the cheap option' or handing SDR teams to an ex-enterprise account lead, followed soon after by 'Sales Development doesn't work, we'll never do it again.' The verdict: 'Sales Development isn't a box ticking exercise folks, do it right and it will become your number 1 channel for revenue creation.'

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for a B2B SaaS deciding whether to cut or rebuild outbound — Simpson's diagnosis is that failure usually lies in how the function is staffed and led, not in the channel itself.

Open it to hear how they sound in lighter material before commissioning them.

A short dialogue joke about the mismatch between a prospect promising a long sales cycle and then asking to pause until revenue appears. It opens with the note that work in tech sales development 'requires a strong sense of humour.'

For brands planning a campaign

A low-risk format for social or event content where a light register fits. The post offers little method, so pair it with the longer advice posts rather than build a campaign around it alone.

In one post Simpson describes the pattern Simpson keeps hearing: a company goes "for the cheap option," or hands the SDR team to a former Enterprise Account Lead, then concludes that sales development does not work and drops it.

• Simpson's position is that run properly it becomes the number one channel for revenue creation.
• A second post makes the same point from the buyer's side: there is no secret to appointment setting, no magic technique to read about, and the work is simply hard.

Names the failing practice first, then states what it takes instead, repeating the pattern across posts.

These posts give direction, not a process: they offer no sequencing, metrics or step-by-step playbook.

For brands planning a campaign

A B2B SaaS company reviewing its outbound function can use Simpson to make the case for structural investment rather than tooling: the right headcount, a manager who knows the job and enough patience to reach results. They suit content that argues against quick fixes, but not campaigns selling a single tool or technique as the answer.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

They describe demanding intensity, passion, attention to detail and commitment from everyone every day, along with the tiredness that comes with it, balanced by the buzz of generating opportunities and hearing the bell ring as part of a team.

Uses a sport-to-sales analogy to explain a team-building sequence.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for content about SDR team design and management: Simpson talks about the order of operations, putting process and structure before motivation and culture. A campaign aimed at sales leaders can position them on floor design and management standards rather than messaging or copy.

Examples: Source 1

A numbered list of practical habits, closing with the principle that career success comes from consistent standards rather than novel ideas.

For brands planning a campaign

Gives a brand concrete teaching material for an audience of SDRs and first-line sales managers: career habits, self-review, and the difference between activity and problem solving. It supports enablement-style content and training resources more than demand-generation messaging.

Examples: Source 1

The punchline is the mismatch itself: a six-to-twelve-month cycle cannot produce revenue in a month.

Uses a short, self-contained joke to expose a common contradiction.

For brands planning a campaign

Simpson addresses the tension sales teams face when their own organisation expects returns faster than the buying cycle allows. Suitable for content aimed at sales leaders and revenue operations about setting realistic internal expectations, but less suitable as product or vendor messaging.

Examples: Source 1

They tell readers to stop wasting time on the latest magic wand and get on with the work, joke about the sales-cycle mismatch, and close a career-advice post with the plain statement that success comes from maintaining standards that turn into habits. They use everyday sales-floor detail, such as the bell ringing when an opportunity is generated, rather than abstract frameworks.

Short posts, plain language and one point each, with humour used to make a frustration land.

Ask to review more posts before booking if you need to assess Simpson's wider range; this profile covers five posts.

For brands planning a campaign

A campaign that needs a direct, practitioner voice on sales development will find one here. The tone suits scripts, live sessions and short-form content for working sales teams; brands wanting polished thought-leadership framing or heavy data may need a different tone of partner.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

The content exists and the training happens, but nothing anchors the conversation when a rep is working a live deal.

• Simpson's argument is that companies take the cheap option, hand the SDR team to the wrong manager, then conclude the channel does not work.
• Both write as practitioners diagnosing why outbound and deal execution underperform, rather than promoting a method.

They disagree about the fix.

• Carr's posts sit alongside Playboox, where the answer is AI-enhanced, Salesforce-integrated playbooks tailored deal by deal, plus an AI sales agent that opens conversations on a website: technology applied at the point of execution.
• Simpson's answer is people, structure and consistent standards; one post explicitly dismisses tool-based shortcuts as magic wands.
• Carr also writes about coaching managers through live deals, while Simpson focuses on the SDR floor at the funnel's entry point.

Read original · Original 2

Simpson says there is no magic wand and readers should stop consuming technique posts.

• Edmondson says simply getting known by lots of search firms is not much of a strategy, then breaks down how mandates are won, how firms identify candidates and how a market gets mapped.
• Both write short posts that lead with a blunt conclusion and address the reader directly.

The subject is a different profession.

• Edmondson writes about executive search and the careers of CIOs and CISOs: assessment rubrics, interview processes that reward the best interviewer rather than the best candidate, and board engagement on cyber risk.
• Simpson writes about sales development.
• Readers following Simpson for outbound or SDR practice will find no overlap in the work itself, though both explain how their industries operate.

Read original · Original 2

Carr writes about turning the playbook idea most sales organisations talk about into deal-by-deal plans that update as deals move, rather than once a year, and about an AI agent that opens sales conversations on a website before a human joins. A campaign about equipping reps and managers inside live deals is closer to Carr's subject than to Simpson's arguments about how the function should be structured and led.

James Simpson's posts advocate for a product they advise on, not an independent account of what works.

• The two posts are the same announcement published twice, so there is one distinct post behind this option.
• They do not address how to staff, structure or sustain a sales development team—the core of a campaign aimed at sales development teams.
• A buyer following them alone still needs Simpson's ground-level view and should read the product claims as vendor claims.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Edmondson writes directly to that decision: search is fit to a specific mandate rather than a ranking of who is best; mandates change what good looks like, whether that is rebuilding a security function after a breach, changing how a board understands risk, or preparing for an IPO; and assessment criteria should be agreed before interviews so that polish becomes one input rather than the verdict.

Edmondson's worked examples concern chief information officer and chief information security officer mandates, not sales development floors.

• They cannot tell a buyer what an SDR team should look like, what a floor's daily management standard is, or how to argue for the function's budget; Simpson supplies that operational argument.
• Edmondson is the stronger voice only if the campaign's audience is the hiring decision, or if the piece is deliberately two-voiced: Simpson on rebuilding the function, Edmondson on hiring the person accountable for it.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Garwood's posts make an argument with the same shape as Simpson's, applied to a different market: the headline number is not the decision variable.

• A large following rarely determines an athlete's value to a brand; engagement, authenticity and trust do.
• Coaches, in Garwood's account, recruit habits—how athletes communicate, take coaching and carry themselves—rather than statistics alone.
• That parallel is useful for a personal-branding thread aimed at sellers or a campaign extending into the sports-marketing market.

For the SaaS outbound campaign, Garwood is not a substitute.

• Their posts do not touch pipeline, sales development management, B2B buying or outbound process, so a buyer with Simpson's problem would find no answer in them.
• Garwood belongs in the shortlist only as an adjacent second voice for a different audience.
• Even then, the two posts follow one structure—myth, correction, service pitch—which limits the variety a series could draw from.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2