Customer-centricity isn’t just a best practice—it’s what helps high-performing sales reps break through crowded inboxes and go from conversation to conversion.
Here’s what go-to-market experts from The SD Lab, Tech Sales Mastery, and 1Password have to say about nailing customer-centric pipegen.
The SD Lab’s Tom Slocum on scaling great timing
Customer-centric outbound isn’t just about reaching the right person with the right message. It’s also about reaching them at the right time.
“Sell when the buyer actually wants to buy, not just when you’re ready to pitch,” said The SD Labs founder and CEO Tom Slocum.
Focus on signals that indicate movement within a target account and give you a real reason to reach out, like new job openings, annual financial statements, and regional expansions.
AI-powered signal captureCommon Room’s AI-powered signal capture automatically fetches contact, account, and activity data from your first-, second-, and third-party data sources. Our machine learning algorithms process this data and turn it into structured outputs for team members to access, analyze, and action on.
Just keep in mind that signals are more than triggers that tell you when to hit send on a message. They’re also a chance to uplevel your outbound based on exactly why a prospect is in-market.
“What I love about Common Room and a lot of these tools is you can get the signal capture,” Tom said. “So you can look at job hiring, funding, new roles open, visits to the pricing page, there was a competitor mentioned. You can look at all these signals, capture all of that, put it through a workflow, and tie it all in.”
Tech Sales Mastery’s Chris White on selling holes, not shovels
Prospects don’t care about your product—they care about the problem it solves.
“He or she who buys a shovel doesn’t want a shovel,” said Tech Sales Mastery cofounder Chris White. “They want a hole. But they don’t just want a hole—they want a fence or a tree. But they don’t just want a fence or a tree—they want privacy or shade or fruit or flowers. Yet we have a tendency to want to lead with the shiny shovel.”
In other words, outcomes are much more compelling and customer-centered than features and functionalities.
That doesn’t mean you should just lead with flashy ROI metrics. Instead, figure out what the ideal future state looks like for a prospect and deliver a differentiated insight into how they can get there.
AI research that provides deep account context can be a huge help in developing a hypothesis.
Data and signal capture agentRoomieAI Capture automatically captures, synthesizes, and analyzes account-level insights from the public web and your internal data sources, all based on your custom configuration. This information is then summarized and delivered to reps in Common Room’s sales workbench.
“Dont fall so much in love with the product—fall in love with the problem that you solve and what you help organizations and individuals that you are calling on achieve,” Chris said.
1Password’s Myles Madden on living where your customers do
Knowing where your customers congregate is crucial to reaching them. But gaining a deeper understanding of what they’re doing there and why is just as valuable.
“The biggest growth lever is not just researching what channels your buyers are in and what they’re saying, but it’s actually integrating you into their world,” said 1Password Senior Enterprise Marketing Lead Myles Madden.
When you follow the same thought leaders, read the same newsletters, and join the same communities as your prospects, it becomes that much easier to stay grounded in their specific pain points and business objectives.
“When we integrate with our audience, we truly understand their world, what’s being talked about, what pain points are circulating around, what’s the hype within their market,” Myles said.
It’s not as simple as checking off a box—it’s something you have to integrate into your day-to-day life.
But getting closer to your target buyers—understanding what resonates and what’s urgent in their world—pays dividends.
Customer centricity goes beyond what you say and how you say it.
When, where, and why you say it matters just as much.
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