Cynthia Handal

The job I took in 2020 looked like a step backwards on paper. I had built a team in 2 countries , had a role that on paper looked amazing, inside I was broken and at my job being verbally abused every day back in Honduras and I was let go. The next role was an empty seat, no team, no process, and a title smaller than the one I'd had an SDR. Everyone I told had the same face. The polite one. Here's why I took it: I was burn out. I had no network. I felt lost in life. Six years years later I've built the outbound function from nothing, and I lead the team that runs it. The version of me that protected the title would have plateaued. Titles compound slowly. Skills compound fast. Rooms where you're needed compound fastest. Take the empty seat.

How did you get this number?" is not an objection. It's a test. Most reps hear it and start apologizing. The apology is the mistake. It confirms you're doing something you shouldn't be. What I coach my team to say: "I looked you up. I only do that when I think the call is worth someone's time. Give me twenty seconds and you can decide if I was right." Then stop talking. You didn't sneak in. You did research and picked up a phone, which is the most transparent thing a salesperson can do. Never apologize for doing your job well.

Founders keep asking me when to make their first sales hire. My answer annoys all of them. It's not when you raise. It's not when the founder gets busy. It's when the founder has already sold the thing ten times and physically cannot take the eleventh call. Because here's what actually happens when you hire too early: You hand a stranger a product nobody has proven anyone wants, no idea which objection kills deals, and no evidence of who the buyer even is. Then you call it a hiring mistake when it doesn't work. A first sales hire is not a savior. She's a multiplier. Multiply zero and you still have zero. Sell it yourself ten times. Then hire the person who can do it a hundred.

Your deal doesn't die on the demo. It dies in a group email you're not in (or maybe you are 😬). I've sent proposals I was proud of and heard nothing back for 11 days. Great call. Great demo. "Send it over, I'll show our team” Then silence. For years my follow-up was a guess. Wait four days. Send "just checking in." Hope. I had no idea if they opened it. Forwarded it. Or never saw it at all. Here's the part that took me too long to learn: Your buyer keeps selling your deal after you hang up. You're just not in the room for it. So I stopped guessing. Now I can see it..The CFO opened the pricing page three times. They adjusted the quote twice. Never scrolled to the rest. That's not a "just checking in" email. That's a price objection I can handle before anyone says it out loud. Qwilr lets me do this. They're proposals my buyer can interact with. This doesn't just give them a better experience; it lets me see who looked at what." You'll never sit in every meeting where your deal gets decided. But you can stop walking into the next one blind. Be honest. What do you actually do when a proposal goes quiet?

One of my SDRs did a full week of training. Then came his first day on the phone. He didn't want to call. He asked to shadow someone else a little longer. It's never about the training. It's about not knowing what the other person will say back. So we sat down and went through the actual lines. What to say when they say we're not interested. What to say when they say just send me an email. He made his first call that afternoon. That sheet is what I rebuild every time I join a new company. Today I uploaded it. The teams Swan AI and Amos Bar-Joseph are launching GTMskills.com A free, open-source library of GTM skills built by people who actually do this work. Runs in Claude, Codex, or Swan. Backed by the teams at Zapier, GTM Engineering School, Pavilion, Swan, and Apify. Cold call objection handling is the framework I use to onboard every new rep. Everyone tells sales teams to build AI workflows. Nobody hands them the plays. If you work in GTM, get your skills at https://getswn.link/j24jwv