In this episode, Vladan interviews Fabian Bacher — Regional Director Enterprise EMEA at Semrush. Fabian started his career in 2015 as a BDR at Optimizely, worked at Flexport, and then moved to Lucid, where he made three promotions and landed his first management role in 2020. In 2024 he joined Semrush as Head of DACH, grew ARR 55% in under a year, and was promoted to Regional Director for the enterprise segment in EMEA. The two got acquainted back in 2019. Topics: how he grew DACH ARR 55%, the crucial differences when selling into DACH, getting promoted from AE to manager, building teams and cultures, what makes a high-performing sales professional, and go-to-market tactics that still work.
Vladan: With us today we have Fabian Bacher, who started his career in 2015 as a BDR at Optimizely, then worked at Flexport before moving to Lucid, where he started as an account executive, made three promotions and landed his first manager role in 2020. In 2024 he moved to Semrush, where he started as Head of DACH and was promoted at the end of the year to a Regional Director role for the enterprise segment in EMEA. A lot of great successes to unpack today — but let’s get started with the DACH period at Semrush. Fabian, in less than a year you achieved a 55% increase in ARR as Head of DACH at Semrush. Tell us — how have you done that?
Fabian: Absolutely — thanks for the nice introduction. When I joined Semrush last year, in March or April, and came to the DACH team, I was lucky that there were already some great people there — what was mostly missing was structure. Those pivotal moments when you come into a new organization and don’t yet carry the baggage of having been in that company for too long give you fresh eyes that allow you to identify very quickly what you can do to improve.
In our case, it came down to three priorities that we focused on. We ruthlessly said: these are the only things we want to be working on, these are the only things every rep should be developing on, and we want to quickly share our successes — and the things that don’t work — across these three things. And they’re not really a secret; it’s just best practice.
First: we had a lot of accounts we could go after, and we became very strict about defining the ICP — the companies we can most help. At the time I had SMB, mid-market and enterprise reps in the DACH team, and across those books of accounts we would only focus proactively, in our outreach, on the accounts where we think we can have a massive benefit. The ICP definition also changed over time — it’s good to keep evolving it and stay open to changes as you learn.
Second: really understanding very well, for each of the five industries in our ICP, what the problems are that we could solve for the larger companies. SMB was working pretty well on its own, but in mid-market and enterprise: these were the four, five, six problems we could solve better for the customers, and why. Also understanding how to speak to those problems, who’s affected by them, where they come from. That allowed us to be super focused in our conversations on the things we knew mattered.
And lastly: in our outbound we focused on all channels — written messages, video messages, calls, including visiting people — and we would drive those insights consistently. We’d use the full breadth of channels, but only communicate those pain points. And as we did this, our understanding kept developing.
I think it’s not even so much about what you do, but about all the other things you say no to. At that time we had lower-value inbounds that we could often outsource to CSMs or other structures, dedicating only a small amount of time to them. And there are many, many distractions in larger organizations. We made it a mark of our success for everyone to spend 60–70% of their time only focusing on these things: having the right conversations, doing the right research, doing the right outreach.
“It’s not so much about what you do — it’s about all the other things you say no to.”
The crucial differences when selling into DACH
Vladan: That sounds like a great move. What about selling into DACH specifically — what advice can you give listeners who maybe have a challenge selling into DACH?
Fabian: The DACH market is very specific. In terms of new technology, it’s generally a conservative, risk-averse market — and also a bit skeptical of what’s possible. What people said early in my career: if you look at innovation, it often comes from the US; the UK and parts of Europe might be the first markets to adopt it, and Germany would be one of the last. Once the wide majority has already adopted it, the pressure of not wanting to fall behind becomes so big that they’ll finally take it. So you have to deal with this mindset: if it’s working — or even kind of working — the status quo is always going to be your biggest competitor. Why change it?
Companies are often very hierarchical, so there are a lot of decision-makers and decision points to go through. And people are generally hesitant to stick out their neck — there are so many ways a solution could be disqualified, and if there’s a risk of failure afterwards, people are often not willing to commit their name to it. So champion building is super important.
In general, lofty marketing messages don’t work as well as very straightforward communication. In the German way: bullet points — these are the value points, these are the things we can change for you. You have to be very much to the point; that’s the expectation, to make it as easy as possible for them to do their own evaluation. You can assume a German customer has some kind of spreadsheet or bullet-point list of criteria they’ll work through. If you have the right conversations with them, you can change their perception of the importance of some of those items — or what they should really be thinking about — but you need to make the evaluation as factual and neutral as possible. Lofty messages and long storytelling work less than in other markets.
And lastly: the decision-making process and the paper process at the end usually take a lot longer, with more steps than in other markets. We usually talk about SLIP — security, legal, IT and procurement — all of those are involved. But in Germany you could have a couple of surprise stakeholders doing additional evaluations, like a works council. These processes take a lot of time and usually can’t easily be rushed — even with incentives or strong compelling events, they will take their time. That can be frustrating, and if leadership in your organization hasn’t worked with DACH, there’s also an internal teaching process: this is just how things are in Germany.
The good thing: once they’ve made the decision for you as a vendor, Germans are usually very loyal. Once you make it past the initial evaluation period — and it’s still very important that you execute perfectly on onboarding once the deal is done — it’s very hard to sway them away from you, if they went through that whole long process of getting you on board and they’re satisfied with the service. So it’s just different: they’re more factual, they take their time, and they will not be stressed. Trying to pressure them too much to get something done in a certain time period can backfire.
Vladan: Those were some amazing tips. One other question — maybe you can give some context on Semrush. What are you guys selling exactly, into which market, what’s the ACV, the complexity?
Fabian: Semrush is an online visibility data platform — that’s how I would describe it. It’s most well known for the search engine optimization channel, historically at least, but it has grown into a platform that gives you the data and insights to make the right decisions to appear in front of your target audience online. That would be search engines, social media channels — and nowadays, what’s very relevant: LLMs. The new search channel for a lot of people is now ChatGPT, Perplexity. Semrush also helps you focus on the things that will allow you to appear there in the right way — and to appear at all.
Vladan: Cool. And what is your average deal size, how complex is it, who are you selling into?
Fabian: Historically Semrush has been a self-service, product-led growth kind of company — if you go to our website, you see a couple of plans you can buy easily with your credit card, for up to a couple hundred euros per month. But what we specifically focus on is selling services for enterprises. Enterprises usually have specific needs around reporting, running certain marketing campaigns and content strategies at scale — we can address those. The ACV for those is usually between 50 and 300K at the moment. Semrush is also very focused on widening the platform with more complementary services, so quarter over quarter we see the ACV going up, but it usually falls into that 50–300K range in our team.
Vladan: And what’s your setup in terms of sales team — a classical SDR structure, or more full-cycle AEs?
Fabian: We do have a BDR team — they report to the marketing team. Marketing on our side is very much account-based focused, so when we work with them on specific campaigns we get a lot of support. But overall, the AEs generate most of their pipeline themselves. We have some inbounds, but we see that the best deals come from the outreach we discussed: finding the right companies, hitting the right people in those companies with the right messages. Across all segments, SMB to enterprise, most of the pipeline is self-generated.
“Do already the job you want to have. If you don’t ask, you won’t get.”
From AE to manager: how to earn the promotion
Vladan: For the next question I want to go back into history a little — to 2020, when you were working at Lucid. That’s also where we got acquainted for the first time, I guess, in 2019. In 2020 you got promoted from an AE role into your first management role. How did you do that, and what tips can you give listeners who are currently in an IC role and want to progress into management?
Fabian: If you think about going into management, there are two things to consider: the why and the how. Before you even work towards that goal, ask yourself why specifically you want to go there. For me — I was in enterprise at the time — I felt that in terms of learning experience it would be a great opportunity to do something slightly different. And I’ve always taken a lot of joy from coaching other people, even as an AE, and helping others be more successful. That’s why I thought: this is great for me. But be aware: if it’s about money — as an AE, going higher up the ranks into a very established enterprise organization, you’ll probably make more than a manager. Management also comes with less control: you have to get things done through your people, a lot more internal meetings, in my experience more work. There are advantages — but you can also have a great career as an enterprise AE. I would even consider doing that again for a while at some point, to experience really large deals. So think about why you want to do it.
Then the how. I always thought, until I gave it more thought and talked to people — and asking people in your company how they did it is great advice in itself — that if you do good work, at some point you become a manager. In my experience, I’ve not seen much of that at all. You need to put effort into it. Performance is important, but first and foremost you need to be outspoken about what you want. Make your manager — and possibly somebody higher up — aware that this is a goal you’re pursuing, assuming your performance gives you a good standing to bring it up. Be patient: these things don’t always happen quickly. For me it took about one and a half years from when I first said I was interested.
Ask what leadership — your direct manager and above — would like to see, and where you could help. But even if you don’t get much instruction, be proactive. My thinking was: if I already do the job I want to have afterwards, it shows it’s not as big a risk to make me a manager. So I focused a lot on coaching people, and specifically setting up a buddy program for people that joined. I did that next to my normal work — I still had to hit targets. It takes time and effort, but it shows, and it makes your case. So: ask for it, do already the job you want to do, and work on your visibility — the decision isn’t just your manager’s, but also the higher-ups’. Find ways to be visible to them: show that you share what works for you as a rep, and that you work on helping other people be successful. Then you can make a good case for yourself. But do ask. If you don’t ask, you won’t get.
Vladan: Those are some wonderful tips — golden nuggets right there. Obviously you’ve built many teams already, and established cultures among those teams. How have you done that, and how are you doing it to this day?
Fabian: I started a couple of years back at Lucid, before Semrush. I transitioned from being a rep — so I had the rep’s view of what I thought worked well, and then seeing the other side, what it takes to manage people, was quite a learning process. A couple of things I always fall back on.
Be involved as much as possible in calls. Call recordings are great, but there’s just more information you can get in the call itself, live — including non-verbal cues. Use that to establish both an individual coaching plan and a team-wide enablement plan. When there are gaps present across the team, that’s something to address with custom trainings. Particularly important is the understanding of how we provide value to the customers: which pain points we address, what the impacts of those pain points are, and where they come from. If individuals are missing something on a certain part of our offering, I address it individually; if the whole team is having difficulties, it’s a team-level training topic.
Stick to a couple of priorities, both individually and with the team. What I learned very early: there are so many topics you think are important to develop, but if you focus on five or ten things, or there’s always a flavor-of-the-week topic and things are not consistent, it confuses people — they don’t know what to do. A quarter is usually a good period to focus on one, two or three priorities — usually three — and really defend those. Say no to other topics, but go deep on those, individually and as a team.
Other than that: have clear expectations. A clear operating rhythm in terms of meetings, weekly deadlines, expected deliverables — so reps always know what they can expect from you. I think it’s huge that they know: this is what I need to do on a weekly basis, this is what’s expected of me. And have a couple of KPIs that determine success — not just outcome KPIs like deals closed, but also the indicators that come before that: who do we speak with, how many meetings, what’s your input in generating those meetings. KPIs, clear deadlines, a meeting cadence people can stick to without too many deviations — and a couple of priorities that won’t change too much.
“Coaching falls into that magic part of the Eisenhower matrix: not urgent, but very important — so it’s very often left behind.”
Coaching in the moment
Vladan: That’s really interesting — the answer you led with was basically around coaching and training, and what the individuals in your team need to become successful. Is that, you think, the most important aspect of building a successful team?
Fabian: I think so. Coaching, especially on an individual basis, is the most important leadership function — but if you look at the Eisenhower matrix, in terms of what’s important and what’s urgent, it falls into that magic part that’s not urgent but very important. As a manager — and as a rep — your calendar fills up super quickly with everybody’s expectations, so coaching is very often left behind. From a leadership perspective it’s important to think both about how to set dedicated time with each rep to identify the topics they’d benefit most from working on — but also how to use all the moments that are not dedicated coaching time. I think those are even more impactful. Before a call, as you prepare for it; afterwards; or as you briefly work with a rep on how they structure their accounts or what to focus on — seeing them do it and providing feedback immediately, rather than with a delay, is more impactful than having a specific time set aside on Tuesday to discuss: “okay, you had that call yesterday, I listened to the recording, this is what I think.” The time delay just creates a distance in everybody’s mind. Seeing those coaching opportunities in everyday work, and taking them immediately — those add up, and it’s one of the most important functions of being a sales leader.
Vladan: That’s an interesting point. Have you read the book Radical Candor? That’s actually exactly one of the major points in that book as well — when you have feedback, deliver it at the time when you see the thing happening.
Fabian: I think I listened to the talk. It’s super important to be very direct: this is where I think there’s improvement. It also shows that you care. But it’s not always the easiest thing to do — by nature we’re not always confrontational. But if you can address a certain gap early, that can make such a big difference in somebody’s trajectory — in what they can do with their skills, and how their career develops.
Vladan: A hundred percent. It’s great that you take so much time for that — that’s awesome for the people in your team too. What makes a high-performing sales professional? What are the character traits, the personality?
Fabian: A lot of it is already built into a person when you hire them — so as a sales leader, bringing the right people onto the team is, next to coaching, one of the most important things. A couple of traits I look out for — the list always changes, but a couple of things I think are super important. The person should be smart, and interested in their own development: proactive in finding the information they need, willing to change their way of working based on signs or feedback of success. So: intelligent, proactive, and open to experiment.
Then, very, very important: curiosity. There’s a transferability aspect to sales — it’s the most transferable skill in business; you can use it in almost any function. But at the same time, what I’ve seen again and again: if somebody has industry expertise, it can take them from being good to being great. That doesn’t mean you have to commit to one industry your whole career. It means that as you go into a new industry, you should make an effort to really understand the trends, the conversations, what people care about — beyond what the company teaches you in battle cards or “these are the problems we address”. People that are genuinely curious — and most of it you take from conversations with your prospects, asking the right questions and genuinely wanting to know what they care about and what they see happening — that has a really big impact.
So: intelligence, curiosity — and resilience, super important in sales. There will be great times, but there will also be times where you have to make things work and you don’t immediately see results; you have a lot of headwinds. And with resilience comes character. Character is often built on weird or non-traditional paths to sales. You don’t need a 100% sales-SaaS-only background to be a great hire — but you want to understand what drives this person, why they want this specific job, and what in their past experience, even if it’s not related to selling itself, they can use in the role to be effective.
“Form a point of view — and risk going in with an opinion that might be wrong. Even disagreement can start a conversation.”
Go-to-market tactics that still work
Vladan: Let’s talk a bit about tools, processes and go-to-market tactics. I’ve been reading a lot that GTM tactics are under pressure — it’s more difficult than ever to generate pipeline or progress deals. What’s working for you right now?
Fabian: In terms of tools, we’re still relying on a tool stack from a couple of years back — the big tools like Outreach, Salesloft, the information from LinkedIn, the ZoomInfos and so on. Those are great, but indeed, it’s getting very noisy. Some of the things that really work well: first and foremost — super important, and very easy to just not spend time on — doing the right research. Just like within a sales conversation, think about what you can find out about the company, the department, the persona — what are some likely problems they’re working on, and how could I provide value to that person?
The standard sales play is: we set up a conversation, I ask you a ton of questions, and then I tell you about the product. But a lot of people don’t want to spend that time. They want us to tell them up front: this is where I think we can provide value to you. If we do that research at the beginning — where could we provide value — it helps with the messaging across channels, but also with the conversation that follows, because we know the person responded to what we think is a problem we can solve, and we can go deeper on that part.
I always say to my team: you should form a point of view, an opinion — and you should risk going in with an opinion that might be wrong, slightly wrong, or sometimes even very wrong. Because what we’ve also seen: if we say, “in terms of search engine optimization or traffic, we think that by focusing on certain keywords — like these — you can drive this much incremental traffic, which will be worth this much to you,” the customer might already have an opinion and might disagree with us. But even that disagreement can be the start of a conversation — because they at least know we thought about it, and that there’s someone who can hold a conversation with an understanding of their world. We’re not just salespeople; we have enough subject matter expertise or industry knowledge that, with the right input from their side, we can provide value to them.
That research has become even more important. In the past — and a lot of salespeople are still trained on this — you’d write a generic message and then it’s just bumper emails: “hey, bumping this back into your inbox.” We see that just doesn’t work anymore. What works really well: whatever you can use in terms of tools. We can use our own platform — we can look at our own analytics and say, “we see this — do you agree?” Or: “we see this, and I have a more extensive report — do you want those insights?” Rather than asking for a meeting, we’d sometimes say: “shall I send you the report?” If they agree, that’s a first yes — and afterwards the meeting comes very quickly.
More generically: if you help a customer optimize their website, for example — record yourself, put a recording of their website in there, talk a little about what you would improve. Anything that signals this message is not generic — and not AI-written, because you can also have AI personalization that people see through quite quickly. Anything that signals to the customer: you have looked at it, you have an understanding or at least an opinion, and they can have a conversation with you about what they’re potentially struggling with. That will get you responses.
Vladan: Great — so basically: great account research, putting a lot of time and effort into that, and then really personalizing it. Not doing the generic mass stuff that a lot of companies are doing.
Fabian: That’s what it is. In the end it all comes down to the same thing: understanding the ICP is just a reflection of — based on our best understanding — the companies we can solve the biggest or the most problems for. With regards to messaging, what’s a bit difficult is that I come from a school — because that’s how I’ve done it in the past, and it worked — where generic messaging was a possibility. It just isn’t anymore. So you need to apply that same problem-solving understanding to the prospecting and outreach process. And if you do it early enough, like in the example before, you can use those same points of view in the conversation to drive your discovery.
Vladan: That’s a great tip. And apart from your own platform, is there any AI tooling or other technology that helps with this sort of deep account research, or personalization at scale?
Fabian: It’s all a result of AI — AI allows everyone to send all of these messages with some personalization, which makes it difficult to cut through the noise. But used right, those tools can also be massively beneficial. What we’re doing currently: we don’t have specific AI sales tools as a company, but we’re working on custom GPTs that allow us to do some of the research work faster. One example: a custom GPT where you can upload an account list, and it does a first ranking of those accounts based on the ICP it’s built on. There are others — for a specific product, it does a lot of the research I mentioned before, for crafting a message for that specific customer. It tells you up front: you as a customer are not showing in a specific channel where you want to be showing, and your competition is. Once you put in the name, it spits out a very crisp message with a clear problem they should be addressing where their competition is doing better. In my team we have one person who’s fantastic at setting these up — we’re building them, reviewing them, and then we want to make them available to the wider company.
Vladan: Nice — great initiatives. We’ve come to the end of this episode — I want to thank you, Fabian, for being part of it. In case you’re interested in growing your go-to-market team, or looking for a new role yourself, please feel free to reach out to us. And in case you’re interested in following Fabian Bacher’s growth journey, make sure to follow him on LinkedIn.
