SaaStr

MAY 23, 2023

So leading growth stage VC Iconiq has published its latest and very detailed Definitive Guide to Sales Compensation here. Corners were cut in the boom times of 2021, but we are back to sane sales models. Renewals, if they are done by sales, are paid out at about 40% of an initial commission. Everyone should have a read.

Scale 259

Scale Compensation Sales SMB 259

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 14, 2022

Last week, Office Hours welcomed Bill Binch, former CRO at Pendo, EVP Worldwide Sales at Marketo & operating partner at Battery to share his views on building world-class sales organizations. Bill & I exchanged emails about Deliberately Underselling as Sales Strategy. Logo-based quotas focus the team on speed to close.

Startup 318

Startup Construction Sales Compensation 318

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

So we’ve spent a ton of time over the years on SaaS talking about hiring a great VP of Sales. Not only because it really matters, but because hiring the wrong VP of Sales can set you back a year — or longer. So many VPs of Sales disagree with me here — at least at first when I make the point. Sales is hard.

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 221

CloseSaaS

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

The purpose of sales meetings is to motivate and equip your team to do their best work. Learn how to prepare, structure, and run an effective sales meeting.

Sales 52

Sales Management 52

SaaStr

JULY 2, 2021

I’ve written a lot about this, but for most start-ups, you can boil it down to two criteria any first VP of Sales just has to meet: Has she built at least a small team before? Sales of $3,000 a year products are very different from $300,000 or even $30,000 a year products. Don’t expect your VPS to be great at all the aspects of sales.

Sales Recruiting 272

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Development Team Review 272

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

Topic: Sales-led vs. Product-led? Workshops topics are more specific, more actionable, and always have Q&A. Do you have a specific, actionable topic you want to share as a speaker during an upcoming Workshop Wednesday? CRO Jason Eubanks: Sales-led vs. Product-led? Up Next: Wednesday, January 11th @ 10AM.

Startup 227

Startup Sales SaaS 227

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Should I Go Into SaaS Sales? If you aren’t sure you want to go into sales — don’t do it. Maybe in 2021, when many SaaS leaders were growing at simply unprecedented rates, could succeed in sales if you weren’t sure you wanted to sell. There’s usually a clear promotion path in a growing sales team.

Sales Recruiting 233

Sales Recruiting Sales SaaS Management 233

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2024

Dear SaaStr: If you were hiring a head of sales for a high-priced, niche B2B SaaS product, would you focus on general B2B SaaS sales experience or on market/customer knowledge, assuming it will be very difficult to find a candidate with both? For highly transactional sales, ignore this advice. Not all, but most.

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Sales SaaS B2B 265

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What’s the #1 Mistake New Sales Leaders Make? Let me just summarize my #1 observation here: the top mistake first-time sales managers make is recruiting. It is incredibly hard to figure out how to replicate the magic of the first 1 or 2 sales reps that work closely with the CEO. In that — they can’t do it.

Sales Recruiting 243

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Management 243

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2021

The other day I saw a VP of Sales flame out and resign with no notice from a SaaS company doing $10m ARR growing quickly. So I thought it might be helpful to brush off the topic of alignment between Sales and Marketing by updating a classic post on the topic. What 3 factors/skills must every VP of sales possess?

Sales Recruiting 300

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Revenue 300

Tom Tunguz

JULY 5, 2022

On July 13th at 10am Pacific, Office Hours welcomes Lars Nilsson , VP of Global Sales Development at Snowflake. Having worked at five startups which went public - Snowflake, Cloudera, ArcSight, Riverbed and Portal Software, Lars is an expert in sales. During this session, we’ll cover those topics and others.

Development 202

Development Sales Startup Pricing 202

Nimble - Sales

MARCH 27, 2019

Topic clustering is a popular content marketing plan – and a buzzword that has been thrown around the inbound marketing space in recent years. First of all, what exactly are “topic clusters?” This term refers to multiple pieces of content grouped together by a common topic or relevant subtopics (known as pillar content).

Strategy 92

Strategy Content Marketing Marketing 92

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Bridging the Content Chasm Sales is increasingly using strategic content creation and distribution as part of the sales process – from outbound, to advancing pipeline along, to awareness and education on social platforms. With that responsibility, often there is a need to create content to assist with the sales education process.

Sales Hiring 105

Sales Hiring Marketing Sales Sales Enablement 105

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2023

Sales-led vs. product-led is a hot topic right now, and Jason Eubanks, Chief Revenue Officer of Harness, shares the answer during this week’s Workshop Wednesday — held every Wednesday at 10 a.m. What’s his response to startups figuring out which strategy to begin with, product-led or sales-led? “It How do you achieve both?

Startup 217

Startup Sales Sales Funnel Education 217

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2020

One of the classic original SaaStr posts was on the Top 10 Questions to Ask a VP of Sales Candidate. We did an update of that classic post below together with this brand new video on the topic: Use this script for hiring that first VP of Sales. Ready to hire your first VP Sales? But haven’t done it before?

Sales Hiring 293

Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing Sales 293

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Dear SaaStr: When Should I Expect New Sales Hires to Be On Target? sales cycles. You should know well before that if you are managing her or him — you’ll usually know by half a sales cycle. More here: Dear SaaStr: How Long Should You Give a New Sales Rep? At least by 1.5 And yes, that’s true today, too.

Sales Hiring 224

Sales Hiring Sales Management Metrics 224

Sales Hacker

APRIL 4, 2024

Now is a better time than ever for your sales team to align their goals, motivations, and strategies for the upcoming year (and beyond). With a sales kickoff (SKO). But with the guidance of David Nour, CEO of Nour Group , we will prepare you to have the most effective sales kickoffs. And one of the best ways to do this?

Sales 90

Sales Technical Review Systems Review Engagement 90

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2023

Have sales do a hard sale. It took HubSpot years to penetrate CRM/sales even after building deep relationships with marketers. Spencer Skates, CEO of Amplitude, has a great deep dive here on that topic. But if your NPS is low, they won’t. So my #1 best practice is get your NPS up. Then, basically any approach will work.

Customer Success 236

Customer Success Sales SaaS Marketing 236

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2024

Spreadsheets are great, but pricing is a complicated topic. A spreadsheet isn’t the real world, and doesn’t incorporate brand, competition, sales friction, etc. Then, if they are happy to pay $35k … ask for $50k for your next Biggest Deal. This will build confidence. The four tips above can help there. Without Angering Your Customers.

Pricing 248

Pricing Branding Sales 248

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 4, 2021

One of the very first SaaStr presentations ever was How to Hire a Great VP Sales (And Not Screw It Up). One was how my First Real VP of Sales Doubled Our Net New Revenue in 90 days. Brendon Cassidy joined as our VP Sales at a tough time, as we’ve discussed before, as we were coming out of our Year of Hell.

Sales Hiring 343

Sales Hiring Sales SMB Pricing 343

SaaStr

DECEMBER 2, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Is The Optimal Structure of an Initial SaaS B2B Sales Team? Where, roughly speaking, each sales rep brings in at least 4x-5x the total compensation they take out. The sales-driven SaaS companies that are very capital efficient generally end up at 4x-5x or greater as a ration of average quota attainment / average OTE.

Sales Hiring 215

Sales Hiring Scale B2B Sales 215

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

The basic idea was to help folks who haven’t hired a VP or Director of Marketing hire the right one for a pre-Scale sales-driven SaaS company. Or sometimes an SAL commit (Sales Accepted Lead). Question #3: How should marketing and sales work together to hit this plan? Talk the VP of Sales he or she worked with.

Sales Hiring 300

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Marketing 300

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What’s The #1 Way to Motivate a Sales Team to Sell More? This: Proves (x) it can be done — even when sales feels hard, and Challenges everyone in the right way, and Takes the wind out of excuses. More here: [link] Your #1 Sales Rep Should Be Driving a Tesla Plaid By Month 12. Pay your top 1–2 reps well.

Sales Hiring 222

Sales Hiring Sales Company Culture 222

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

Few things will frustrate you more in the early days than long sales cycles on bigger deals. You’ll feel like you just don’t have the time for a 6, 9 or even 12 month sales cycle when you’re struggling just to put the first few points on the board. You cannot force 9 month sales cycles into 9 days.

Scale 341

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Pricing 341

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Hiring a VP of Sales isn’t new, but the conversations have evolved as the world has. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive. Jason has written about the cheat codes for hiring VPs of Sales since 2012 and realized it was worth a deeper dive.

Sales Hiring 148

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 148

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

It may seem counterintuitive to seek out a sales leadership hire during this time of slowed hiring, but it’s the number one topic that many founders talk about and many SDRs, AEs, and sales managers ask about. . Founders may ask, “how do I find the right sales leadership hire?” They have some startup experience.

Sales Hiring 189

Sales Hiring Scale Leadership Sales 189

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

Three overarching learnings from incredible sales leaders who have lived through the ups and downs of growing sales teams at some of the fastest growing SaaS companies is exactly what we’ll dive into today – so you can get the learnings and insight without being in the driver’s seat. years as SVP, Global Sales at Klaviyo.

Sales Hiring 105

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 105

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 11, 2023

These are three of the lessons that stood out to me espcially managing the transition from product to sales-led growth (PLG -> SLG). Second, the PLG -> SLG (sales-led growth) transition has two parts. But more important, the sales pitch must also change (in addition to the pricing/packaging). First, revenue is fuel.

compliance 298

compliance Benchmarks Engineering Pricing 298

FastSpring

APRIL 4, 2024

As an experienced sales and GTM leader, John Eitel has more than witnessed how product-led growth (PLG) has affected the tech and SaaS space in the last few years — he and his teams have been up close and personal with how PLG increased in popularity as a sales strategy. “I What success looks like for using both together.

Scale 122

Scale Sales Payment Methods Merchant Services 122

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2021

There’s a meme, a CommonThink, among certain segments that Outbound Sales is Bad, or at least, a Little Unseemly. Inside sales is terrific. And in turns out, somewhere between 1 times out of 10, and 9 times out of 10 (depending on the product, the market dynamics, etc.) … the best way to Sell High is to do Outbound Sales.

Sales 280

Sales Revenue Enterprise Software 280

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

Your VPs and Directors of Sales and sales ops leaders and sales engineers are cost centers here. Assume 1 sales manager for each 8 sales professionals, and 1 head of sales development for each 10 SDRs. Fifth, the more specialized the sales process is, the more folks you’ll need. Fourth, add “load”.

Scale 287

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 287

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2022

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how to hire a Great VP of Sales, and how you have to close the first 10 or so customers yourself, and how when you do go to hire your first sales rep — make sure you hire two. Use a recruiter that does nothing but recruit sales reps at your ACV. I doubt any will be good enough.

Sales Recruiting 270

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Pricing 270

Buffer Resources

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

These strategies helped me land my first high-ticket client three weeks after starting my business and hit my first $10,000 month in sales just four months later. ” This simple intro is what led to that first high-ticket client that I signed in three weeks and that first $10,000 month of sales. Specifically, more sales.

Scale 85

Scale Sales Funnel Development Social Media 85

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2021

………………… Hiring a VP of Sales in a startup is an incredibly hard thing. And part of the problem is VP of Sales searches center too much around statements like “Jim was most recently the VP of Enterprise Sales at IBM” or “I want to introduce you to this gentlemen, he was the RVP at Salesforce and…).

Sales Hiring 318

Sales Hiring Scale Development Team Review Sales 318

FastSpring

APRIL 17, 2024

SaaS.City is a series of topic-specific workshops structured to facilitate learning and networking on May 13th. It is designed for senior executives at SaaS businesses who are looking to gain a deeper understanding in specific topic areas. If your business is SaaS, then you need to be at SaaStock USA.

Payment Services 133

Payment Services Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 133

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2022

A few ideas on how to help the sales team make this your best year so far: Hire dedicated sales / revenue ops. Many of you will have little to no dedicated help in sales operations , even up to $10m ARR or beyond. If that’s you, or your VP of Sales, or even your VP of Marketing … it can sort of work for a while.

Scale 241

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Enterprise 241

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 7, 2022

Scott Barton, Varicent’s VP of Industry Solutions & 20-year sales compensation industry pro, attended WorldatWork’s 2022 Sales Compensation Conference. Despite these advances, few industry pros currently use predictive or prescriptive analytics for determining sales compensation plan effectiveness. Is change in the air?

Compensation 76

Compensation Trends Sales Artificial Intelligence 76