SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

From $1m in ARR, and Then Forever After: Recruiting Great VPs. You need to learn to become great at recruiting. Why is my sales team less efficient at $20m ARR than at $2m in ARR? Many functions simply need more bodies to keep up with larger bookings goals, and inefficiencies come from that, especially in sales-driven models.

Sales Recruiting 257

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 257

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

The toughest part in the end is always recruiting. Recruiting. Over time, that’s recruiting more and more senior folks, so the target changes. You’ll have to be recruiting new ones all the time. That means you are constantly recruiting. Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design My First Sales Rep Compensation Plan?

Sales Recruiting 178

Sales Recruiting Scale Compensation Business Model 178

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Specifically, she champions a metrics-based approach for developing world class recruiting teams. Because of her position, Maia has observed recruiting patterns in hundreds of companies, and has developed best practices for startups. Maia reports these five strategic recruiting metrics to the executive team each quarter.

Sales Recruiting 111

Sales Recruiting Startup Sales Hiring Data Analysis 111

Tom Tunguz

MAY 15, 2017

How much revenue do you want to book for your SaaS startup next quarter? It’s another thing altogether to have the sales team staffed to close that amount of business. The bookings capacity of the business is the amount of business a sales team should book in a certain period. So does recruiting time.

Sales Hiring 120

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 120

SaaStr

AUGUST 29, 2023

So I was on a group Zoom with a number of CROs and VPs of Sales the other day and a consistent theme came up: everyone was surprised how high OTEs (On Target Earnings) had held up in the current environment. In 2021, they might have gotten their bonus for closing say $500k in bookings. Look, it just makes sense. Today they care.

Sales Recruiting 205

Sales Recruiting Venture Capital Enterprise Sales 205

OPEXEngine

APRIL 12, 2022

Emboldened by this seeming endorsement, I dashed off what turned into a lengthy email on interviewing and recruiting, a topic about which I am passionate not because I think I am good at it but because I think I am not. Thoughts on The Recruiting Process. Remember it’s a mutual sales process. Follow some methodology or book.

Sales Recruiting 40

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Finance 40

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

You’ll see: Bookings that stop increasing. For example, a great Stretch VP of Sales might get you to from $50k to $500k a month in new bookings. To recruit the team and resources it takes not just to meet the plan this quarter, but the next one and the following quarters as well. But then … that’s it.

Sales Recruiting 235

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Metrics 235

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 23, 2023

P9 Panel on Hiring Sales Leaders — Founders Summit 2023 “You are going to fire your first sales manager!” — A lesson too many founders learn the hard way. The Founder isn’t willing to be the first salesperson Many of the best founders we work with don’t have a sales background and are either product or engineering focused.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

She’s written extensively on the topic and co-authored a book The Customer Success Economy. How you should you go about recruiting the right person? Today, she advises and invests in companies on these topics and others. Allison is an incredible builder of teams. How does the role work with the CEO? If so, at what stage?

Scale 293

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 293

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

Still, an overall deep-dive on lessons learned the second and third time around: Not Easier : Recruiting – Not Easier. You might think after (goodness) the best part of 20 years of working in tech, 18 as an executive or CEO, and 13 as a founder … I’d be pretty good at recruiting at this point. I’m not.

Sales Recruiting 325

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 325

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 20, 2022

Strong sales reps are the lifeblood of your business and how you choose to invest in them matters. For frontline sales managers, attributes like competency, quality of work, ease of execution, and length of contribution indicate reps’ overall job success, but you can’t rely on those inputs to tell you if they are personally satisfied.

Sales Recruiting 98

Sales Recruiting Scale Retention Sales 98

Sales Hacker

MAY 6, 2021

What’s the difference between a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)? The VP of Sales. Great VPs of sales have gravitas and tact, command the room and hold their end of the table regardless of who is on the other side. Singular focus on sales. As the title would hint at, the VP of Sales should focus on sales.

VP of Engineering 93

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 93

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2022

Sales growth slowly declines as she struggles to bring in enough reps. Take say 100 leads a month spread across 2 great reps, then bring in a new VP of Sales that hires 4 weak reps. Your new bookings can plummet 50% almost overnight. More here: Should You Fire an OK-but-Not-Great VP of Sales? Then, manage a small team.

Sales Recruiting 192

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Churn 192

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Welcome to Sales Hacker’s first-ever Influential Women in Sales list! In this exclusive list, we wanted to honor not just female leaders that promote their own sales platform (no shame in that!) They say “You can’t be what you can’t see,” and the sales floor is no exception.

Sales Recruiting 111

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale Sales Hiring 111

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

You might have a few account executives and a sales leader in place; maybe some revenue and a handful of customers. The sales team costs real money, and the question before the company is: how do you know what quota plan to assign to the account executives? Stage 1: Management by Objectives.

Compensation 153

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 153

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 1, 2016

There are two main ways of building a SaaS sales team: top down or bottoms up. Top down SaaS sales organizations start with a VP of Sales who often hires senior account executives. Bottoms up sales teams hire the first account manager and promote from within. Which is better? OTE, $k 125 175 250.

Sales Recruiting 100

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 100

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

A few factors that contribute to high-performing sales teams: High quota attainment. The best startups invest in their sales teams and work hard so most of the reps hit and exceed quota. Turning over a sales team is very hard on the organization. A great VP of Sales is worth her weight in gold. They have low attrition.

Sales Hiring 323

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 323

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 7, 2020

When it comes time to book a speaker for your next panel, presentation, or podcast there’s a lot to consider. Fortunately, more organizers than ever before are consciously seeking out female sales experts for panels, presentations, and podcasts. Sales Development. Sales Growth. Sales Enablement. Enterprise Sales.

VP of Engineering 121

VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Payment Services 121

Sales Hacker

JULY 19, 2022

Celine, who transitioned from agency sales to SaaS, is the Vice President of Boardable. Join us for a great conversation about transitioning in sales and technology selling. Sometimes you have to take one step back to go two steps forward in sales. Sales is all about building internal relationships. powered by Sounder.

Sales Recruiting 82

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales 82

Sales Hacker

APRIL 19, 2022

In this article, I’ll outline the principles of compensation design , how to build sales compensation plans , and include resources to set OTEs and quotas that keep your reps happy and hungry for more. Why Sales Comp Planning is Key to Rep Retention. Who should be responsible for sales compensation planning?

Compensation 86

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Retention 86

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. Recruiting is easier, but the things that don’t change are customers don’t care.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

The template is broken into six sections: People, Bookings & Revenue, Cash, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success. This section covers employee satisfaction, headcount, and recruiting metrics. Bookings and Revenue illuminates the company’s performance in closing new business (bookings) and recurring revenue.

Metrics 210

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup SaaS 210

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 3, 2017

Every startup’s sales commission plan is different. But it’s key to understand the theory and the benchmark data that governs the creation of sales commission plans to create a good one for your business. Sales compensation is communicated in OTE, On Target Earnings. Before we begin, let’s define a few terms.

Sales Recruiting 120

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Data Sales 120

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

Every prospect championing a software purchase will be asked by the opponents of the sale and decision-makers : “Who else is using the software?” And the best way to fight the inertia in sales is to equip your champions. That’s worth much more than cash and larger bookings in the early days.

Sales Recruiting 207

Sales Recruiting Banking Branding Software 207

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency. Then, the sales team went to work. When making a sales hire, Max pays attention to the way candidates approach getting the job.

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

403: Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Success @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. As for Sam, prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce following their acquisition of Quip, a startup Salesforce acquired for $750M where Sam was also the 1st sales leader.

Scale 174

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 174

Kellblog

MAY 10, 2021

In this post, I’ll present what I view as the minimum sales management framework for an enterprise SaaS startup — i.e., the basics you should have covered as you seek to build and scale your sales organization [1]. Pipeline management rules, with an optional stage matrix. Management rules (e.g.,

Sales Hiring 110

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Enterprise 110

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2020

Each quarter, the bookings plan starts at $0 again. To want a head of sales operations and a director of sales to help carry the load not later … but on Day 1. To not have to manage any customers yourself in customer success, and instead be a strategist. Because SaaS is hard. as you race past $10m+ in ARR.

Sales Hiring 225

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS 225

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

“Give the VP of Sales More Time” This is always terrible advice. If a VP of Sales can’t improve things in one sales cycle or less — she never will. In one sales cycle, or less. “The Leads are There, the Problem is the Sales Team.” And you are better off without her.

Part-Time VPE 302

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 302

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 29, 2018

Company raises money and is now ready to “scale the sales team.” Their current seller has done a great job, so the natural inclination is to assume that we want to replicate that person and sales will continue to grow, right? Fast forward 1 year later: “Oh no, my entire sales team looks the exact same…”. Sound familiar?

Sales Hiring 74

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 74

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2021

You might also include developers on sales calls from time to time — it makes everyone feel heard. The CEO of Dominoes recruited his Head of Technology personally, telling him that his realm was the most critical thing Dominoes was going to do in the next decade. 3 Assign problems, not tasks. 4 Provide executive enthusiasm.

Sales Recruiting 163

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 163

CloseSaaS

MARCH 12, 2015

One of the most useful frameworks for assessing a potential sales hire is something I learned a long time ago from reading a book by Jack Welch, former CEO and chairman of GE.

Sales Recruiting 52

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 52

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Before you rush in for the sale, you need to assess everything. Tailor your solution and sales material to meet their specific need in the same language they use when they talk about their problems and desired solutions. Remember, not every conversation is a sale. Recruit advocates (actual insiders) early.

Enterprise 139

Enterprise Technical Review Sales Recruiting Scale 139

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Building a sales team that can go from $0-$50M (Video + Transcript). Gaetan Gachet | SVP of Sales @Algolia. It’s an honor to be here with this mythical creature, this sales leader that goes from zero to 50 million in the same job. He has a whole French sales team and office that only speaks English in Paris.

Scale 136

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 136

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 3, 2023

” Links & Resources Mark Cranney’s LinkedIn: [link] The Hard Thing About Hard Things , a book by Ben Horowitz What You Do Is Who You Are , a book by Ben Horowitz The GTM Podcast Don’t miss The GTM Podcast dropping every Tuesday discussing true stories and experiences including trials and tribulations in the Go-To-Market world.

Sales Recruiting 94

Sales Recruiting Revenue Sales Hiring Acquisition 94

User Pilot

DECEMBER 6, 2023

Start implementing a dogfooding program by recruiting users from across the organization, especially those not involved in the product development. Book the demo to see how you can use it for dogfooding in your SaaS. Recruit employees for the internal beta testing To start with, recruit testers from across the organization.

Software Development 88

Software Development Sales Recruiting Development Software Review 88

Sales Hacker

JUNE 8, 2021

In this episode, Kyle Racki , co-founder and CEO of Proposify, talks about how his upbringing helped his sales career, the journey from being a freelancer to a founder, and how to create and maintain a competitive advantage. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. They also recently sponsored the Sales Hacker Podcast.

Sales Recruiting 73

Sales Recruiting Entrepreneurship Sales Hiring Sales 73