SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

They discuss Sam’s learnings at Founders Fund, what the 2024 playbook looks like, hiring and motivating sales teams, and a handful of audience questions. On the marketing side, people got ‘lazy’ under the guise of, “Let’s increase our paid online ad spend and turn that dial up and spend more.”

Sales Hiring 244

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 244

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. That they can get away without no one in the role, or a just a junior person in marketing, in product, in success, in biz dev, etc. I Need a VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 349

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 349

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

What should you look for in an Enterprise rep vs. a Mid-Market rep? How do you diagnose and solve churn? Solving High Volume, Low Conversion at Lattice Dini Mehta joined Lattice at $3M in revenue when it had just 10 people in seat for Go-To-Market and 7 salespeople. The bad news is it wasn’t driving the results they wanted.

Scale 215

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 215

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

Your best sales reps can close so much more than your average rep. Move the bottom 10% out and give the best leads to your top performer, and watch sales go up 20%. The best VPs of Sales design comp plans so the team never wants to leave. You should be striving for zero voluntary attrition on your sales team.

Sales Recruiting 203

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 203

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 5, 2022

Going from sales-led to PLG is doable, but it is not easy. Sales-led organizations struggle to adapt to a PLG mindset.”. Let’s use sales-led organizations as a comparison point. If a company has started out with a heavy sales focus, its onboarding process within the actual product may not be intuitive enough for customers.

Sales Recruiting 238

Sales Recruiting Business Pricing Churn 238

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. Marketing is also an art and science. Q: What’s the number one challenge for scale-up founders?

Part-Time VPE 230

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 230

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. Great at marketing. If you hire someone to do the first sales, you’ll never understand it yourself. When you go to hire your first sales rep, hire 2. Hire a great marketer early. Drive NPS up, and churn down.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 299

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

She was telling me about her VP of Marketing who, in the Bay Area, she was paying $95,000. Because that’s rather low for a true VP out here in the Bay Area (see typical VP Marketing comp packages here ). I see this all the time in marketing hires that come out of non-demand gen roles. I was a bit skeptical. Get you leads.

Sales Recruiting 309

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring SMB Engineering 309

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 307

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 307

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. What a great VP of marketing really does (tons on that here ). How to manage customer success. About this and that.

Sales Hiring 352

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Engineering 352

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 99

Sales Recruiting Scale Retention Sales 99

Kellblog

JUNE 27, 2020

Resulting in an unprofitable professional services business (and wrecking the market for partner services). And, depending on the initial contract duration, high customer churn [1]. churn of 25%, and services margins of negative 66% when I started working with them [2]. High adoption failure. They’re worth it.).

Consulting 144

Consulting Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 144

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 12, 2019

A little over a year ago, I got the opportunity to start a new team within our sales organization – a team of Relationship Managers dedicated to growing our current customers at scale. The opportunity emerged out of a shift in how we practice sales. Starting a new sales team is not unlike doing improv.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

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. It’s important to track the number of leads in the conversion rates to sales generated by sales.

Metrics 209

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup SaaS 209

Mucker Capital

APRIL 2, 2024

In this Mucker Growth session, Mike Genstil with ValueCore delves into the concept of value selling and its application in enterprise sales. As a founder, ideally you want your sellers, marketers, and product leaders aligned in transforming product features into value-based messages to accelerate sales cycles and secure corporate deals.

Sales Recruiting 52

Sales Recruiting Technical Review Enterprise Cybersecurity 52

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

379: From how many reps to hire, to compensation models, here are the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales teams and how to avoid them. Announcer: In today’s SaaStr Insider, SaaStr CEO and founder, Jason Lemkin, shared the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales team.

Sales Hiring 166

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 166

Subscription Flow

MAY 10, 2024

Subscribers already automatically buy products on a regular basis, so there is less of a marketing cost because they don’t need heavy targeting through expensive marketing strategies. Mistakes to Avoid While recurring donation set-ups are very advantageous for NPOs, they should take certain precautions to prevent donor churn.

Payment Solutions 84

Payment Solutions Payments Payment Methods Payment Services 84

User Pilot

JULY 27, 2023

Account Managers: They serve as the lead point of contact for all customer account management matters. Product Marketing Manager: This person is tasked with developing product marketing campaigns , crafting compelling marketing messages, and coming up with ideas to retain customers.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Sales Recruiting CTO Hire 98

Baremetrics

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

Your marketing and sales budgets, and the personnel assigned to those teams, will also rise. A strong hiring plan will consider the growth trajectory of your company, the prevailing salary expectations of your market, and the staffing requirements to meet your needs. It helps maintain consistent growth. Try Baremetrics Free.

Sales Hiring 97

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Finance Forecasting 97

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Your sales team is integral to your business’s success: not only do your salespeople bring in the big deals, but they also represent your company and culture to every new and potential prospect. So why is sales team culture still an afterthought for so many organizations? People all across the company are so proud of our sales team.

Sales Hiring 143

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 143

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 19, 2022

Sales compensation planning can be a tricky beast to tame — but know that you’re not alone. I asked 12 incredible sales leaders across the SaaS industry to share their biggest challenges with comp planning and how to overcome them. Related: New to sales compensation planning? Top 10 sales compensation challenges.

Compensation 95

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Finance 95

User Pilot

MAY 20, 2024

Use predictive analytics to identify and proactively address potential churn risks. Loyal customers can help you reduce CAC by promoting it through positive word of mouth, which many marketing experts consider the most effective marketing channel. This includes churn prevention. And use it to trigger in-app guidance.

Retention 66

Retention Strategy Sales Recruiting Scale 66

The Angel VC

JUNE 25, 2015

For most SaaS startups, the VP of Sales (along with the VP of Marketing) is one of the most crucial hires they need to make. Unless you have a no/low touch sales model and you're growing virally (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a.

Sales Hiring 185

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 185

ChurnZero

MARCH 11, 2020

Churn Reasons: You’re Not Digging Deep Enough. This is a guest post by Jay Nathan , Founder & Managing Partner at Customer Imperative. Disappointed, but oddly satisfied, I hung up the phone from a call with a recently-churned customer. Eventually, these issues become deal-breakers which can lead to churn.

Churn 52

Churn Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 52

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2019

Here’s a little bit of my marketing experience, but I need to back up a little bit and go off slide to tell you about my pre-marketing experience. I actually worked in sales for five and a half years and that’s probably why I have tended to gravitate to B2B marketing. Worked as an AE and then a sales manager.

Sales Recruiting 163

Sales Recruiting Scale Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 163

OpenView Labs

AUGUST 19, 2021

Sales recruiting is broken. The sad truth is that VP of Sales are turning over within 19 months —and that timeline is shrinking. . Not only that, the market has heated way back up and the VP of Sales is one of the most sought after roles. The VP of Sales role is NOT about launching your business.

Sales Hiring 82

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Startup 82

Valuize Consulting

JANUARY 25, 2024

Effective Cross-Functional Collaboration Your Digital CS program should be directed by Customer Success but also requires close partnership with Marketing, Product, Sales, and Revenue Operations. Strategic Resourcing Relying on traditional CSMs for fractional management of your digital program is not sustainable.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Sales Recruiting Scale Strategy 52

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

You can also use segmentation to help you identify and target at-risk users accordingly to reduce the churn rate. Segmentation has been proven to improve a vast range of product success metrics (not just sales efforts). Personalized churn prevention message. Create content (i.e., In-app modal created in Userpilot.

Strategy 105

Strategy Sales Recruiting Onboarding Churn 105

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 9, 2013

One number investors use to benchmark SaaS startups across sectors and industries is sales efficiency. There are a handful of variants of this metric, sometimes called the magic number, but ultimately they all aim to provide some sense of the incremental revenue returned by sales and marketing investment.

Benchmarks 119

Benchmarks Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 119

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 5, 2023

This allows them to drive account expansion and product growth. Overall, customer value management can make your product more competitive. Marketing teams that understand what customers value can target them more accurately with marketing campaigns that truly resonate. CVM starts with value discovery.

Management 105

Management Scale Customer Lifetime Value SaaS 105

InsightSquared

AUGUST 14, 2019

For sales professionals, AI is not only impacting your personal life, but it will soon influence your professional work too if it hasn’t already done so. Many of today’s forward-thinking companies have already begun using AI in their sales strategies. Strengthens Communication With Sales Leads.

AI 91

AI Artificial Intelligence Sales Recruiting Forecasting 91

ChurnZero

JANUARY 25, 2024

Skillset 1: Sales acumen In 2024, driving revenue is a primary responsibility of CS. This means that sales acumen is no longer just a bonus for CS professionals—it’s a new baseline for many companies. Customer success manager roles The CSM role is becoming more strategic, with increased responsibility for driving revenue.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 52

SaaStr

JUNE 10, 2020

The true test of marketers. Marketing leaders must focus their teams on the areas that will drive revenue while they cut costs – the biggest impact for the business. We’re going through layoffs and furloughs, recession planning and for me as the CMO, facing really massive cuts to marketing budgets and headcount.

Travel 174

Travel Marketing Scale Outsourcing Services 174

SaaStr

MAY 15, 2019

Gainsight’s customer success software empowers companies to increase revenue and decrease customer churn. Nick Mehta’s tenure in tech began as co-founder and VP of marketing for Chipshot.com which he founded in 1998. He then led product management for XDegrees and spent over five years rising up through the ranks at Symantec.

Sales Recruiting 168

Sales Recruiting Software Review Technical Review PayPal 168

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2019

Giraffe is a mobile job matching platform that helps medium skilled workers get access to opportunities and helps businesses to recruit staff faster, and easier, and more affordably than any other way. Also last year, of the 10 fastest growing Internet penetration markets in the world, 8 of them were in Africa. Okay, so quite a few.

Scale 158

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling SaaS Payments 158

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2020

* What does Jessica believe is the right way for sales reps to engage with new customers during this time? How should sales teams and CS respond to requests for discounts? What specific and deliberate things can startups do not just to prevent churn but also to increase usage and upsell? This podcast is sponsored by Guru.

Sales Recruiting 174

Sales Recruiting Technical Review Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 174

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

Going by the definition accepted in the market, a Chief Omnichannel Officer is the executive responsible for integrating various contact centers and customer technologies to provide an ‘omnichannel’ experience to customers rather than the ‘multi-channel’ experience they have been getting traditionally. .

Sales Recruiting 10

Sales Recruiting B2B Sales Hiring Technology 10