SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

Because sales is a lead-driven but headcount- closed business. VP of Sales Compensation Plan. And the great VP of Sales all know this. They all either have in their back pocket, and/or are constantly on the prowl for the next 2-3 great reps. To hit their number, they know they need the heads.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

Tom Tunguz

MAY 14, 2014

Customer success teams must justify the investment of building a CS team, often at the expense of headcount in another team. Constrained by headcount budgets and burn requirements, startup leadership teams often must choose between hiring an additional sales person or investing in a customer success person, for example.

Customer Success 100

Customer Success Startup Headcount Compensation 100

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2023

Many of them said headcount management and spend were common levers they pulled, given the immediate and significant impact they have on spend. AE and SDR compensation is another tactic to align GTM with what you want. What are companies doing today to scale efficiently? 80% of companies are slowing hiring.

Outsourcing Services 183

Outsourcing Services Scaling Venture Capital Forecasting 183

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 20, 2019

In most sales organizations, SDR is a foundational early sales role, the day-to-day work of an SDR can feel repetitive, and closing roles usually offer higher compensation than SDR roles. Business needs and team headcounts will change as a company matures. There are a few reasons behind this.

Sales Hiring 35

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Headcount 35

Valuize Consulting

FEBRUARY 8, 2025

Key considerations for a successful launch: Change Management and Internal Alignment Your Customer Success, Sales and Professional Services teams must be aligned on what the partner-led program entails, how it impacts customer relationships, and how compensation structures may shift.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Scale Technical Review Government 52

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 29, 2022

Like many early-stage Customer Success teams, I was working with limited resources and did not have any headcount to hire new talent. As humans, we naturally focus on what we are measured on, and more importantly, what we are compensated for. But compensation plans are too large and complex of a topic to cover in a short blog.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Recruiting Technical Review Compensation 98

Sales Hacker

MARCH 12, 2020

Is compensation too low? Compensate all sales positions in the same way. RELATED: 5 Ways to Keep Your Sales Machine Efficient While Scaling Headcount. Rework your compensation structure. All sales positions are not created equal — nor should they be compensated the same way. Is it unrealistic sales quotas?

Sales Hiring 97

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Compensation Underperforming Technical Team 97

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2012

Annual reviews are the best time to evaluate compensation, reward the top performers and begin to manage under-performers out of the organization. A financial plan for next year including a headcount plan, a sales plan (if applicable) and a forecast for out of cash date and timing of next fundraise. OKR setting.

Startup 100

Startup Sales Hiring Headcount Compensation 100

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 9, 2022

Understand how many sellers you need to hit quota to achieve your revenue goals and consider compensation impacts. Sales leadership needs to understand capacity at the aggregate level to better assess revenue projections and headcount decisions. Track your sellers’ ability to deliver revenue. Connect your entire go-to-market strategy.

Scale 120

Scale Headcount Sales Forecasting 120

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 13, 2018

This should feed into your strategy for building out compensation plans across your organization. Of course, headcount is always a sensitive topic, so start small to show your executives what is possible. If executed right, the headcount is truly an investment. Once you have your team, the next step is to define their missions.

Scale 104

Scale Development Headcount Sales 104

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

A mindless policy that basically says the C-suite can’t be bothered with headcount resource allocation and will effectively leave it to chance. If that’s 20% of someone’s total compensation, that’s a material pay cut — and that’s certainly not keeping the company a great place for those who stay.

VP of Engineering 130

VP of Engineering Travel Underperforming Technical Team Headcount 130

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

If you only have one or two headcount to add to your team this year, it’s going to be really hard to make significant improvement in this area. And the last thing is that if you are going to lean on your ERG leaders or other employees in your organization, make sure you’re compensating them for going over and above.

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 265

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

As a Customer Success leader, do you get anxious at the thought of asking your CFO or CEO for additional headcount? Using these models, you too can learn how to go toe-to-toe with your Finance team by presenting trade-offs to get the headcount you need. How to Build a Customer Success Budget for Headcount. Discovery Call.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Benchmarks 98

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 2, 2022

We also had to think about how we were doing their variable compensation to incent fairness across the team. Alli: Customer employee headcount aligned well for us with contract value and customer revenue. Many CS leaders struggle with knowing the right headcount they need to run their operations efficiently while avoiding CSM burnout.

Headcount 98

Headcount Underperforming Technical Team Scale Outsourced Development 98

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 13, 2024

So, in larger teams, the ratio of high-output individuals doesn’t scale at the same pace as headcount, making it seem like fewer “rockstars” are emerging. Ensure their compensation and career growth reflect their contribution. In a 100-person company, 10 people will be doing half the work.

Sales Hiring 118

Sales Hiring Scale Development Team Review AI Search 118

Stax

JULY 1, 2024

Yet it isn’t always cost-effective to hire an in-house team to manage payroll, especially for businesses with a small headcount. TL;DR Small businesses have specific payroll needs thanks to challenges such as growing headcount, limited resources, and a lack of internal payroll expertise.

Payment Solutions 88

Payment Solutions Payment Services Payment Methods Payments 88

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

It’s clear that faster-growing businesses are taking advantage of more creative pricing models, however, the switch to usage-based pricing can represent a host of challenges from revenue recognition to sales compensation. In turn, these headcount costs can go directly towards building and selling the product. .

Headcount 73

Headcount SaaS Compensation Acquisition 73

SaaSOptics

MAY 2, 2022

If you observe the average sales headcount of early-stage product-led companies, you’ll find that many have already laid the foundation of a hybrid model because (in most cases) a strong sales team is what ultimately allows them to scale and maintain their hold on the market. There Aren’t Many True Product-led Companies.

Scale 97

Scale Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales 97

InsightSquared

MAY 7, 2019

At the highest level, SaaS companies look at sales expense, headcount, sales productivity and SaaS metrics like: The cost of new customer acquisition (CAC). For these reasons, accurately tracking key sales metrics and benchmarking your performance against peers and market leaders is critical to getting the most out of your sales resources.

Scale 102

Scale Sales Hiring Metrics Sales 102

ChurnZero

APRIL 29, 2022

Sales operations is really clear: your sales cycle, your compensation plans, your territory, your rules of engagement, your enablement, etc. But realistically with you having a headcount, there’s no question that pretty much one churned customer at most enterprise organizations is going to pay for that.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Headcount Compensation Churn 98

Sales Hacker

JULY 16, 2020

Meanwhile, 73% have compensation tied to a KPI. 81% of partner professionals tell us they have trouble getting more headcount or resources to execute on partnerships, so offering even a small amount of your time to help create a partnership win may earn you a long-term internal ally. are measured by partner-influenced revenue.

Scale 123

Scale Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 123

Sales Hacker

APRIL 29, 2021

The size of your company and the volume of content you must produce each quarter will determine the headcount needed on your team. The biggest challenge we see in our start-up clients is headcount; each team member is already pulled in 100 different directions. Here are the functions your content supply chain should include.

Scale 117

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 117

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

This is something that I’m doing with fractional headcount allocation. The pilot programs aren’t meant to be these big bells and whistles, not even after you launch an official full-time headcount on something. It’s going to be the growth team, and we’re going to put three to four headcount on it.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 98

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Sales now accounts for about 7% of the company’s headcount–a similar share of their workforce as marketing or product management. I’d even argue that the company is still under-resourced in sales; sales accounts for only 7% of Atlassian’s headcount compared to 25% of headcount at the average PLG business. This is a good thing.

Sales Hiring 57

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount VP of Engineering 57

InsightSquared

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

Make sure goals, compensation and territory plans are complete. If you have open headcount for Q1 be interviewing in Q4. Behind headcount equals behind plan. Here are some thoughts to help you prepare for Q1 as you close out December: Ensure you have a complete sales plan down to the tactical level. Marketing is required.

Sales 78

Sales Headcount Sales Enablement Compensation 78

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 29, 2018

Reps were hired, trained and compensated to perform as an individual to hit a quota. Traditional Sales Organizations – Growth of headcount in sales was structured around revenue per individual contributor (IC). The Winning By Design Blueprint Series provides practical advice for every part of a SaaS sales organization.

Sales Recruiting 92

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Sales 92

Sales Hacker

MAY 26, 2021

Here, you can use your sales operations skills to get into your reps’ heads by creating compensation and incentive plans. Help drive annual planning and modeling projects with a focus on revenue and headcount. Collaborate with HR and accounting when building sales compensation rules, procedures and policies.

Scale 71

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development 71

Chart Mogul

MARCH 10, 2023

Slack’s magic in their use of PLG was that they were landing with software engineers in tech companies that were probably 40 to 50% of the overall company headcounts and very influential. For that reason, sales compensation is undergoing major changes. In other sectors, that’s not always the case. The answer is unclear.

VP of Engineering 52

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Compensation 52

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 17, 2019

Benchmarking also provides useful data on spending levels across the major expense categories, i.e., COR, R&D, S&M, and G&A, and well as specific data on headcount for each team within these categories. As a specific example from my experience, I started working with a SaaS company in the middle of a significant restructuring.

Benchmarks 40

Benchmarks Metrics Headcount SaaS 40

ChurnZero

APRIL 29, 2022

Sales operations is really clear: your sales cycle, your compensation plans, your territory, your rules of engagement, your enablement, etc. But realistically with you having a headcount, there’s no question that pretty much one churned customer at most enterprise organizations is going to pay for that.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Headcount Compensation Churn 52

ChurnZero

APRIL 5, 2019

Recommendations for Developing Compensation Plans for CSMs. It can be challenging when there are salary and headcount constraints, but you need to prove that CS is a driver for corporate growth. Recommendations for Developing Compensation Plans for CSMs. There’s not a one size fit all approach for compensation.

Customer Success 40

Customer Success Compensation Scale Leadership 40

ProfitWell

MARCH 3, 2020

Slack, for instance, grew their sales headcount by 66% year over year, compared to 31% for other functions. There is certainly a fear that with a product-led motion, you don’t have to pay sales compensation. And with SurveyMonkey it’s 43% vs. 16%. Really the product is front and center in how you acquire customers.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services 59

OPEXEngine

AUGUST 9, 2021

When the focus is on driving the right corporate outcomes, then individual managers can move away from low/no value-added concerns like tying their headcount or budget to their worth to the firm. Removing counterproductive behavior in the planning processes should always be an implementation goal.

Software Review 52

Software Review Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Headcount 52

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2020

I get asked by virtually every customer I talk to, “Hey, what are we doing around giving guidance on job roles and compensation?” inaudible 00:32:31] Some cuts, in this case, the company with 50 AEs, you drop 20 headcount, and then you’re 30. The other part that I think is top of mind probably is around stability.

Sales Hiring 217

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services 217

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 28, 2021

How do I structure a budget for headcount?”. In this article, Kristen Hayer , Founder and CEO of The Success League , shares the Customer Success budgeting strategies and models needed to build a compelling financial case and have more fruitful conversations with your Finance team about headcount.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring Headcount Customer Success Outsourced Development 52

ChurnZero

MARCH 22, 2019

How to structure and compensate a Customer Success team. We had one of our portfolio companies with 60% of their headcount reporting up through CS, and that’s how they focused and was the culture of the business. How to measure the impact of churn on your company. How to develop a customer health score and key customer events to track.

Retention 61

Retention Payment Methods Outsourced Development SaaS Payments 61

ChurnZero

MAY 1, 2020

To compensate, we stuff in fluff to fill our void of expertise. To persuade your Chief Customer Officer, you’d want to address their top concerns such as optimizing the customer experience without adding internal headcount. “Brevity starts with deep expertise. They point out that acquiring knowledge takes time and hard work.

Business 53

Business Headcount Customer Success Leadership 53