Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 16, 2020

One of the most consistent errors made in sales projections and planning is mismatching the ramp time to the sales cycle. If my startup has a 9 months sales cycle and the VP of Sales projects a six month ramp time, my startup is committing this error. For example, lead quality, sales training, funnel conversion rates.

Scale 297

Scale Forecasting Sales Interviewing 297

SaaStr

DECEMBER 6, 2022

So we’re seeing for example tough times for a lot of sales and related tools that were aimed at increasing rep productivity, but aren’t mission critical per se. The post Salesforce: “Things Are Too Unpredictable to Provide a Forecast” appeared first on SaaStr. Nice to haves are the first to go, if they can be cut.

Forecasting 282

Forecasting Cloud Scale Enterprise 282

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 18, 2022

The most consistent sales leader I’ve worked with hit plan 27 consecutive quarters. How can a sales leader develop similar repeatability? Each business’s PQR funnel will differ depending on their sales cycle, ACVs, and overall motion. Will the sales leader attain plan? Demo/meeting: sales meeting.

Scale 331

Scale Sales Forecasting Outsourced Development 331

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 24, 2019

We all know it’s impossible for a sales team (or anyone for that matter) to predict the future. But with rigorous sales forecasting, they can actually get pretty close. But forecasting isn’t as easy as asking your sales reps to give you a number. What is a sales forecast?

Forecasting 181

Forecasting Revenue Sales Technical Review 181

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2022

Sales tools seem under more pressure right now than infrastructure, for example. If no one is buying sales and marketing tools, why are ZoomInfo and HubSpot growing at record rates, for example? The post Gartner: Business Software Spend Still Forecast to Rise 11.3% No doubt, something is clearly happening.

Forecasting 299

Forecasting Artificial Intelligence Software Business 299

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

JUNE 7, 2025

The focus of this experiment was to use AI tools to create a Marketing & Sales Funnel Calculator - an app that shows how many leads a Marketing team needs to generate, so a Sales team can hit its number. My goal was to help GTM teams model their funnel stages, simulate conversion rates, and forecast revenue outcomes in real time.

Sales Funnel 130

Sales Funnel Artificial Intelligence Marketing Sales 130

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

If you want to hire your first sales rep and close more deals, you need to understand how the sales process works, what tools your team needs to be successful and learn to speak sales. Sales definitions you should know. CRM objects — Represent the sales relationship you have with a specific person or company.

Sales Hiring 318

Sales Hiring Startup Sales Outsourced Development 318

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 14, 2020

Sam Jacobs created the Revenue Collective , a group of more than 1700 sales professionals at some of the fastest-growing companies. With chapters across the US, Revenue Collective has broad reach within the sales community. 72% of respondents have adjusted revenue targets and forecasts, or expect to soon.

Sales Hiring 334

Sales Hiring Sales Forecasting Travel 334

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

Radical Transparency in Growth Planning While most revenue leaders deliberately “sandbag” forecasts to ensure they can over-deliver, Colin Jones did the exact opposite at Wiz. Rather than seeing this as a liability, Wiz leveraged it as a strategic advantage — even in its sales team.

Scale 173

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 173

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2024

Dear VP of Sales: No One is Out to Get You. One of the themes is how many VPs of Sales and CROs think CEOs and Boards and VCs are essentially out to get them. Yes Does any founder I know >want< to fire a VP of Sales? The amount of energy that goes into a VP of Sales search is huge. Then, you can re-forecast once.

Sales Hiring 287

Sales Hiring Forecasting Sales Startup 287

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Many mid-market software companies price with the goal of revenue maximization, negotiating for the highest possible price in each sale. Penetration pricing leads to land-and-expand sales tactics. Salesforce sells CRM seats based on an aggregate ROI of increased sales productivity for example.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 16, 2017

How much should a SaaS startup invest in sales and marketing at different stages of the business? Sales and marketing investment depends on many different factors including establishing product market fit, the business’s sales model (inside, field, freemium), and not least, cash balance and fundraising capacity.

Investment 274

Investment Startup Marketing Sales 274

Predictable Revenue

JUNE 10, 2024

In this episode Collin Stewart hosts Jeremy Painkin, SVP at Community Brands, to discuss the essentials of effective forecasting. The post A Guide to Effective Forecasting with Jeremy Painkin appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Forecasting 162

Forecasting Branding Revenue Development 162

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

When sales teams succeed, the company succeeds. But running a high-performing sales team isn’t an easy task. How can you ensure success within your sales organization in a way that scales with you? This score is then taken and compared to top performers already in our sales organization.

Scale 260

Scale Leadership Sales Hiring Sales 260

SaaStr

MAY 30, 2024

Sales-Led vs. Product-Led vs. Hybrid What are the pros and cons of different motions? Let’s start with a sales-led motion, which is traditionally how B2B software has been sold. Hybrid combines product-led and sales-led motions, and they work closely together. How does that collaboration and hand-off with sales work?

Scale 299

Scale AI Search Azure Sales 299

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2022

The world of sales is evolving as rising costs and shifts in buyer behaviors continue to change. An emerging strategy that organizations are adopting to grow revenue more efficiently is inside sales. Inside sales refer to the practice of selling from office premises via phone, email, or video calls. Benefits of inside sales.

Scale 261

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales 261

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

The economy is settling into a new normal (at least this year’s version of normal) and after two years of rocketing sales, some newer salespeople are experiencing their first sales cyles that aren’t influenced by the recent funding boom. Nicole has spent almost five years leading sales at Stripe. Sign up HERE!

Sales 260

Sales Management Operational efficiency. Forecasting 260

Kellblog

APRIL 29, 2021

This is the second in a three-part series focused on forecasting and pipeline. In part I , we examined triangulation forecasts with a detailed example. It draws a deadline for how long sales has to clean up after the end of a quarter: the end of week 2. 3] “Of what” meaning of what number? then: 7,000/2.2

Forecasting 143

Forecasting Scale Benchmarks Pricing 143

SaaStr

AUGUST 5, 2024

When you find the answer to these questions, you can expand an existing customer base and create cool data-driven case studies to help your sales team bring in net business. They’re expected to back up forecasts and gut feelings with data. 1: Build a Value Narrative Value narratives have been around for some time in pre-sales motions.

Scale 284

Scale Customer Success Scaling Revenue 284

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2025

The 4 Things Most Founders Get Wrong About Marketing: “We’re a product company, not a marketing company” – The hard truth is that 9 out of 10 B2B companies spend more on sales and marketing than R&D. Mix in the classic conflict between sales and marketing teams, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Sales Hiring 190

Sales Hiring Marketing Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 190

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 17, 2025

Every public company has a number of equity research analysts covering them who build their own forecasted models, which combine guidance from the company and their own research / sentiment analysis. Beating consensus revenue estimates is the first aspect of a successful quarter. So what are these consensus estimates and who creates them?

Cloud 277

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 277

Blulogix

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

By BluLogix Team The Role of Invoice Forecasting in Financial Planning Introduction Predicting revenue accurately is a game-changer for businesses of all sizes. Invoice forecasting is not just a financial functionits a strategic tool that helps companies optimize cash flow, improve budgeting, and reduce financial risk.

Payment Features 59

Payment Features Forecasting Subscription Data Analysis 59

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

I asked Aasif Osmany to share his learnings as a top-performing SMB VP of Sales, below. While at Gorgias, I expected to leave with as much knowledge to earn me an honorary bachelor’s in sales. On my second day of work, I was fully immersed in the sales pipeline and conducting demos for new prospects alongside the CEO.

Scale 284

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Underperforming Technical Team 284

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

More on why the great sales teams almost always end Q4 strong here. Your sales team should know what they are doing. Re-forecast cash — and Come Up With an Action Plan. Do a new forecast. Do not stick with the old forecast. They don’t re-forecast cash properly or their ZCD. times out of 10.

Scale 343

Scale Forecasting Consulting Revenue 343

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2024

What Does AI-Enhanced Sales Look Like In Two Years Everyone’s thinking about it. What does the future of AI-enhanced sales look like from Amit’s perspective? Sometimes, it’s two hours a week; the rest is spent filling out forms, one-on-one meetings, forecasting calls, etc. First, no drudgery. The second is a blending of roles.

Scale 305

Scale AI Sales Underperforming Technical Team 305

Predictable Revenue

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

Learn what revenue forecasting is and why it's crucial. Here's a guide for building accurate forecasts for better financial planning. The post What Is Revenue Forecasting and How Can You Use it? appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Forecasting 130

Forecasting Revenue Development Sales 130

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MAY 5, 2025

The focus of this experiment was to use AI tools to create a GTM Funnel Calculator - an app that shows how many leads a Marketing team needs to generate, so a Sales team can hit its number. The Brief I built a dynamic marketing and sales funnel calculator using Lovable, an AI-powered no-code app builder.

Artificial Intelligence 130

Artificial Intelligence Sales Funnel AI Forecasting 130

Neil Patel

APRIL 7, 2023

When it comes to SEO, forecasting can be a tricky concept. In this article, we’ll discuss what SEO forecasting is, and where it is and isn’t effective. In this article, we’ll discuss what SEO forecasting is, and where it is and isn’t effective. What Is SEO Forecasting and Why Does It Matter?

Forecasting 120

Forecasting Underperforming Technical Team Engineering Trends 120

ChurnZero

APRIL 25, 2025

And the shift to better integrate CS and sales is well underway. How can we shift our mindset from reactive to future focused, from assessing past mishaps to forecasting ideal scenarios? Renewals forecasting was historically a sales game, but increasingly, CS teams are responsible for expansion revenue.

Forecasting 52

Forecasting Customer Success Payments Data 52

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

So you’ve heard that product-led growth is all the rage, and now you want to transition from a sales-led motion to a product-led one. He creates a culture of experimentation versus only looking at historical data and forecasting. Some companies go really hard,” he shares. What needs to be true to become closer to PLG?

Scale 240

Scale Strategy Marketing Sales 240

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2023

OpenAI’s Head of Sales, Aliisa Rosenthal, joined OpenAI a year and a half ago — before ChatGPT launched. A friend joined Jasper as president and asked her to run the sales team. Sam said he had no idea what sales would look like at OpenAI or how to go to market with their products, but they went for it. They’re on a rocket ship.

ChatGPT 292

ChatGPT Scale AI Search Sales Hiring 292

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: Salesforce: “Things Are Too Unpredictable to Provide a Forecast”. 8 Ideas On How to Motivate The Sales Team After a Rough Patch. If things are tougher for you right now, here are some ideas to rally the sales team through it.

Scale 240

Scale Venture Capital Sales Forecasting 240

SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2023

Traditional Sales Teams Vs. Modern Sales Teams Traditionally, most people learned to sell by taking a product, showing the sales team with a demo of how to use it, and then sending them off to sell it. This can lead to making changes to the product, longer sales cycles, and not focusing on the right customer for your product.

Forecasting 293

Forecasting Point of Sale Technical Review SMB 293

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2020

Calmly re-forecast for the year based on a bottoms-up analysis (e.g., longer sales cycles). Just “cutting the burn” or freezing hiring isn’t a real, re-forecasted plan. Maybe the sales projection will be cut 30%. You may need some relief in sales quotas, etc. A bit more here. More here.

Sales Hiring 292

Sales Hiring Forecasting Enterprise Metrics 292

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Gartner: Business Software Spend Still Forecast to Rise 11.3% SaaStr 602: Secrets To Combining PLG and Enterprise Sales with Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover. ?. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. Go Do More of Them.

Sales Recruiting 301

Sales Recruiting CTO Compensation Software Review 301

Clouded Judgement

JULY 16, 2024

With embedded applied AI and machine learning technologies built specifically for Finance, our platform automates and streamlines workflows, accelerates analysis and improves forecast accuracy, equipping the Office of the CFO to report on, predict and guide business performance. Financial and Operational Planning and Analysis. months and 23.4

Benchmarks 295

Benchmarks Data Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning 295