Sales Hacker

JULY 24, 2018

Decreased revenue per rep, High turnover as you scale headcount. It’s just the price of hypergrowth,” we think. Efficiency Isn’t Something You Worry About After Scaling. We made our machine more efficient even as we scaled, grew headcount, and skyrocketed our revenue. Empower your reps to “self coach”.

Scale 55

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Scaling 55

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2022

Weave started off as a dental ERP and comms platform (including VoIP / phone), and then expanded beyond that as it scaled. It’s a tough outcome for a team that is working hard to scale well into the nine figures of ARR. A fairly standard SMB price point. But I thought I’d take a deeper look at one example, Weave.

SaaS Payments 242

SaaS Payments Scale Payment Methods Payments 242

Clouded Judgement

MAY 24, 2024

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen… The Workday earnings call summarized it well: “But within the quarter, we experienced increased deal scrutiny as compared to prior quarters, and we are seeing customers committing to lower headcount levels on renewals compared to what we had expected.

Cloud 152

Cloud Software Scale Headcount 152

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 20, 2023

At least you don’t have a scale disadvantage. But it’s not unheard of to see strategies you’ve been using fail to drive consistent growth while you scale. Yoram Wijngaarde Building out a team is often the next step for companies looking to scale. Peter shares his experience with managing headcount.

Scale 52

Scale Scaling Headcount SaaS 52

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

Don’t Tie Revenue To Headcount “You want to get away from a business model where every incremental dollar requires incremental hiring,” says Deatsch. So instead of focusing on scaling headcount quickly, work toward growing revenue quickly.

Sales Hiring 225

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 225

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 11, 2019

If you’re a leader, he says, don’t try to scale your job. Since 2010, he’s helped the company grow to more than 40,000 customers and helped scale the support team to more than 500 employees to assist those users. But where else can you be investing outside of headcount to maintain that customer centricity? Michael: For sure.

Scale 188

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team 188

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

But this is changing - many categories are becoming commoditized leading to massive pricing pressure. Headcount planning, budgeting, fundraising, etc can often be largely based on a top line plan. And because the AI (particularly generative AI) space has so recently come on the scene, there aren’t a huge number of vendors!

AI 183

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors 183

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Companies in our region are good at achieving PMF and scaling to $1 million-$5 million ARR efficiently. The promise of SaaS was healthy profitability at scale and yet we see companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue burning cash. Often, founders are unsure about the headcount split between India and the US.

Scale 214

Scale Sales Hiring Cybersecurity Underperforming Technical Team 214

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2021

At what pricing? You need a baked financial model, that includes sales and marketing costs, scaling over time, headcount, and comparison to comps, and when you’ll need the next round(s). Not saying it’s easy, or that you have it all figured out now. Of course you don’t. But a clear path. With comps.

Scale 276

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Headcount 276

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

If you don’t have tickets, lock in Early Bird pricing today and bring your team! I will really understand, “What is the price I want for my product?” I get to set the price of the apples, because they’re my apples. Get tickets here. TRANSCRIPT . Super cool. Jason : Peter, thanks for coming. Peter : Yeah.

Sales Hiring 329

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 329

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s). these figures are going to be WRONG because you haven’t properly accounted for your headcount costs in Sales & Marketing.

Finance 118

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 118

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

But specializing across the sales process will take more headcount. You start to become a break-out leader, and there’s a target on your back: Competition leads to price cutting. Why Your Cost of Sales Generally Doubles As You Scale. Whatever it is, you’ll want to move away from a generalist approach. Plan For It.

Sales Hiring 236

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Venture Capital 236

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 13, 2022

There are large-scale potential implications: Reduction in a sales capacity to land new customers. Companies with an equivalent commercial operation- sales headcount, marketing spend, and customer acquisition cost (CAC). Another long sale cycle to upsell existing customers who already showed conservative buying behaviour.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Scale Headcount Software Review 52

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 29, 2021

Fortunately, Mark had quite a bit of experience working and scaling teams in demanding, hypergrowth environments. This is Scale , Intercom’s podcast series on driving business growth through customer relationships. Kieron O’Neill: Mark, you’re very welcome along to Scale by Intercom today. From selling bikes to software.

Sales Hiring 223

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 223

OpenView Labs

MAY 24, 2021

Hint: You have to look beyond the website or pricing page. You can think of the ratio of R&D:S&M as indicating how much of a company’s future prospects depend on their ability to build great product experiences relative to scaling up their sales and marketing activities. Like OpenView’s coverage of SaaS metrics and benchmarks?

Scale 98

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Benchmarks 98

CustomerSuccessBox

DECEMBER 3, 2021

You may find yourself protecting your headcount, rooting for investments you want in tech, and giving suggestions for new product features. Customer Success Manager headcount and performance. Also, the CFO might be worried about the ‘increase in headcount’ investment. Having that conversation can be expected to be a tough one.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Data Technical Review Headcount 52

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2022

We’ve seen a variety of approaches here to Cloud companies at scale, and most (although not all) try to keep services under 10% of their revenues or so, including Confluent. Some like Qualtrics price services to still make money. But they need the headcount to grow this quickly. #8. Not free-cash positive yet.

Scale 51

Scale Cloud Headcount Scaling 51

OpenView Labs

MAY 20, 2021

I saw this as a client partner and then regional managing director at an eBusiness firm that scaled from 0 to 2,000 people in three years, organically. The same was true when I ran the People function at a software development consultancy that doubled its headcount to ~100 while reducing attrition from 40% to 5% voluntary in 18 months.

Scale 84

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Software Review 84

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s). these figures are going to be WRONG because you haven’t properly accounted for your headcount costs in Sales & Marketing.

Finance 52

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 52

ChurnZero

JANUARY 4, 2024

On the other hand, economic headwinds continue to constrain CS budgets and headcounts. “Hiring from the fractional workforce allows businesses to access focused and specialized expertise, on an as-needed basis, without the commitment or price tag of full-time hires. Hiring and teams will continue to grow at a steady pace.”

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Trends Sales Hiring Artificial Intelligence 52

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

The software company’s stated strategy was to offer great products paired with low pricing and self-service purchasing, a Product Led Growth (PLG) recipe that fueled the company’s sustained profitable growth. Sales now accounts for about 7% of the company’s headcount–a similar share of their workforce as marketing or product management.

Sales Hiring 57

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 57

Sales Hacker

MARCH 1, 2024

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter – read by over 50,000 revenue professionals weekly to scale their companies and careers. Claim your tickets today , including a limited number of special two-for-the-price-of-one tickets.

VP of Engineering 72

VP of Engineering Scale SaaS AI Search 72

Sales Hacker

MAY 15, 2023

Even though our company is scaling quickly and getting close to the point of full capacity, it’s not the right time to hire salespeople — because a pivot to something more sustainable could be in the works. You have to be willing to scale your pitching to the point where you’ll occasionally land a win. Virtually zero.

Sales Hiring 87

Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services Payment Services 87

OpenView Labs

JUNE 3, 2021

pricing, channel, and marketing readiness, etc.). There’s often no shortage of needs to fill, so it’s common that formal product marketing headcount is typically added when a company reaches an inflection point. Instead, think of product marketing as a role that helps both product management and the company scale.

Product Marketing 93

Product Marketing Sales Hiring Startup Scale 93

InsightSquared

MAY 7, 2019

When scaling the business, sales typically averages roughly 30% of revenue, so therefore sales spend is one of the biggest investments a company can make. At the highest level, SaaS companies look at sales expense, headcount, sales productivity and SaaS metrics like: The cost of new customer acquisition (CAC).

Scale 102

Scale Sales Hiring Metrics Sales 102

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

There are industry, size, geography, titles, headcount, and whatever else is publicly available. You’re not going to immediately ask what the price is, and based on that make your decision. There are a ton of questions that a buyer has before jumping into the price. Write down searchable and non-searchable characteristics.

Scale 109

Scale Sales Underperforming Technical Team Headcount 109

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 13, 2019

When implemented well, automated customer service allows businesses to help more customers at scale without drastically growing headcount. Customers who ask about pricing, who are identified as at-risk or “high-touch,” or our trial users, are automatically routed to a team member for assistance.

Underperforming Technical Team 279

Underperforming Technical Team Customer Support AI Headcount 279

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

One of the biggest challenges businesses face when they grow is scaling effective , autonomous and quick decision-making. Again, it was an easy to use model which scaled effective decision-making. Economies of scale. What worked with 30 employees will start creaking at 300, and break well before you hit the 3,000-mark.

Underperforming Technical Team 213

Underperforming Technical Team Scale Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service 213

Sales Hacker

JUNE 16, 2022

For example, your best, most active customers may pull back on expansion talks or inquire about term or price adjustments. Even if you don’t control the headcount and even if layoffs come later, help them find a new role. What companies are actually trying to achieve is to scale their revenue. Make them feel safe.

Scale 92

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 92

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 29, 2018

Traditional Sales Organizations – Growth of headcount in sales was structured around revenue per individual contributor (IC). The root cause of today’s challenges can be traced back to the use of this outdated model based on low volume of deals at a higher price. Scaling Your Revenue Growth. Scale the Recruiting.

Sales Recruiting 75

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Sales 75

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

As companies scale, they evolve, so how should marketing evolve accordingly to add maximum value? PST, Kady shares the ten things that change in marketing as you scale. PST, Kady shares the ten things that change in marketing as you scale. The reality is that a lot of things change as we scale. The answer isn’t simple.

Scale 196

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 196

Sales Hacker

MARCH 12, 2020

They likely come at a lower price and are eager to learn, and, in some cases, they may only be lacking industry exposure. RELATED: 5 Ways to Keep Your Sales Machine Efficient While Scaling Headcount. Don’t be discouraged. There’s plenty of great, uncultivated talent out there. Rework your compensation structure.

Sales Hiring 76

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Compensation Underperforming Technical Team 76

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 28, 2021

The rule of 40 states that at scale, a company’s revenue growth rate plus its profit margin should be at least 40. It was one of my critical measurements of how efficiently we were scaling. Ideally, as a company scales, headcount doesn’t scale exactly in tandem. There are a few ways I think about it.

Payment Solutions 52

Payment Solutions Software Review Software Payments 52

ProfitWell

MARCH 3, 2020

We invest in business software companies as they’re scaling through the awkward teenage years of that expansion stage—but they’ve found product-market fit, they’ve found some customers, they’ve got a great product, and they’re really ready to 10x their customer base in their teens. Here’s some intel from our conversation.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services 59

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2022

How do you enter a highly competitive marketplace, carve a niche for yourself, and then scale the business to $100 million+ ARR? Brokers and accountants were two of the channels that Rippling identified would help them scale quickly, so they invested in them from early on. Scaling your go-to-market efforts.

Outsourcing Services 218

Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 218

OpenView Labs

JUNE 10, 2019

From Product-Market Fit to Product-Market-Price Fit. A large majority of those failures can be attributed to premature scaling and underestimating how long it takes to validate the market for a given product. Kyle Poyar, OpenView’s VP of Market Strategy, explains why you need to include pricing in the equation. Podcasts.

Management 55

Management SaaS Scale Sales Recruiting 55

ChurnZero

OCTOBER 15, 2021

During one of our BIG RYG Hyper-Workshops on budgeting for Customer Success headcount, Kristen Hayer of The Success League, framed this shift by explaining that as a CS leader, you’re not running a happiness team, you’re running a revenue team. Some of the most common include: CS starts to look salesy. CS segments aggressively.

Customer Success 97

Customer Success Benchmarks Scale Underperforming Technical Team 97