SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

Jameson Yung, SVP of Sales at Gong, and Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund and previous CRO at Brex, share five tactical ways to get back to growing and hitting revenue targets. Set and reinforce them early — as early as interviews. Create/ track a leaderboard so i f someone is below average in sales, it’s objective.

Sales Hiring 204

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Sales 204

OpenView Labs

JULY 20, 2020

Interviewing is hard , and interviewing candidates for sales roles can be doubly so. Sales requires a mix of left- and right-brained qualities, and accurately evaluating a candidate’s skills is a challenge for hiring managers. Why is effective interviewing so important? Better interviewing = better sales teams.

Interviewing 73

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 73

FastSpring

APRIL 4, 2024

As an experienced sales and GTM leader, John Eitel has more than witnessed how product-led growth (PLG) has affected the tech and SaaS space in the last few years — he and his teams have been up close and personal with how PLG increased in popularity as a sales strategy. “I But really excited about this interview. Jump to video.

Scale 150

Scale Sales Payment Methods Merchant Services 150

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

years as SVP, Global Sales at Klaviyo. He helped scale the sales organization from 15 to 300 people, while growing annual recurring revenue from $25m to over $450m. Over the last few years he has advised and invested in many B2B SaaS companies, particularly focused on helping with Go-To-Market.

Sales Hiring 92

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Interviewing 92

ChurnZero

JUNE 30, 2021

A CSM needs to be responsible for cultivating exceptional experiences and sustained value for your customers by acting as their trusted advisor and advocate from the point of sale through the renewal and throughout the rest of the customers’ lifecycle. 20 Interview Questions to Ask Your Customer Success Manager Candidates.

Interviewing 72

Interviewing Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale 72

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2023

I loved his discussion in particular on how they spend $1 Billion total on sales & marketing at Nutanix, and how they could have easily done it just as well spending 25% less. Stay for that one, too!

Interviewing 215

Interviewing Investment SaaS Sales 215

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2022

In my own portfolio , more of my investments had a record month in October than a rough month. Sales tools seem under more pressure right now than infrastructure, for example. Sales tools seem under more pressure right now than infrastructure, for example. But is spending? I’m not so sure. Be honest. Or is it you?

Forecasting 245

Forecasting Artificial Intelligence Software Business 245

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2023

A VP of Sales role. This is especially rough in a VP of Sales candidate, but it goes for any leader. I see very mediocre executives that came into startups I’ve invested in and really get nothing accomplished in 6-9 months or more … then trade that experience for another VP role. A CMO role, again and again.

Sales Hiring 236

Sales Hiring SaaS Interviewing Startup 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Sales reps were hosting 4-6 calls daily but most of these calls were early demos or top-of-funnel discovery calls Sales was closing really small deals on one end while talking to really large companies with hundreds of thousands of people on the other. Define your ICP as early as you can and segment your sales team accordingly.

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Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 226

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Overcoming challenges by optimizing for success In the early stages of setting up your SaaS business, it’s always a good idea to invest time thinking about the direction you want to take. Deel scaled the sales team from two to 250 account executives, but issues with productivity and enablement of the account executives cropped up.

Sales Hiring 228

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 228

FastSpring

AUGUST 3, 2022

Another place to get fresher takes are industry thought leader interviews and posts. Account-based sales companies are accustomed to defining sales regions. If you’re a more location-agnostic company, you likely put less energy into sales and marketing efforts based on where your customers or prospects are coming from.

Scale 136

Scale Revenue Sales Compensation 136

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development. Is a CRO right for you?

Sales Hiring 240

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 240

OpenView Labs

JANUARY 8, 2021

Great interview questions tell you who a person is, what motivates them, how they think and solve problems, and what they’d be like as a teammate. To help us all conduct better interviews, we asked some of the smartest leaders in SaaS to share their favorite questions. takes the cake as the worst question ever.

Interviewing 75

Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Scale 75

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Alison brings the perspective of all sides of a startup, from investing to SaaS to Cloud. For Google Workspace, they invested in expanding and building Google Meet and the rest of the workspace during 2020. It was interesting because they got to interview a bunch of customers and sales executives.

Cloud 241

Cloud Scale AWS AI 241

Sales Hacker

MARCH 8, 2018

Sales interviews are nerve-wracking. You may have to pass on hundreds of excellent sales hires—it’s definitely frustrating. Hopefully, these 5 tips will help you avoid many of the pitfalls I see candidates falling into, and drastically improve how you prepare for a sales interview. Sales interview must-dos

Sales Hiring 70

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 70

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 7, 2021

In the subscription economy, there’s no debate about whether or not to invest in Customer Success (CS); 70% of rapidly growing businesses say that Customer Success is extremely important ( Hubspot , 2017). When it comes to budget, organizations often haven’t established where the investment is coming from to fund the CS team.

VP of Engineering 98

VP of Engineering Customer Success Sales Hiring Interviewing 98

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2022

A gap opens up when: – Sales abandons the customer the moment deal is closed – Support too reactive & slow to solve real issues – Deployment harder than should be. So as I’ve written about before, I’ve interviewed a ton of folks for CS roles in the past 12 months. An important gap to fill, and a full-time job.

Customer Success 283

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 283

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Klue , which operates an AI-based competitive analysis platform, announced a $15 million Series A investment this week. The round also saw investments from angels like Frederic Kerrest, who is the co-founder of Okta. . The engagement may last a few months and involve extensive interviews and online research (yes, lots of Googling!)

AI 270

AI Consulting Interviewing Innovation 270

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 11, 2023

Before we get into it, curious to hear your thoughts on last weeks Sales Hacker/GTMnow announcement ?! This week I sat down and interview the VP of Sales at Crunchbase , Ang McManamon. Ang shares her 5 P’s of Sales Leadership: Professionalism Preparation Process Performance Play More on these below. Grit is a must-have.

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Scale Leadership Sales Hiring Sales 64

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Chuck is the co-founder of Blueprint Expansion , a GTM roles recruiting firm that has helped over 50 VC-backed companies make amazing Sales, Marketing, & Customer Success hires. They combine your sales and marketing data with our validated B2B data and AI to create Account Intelligence that informs every step of your buyer’s journey.

Sales Hiring 105

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 105

User Pilot

AUGUST 6, 2023

If even one channel becomes better at driving users towards your sales funnel, you’ll be able to improve your customer acquisition significantly. Decide on your digital channels Like most sales associates will tell you, not all channels are made equally. Following up on insightful customer feedback through email or interviews.

Investment 97

Investment Banking Social Media Customer Lifetime Value 97

Sales Hacker

JULY 28, 2021

In providing a neutral ground for marketing, sales, and customer success, RevOps must also analyze contexts to convey insights quicker. In this episode, we interview Seth Marrs , Research Director at Forrester , about the role of analysis in building RevOps into a role that amplifies the voice of the buyer.

Customer Success 99

Customer Success Marketing Sales Innovation 99

Valuize Consulting

DECEMBER 16, 2021

In this interview, Naz shares her expertise on how to design a powerful CS strategy that equips your team with the right tools and resources to drive an exceptional employee experience and champion phenomenal growth. is equivalent to having a Customer Success strategy. Another important piece of this is data governance.

Interviewing 52

Interviewing Customer Success Scale Government 52

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

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. For instance, Founders Fund doesn’t really invest in AI, health tech, or edtech, even if you’re growing 5x. On the sales side, people hired way too much.

Sales Hiring 258

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 258

Sales Hacker

JUNE 10, 2021

It’s that sales representatives are one of the toughest positions to hire for. The demand for sales reps is one of the highest of any job. Sales courses are largely absent from college curricula. Most sales managers will tell you that they’re looking above all for the right attitude. Not for a set of hard skills.

Sales Hiring 105

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 105

OpenView Labs

MARCH 8, 2021

B2B sales involves one business selling its product to another business. Those with experience in both B2B and B2C sales know that B2B is a lot tougher—the deals are bigger, there’s often more than one decision-maker, and the competition is intense. Conducting interviews. 20 of the Best Interview Questions for Sales Hires.

Sales Hiring 80

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting B2B 80

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. Do at least 20–30 customer interviews before you start writing too much code. 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. A bit more here.

Sales Hiring 309

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 309

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 19, 2022

As the president of Sales Xceleration, a firm specializing in assessing and implementing sales strategy , sales processes, and sales execution to drive growth, I’ve seen how job hopping can affect otherwise stable sales teams. Sales organizations experienced 58% higher voluntary turnover in 2021 than in 2020.

Sales Hiring 80

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting Compensation 80

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

I’ve also invested in 24+ next-generation SaaS companies, mostly successes, and had a chance to watch and learn from them as well, with a new lens. And paying a little more for a lot more experience can be one of the top investments you’ll ever make. Sales — Not Easier. Investing in the Future is Easier.

Sales Recruiting 314

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 314

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 18, 2019

Sales Technology has EXPLODED over the last few years. And just like the explosion of Martech, if you’re on the cutting edge of the sales tech revolution, you’ll reap the rewards. 6 Sales Tech Trends. 2020 will be the year of acquisitions in sales tech. As a result, you may find your tech stack shrinking in 2020. #2:

Artificial Intelligence 52

Artificial Intelligence Interviewing Trends Sales 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2024

“Typically that was the marketing hat in my case, but sometimes it was the sales hat or thinking about finance or other areas of the business. Leading him to some of his biggest mistakes when hiring: Not investing enough time. Databricks invested in the brand early, and it paid off with customers telling their story for them.

Sales Hiring 250

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Review Leadership 250

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

In two one-hour interviews, FastSpring sales leaders Todd Stellfox and Tony Markov each interviewed Kurt about pricing strategies that work in volatile markets and beyond. Stream both interviews below and see highlights from each. Todd Stellfox, Sales Manager at FastSpring.

Pricing 138

Pricing Payment Solutions Payment Services SaaS Payments 138

OpenView Labs

MARCH 17, 2020

So I’m always on the lookout for provocative interview questions that help you learn much more about the person than just their canned answer to “What’s your biggest weakness?” ” I could see from his answer that this was someone who was investing in his own personal growth to be a better executive and leader.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team 52

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

There was one thing prospective sales reps would say in an interview that always chilled my spine. It would especially come from sales reps from larger companies in high-velocity in-bound environment (e.g., Recently I met with a couple of great SaaS founders, paying their sales reps $70k total a year, with minimal bonuses.

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Compensation Customer Success Interviewing Sales 248

Sales Hacker

MARCH 8, 2018

Sales interviews are nerve-wracking. You may have to pass on hundreds of excellent sales hires—it’s definitely frustrating. Yet as a hiring manager, seeking to build the best sales team in the industry, there are a few things I’ve observed that separate the good from the great. Sales interview must-dos .

Sales Hiring 41

Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 41

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2020

I took advantage of the format to ask every VC I interviewed one question: Do You Open Cold Email? Personally, I do get behind on email, but I love an amazing cold email and have funded maybe ~50% of my investments from them. Selling stock in sales. And you know, it’s not just me. (I I love a great cold e-mail).

Interviewing 293

Interviewing Investment SaaS Sales 293