SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

We all saw the Cloudflare sales rep on social media not work out. It reminded me of a golden rule it took me years and years to figure out: If a new hire doesn’t work out, it’s always 100% your fault What do I mean? Did the hire really meet the bar? Did you test the hire for real before they started?

Sales Hiring 238

Sales Hiring Social Media Interviewing Education 238

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

Finding the perfect VP of Sales position can be daunting, especially in the middle of a global pandemic. Candidates need to find opportunities that not only fit their sales experience and stretch goals, but also companies that are coming out of the pandemic with momentum. Who is looking to hire a VP of Sales in January / Q1?

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Sales Hiring Scale Payment Solutions Payments 311

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

In SaaS, #1 most common misfire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” or variants thereof. Because in SaaS start-ups, it seems like the majority of first VP Sales fail.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Hiring a VP of Sales isn’t new, but the conversations have evolved as the world has. SaaStr’s own Jason Lemkin shares the top 10 mistakes he sees during the hiring process during Workshop Wednesday, held every Wednesday at 10 a.m. The last 18 months have seen the biggest changes in the VP of Sales in his SaaS career.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 145

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2021

The toughest hire of all is probably your VP of Sales. What are the right interview questions? When is too early to make the hire? When do you know that you’ve made a mis-hire? How far can you stretch to make the hire? What’s fair to expect from a VP of Sales, and what isn’t?

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Sales Hiring Sales Interviewing 261

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2022

One of the first what How to Hire a Great VP of Sales at the New York Enterprise Tech Meet-Up (thank you to John Lehr and Work-Bench for setting this up). The Number One Thing You Can Do to Accelerate Your Business Post-Initial Traction is Hiring a Great VP of Sales. I don’t know anything about sales.

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Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting 246

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How does a First Time Founder Identify 10x Hires? How do you hire a great CTO, a great VP of Product, a great VP of Sales … if you’ve never worked with one? There’s a reason almost every founder you talk to had a mis-hire for their first head of sales. It’s hard.

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Sales Hiring CTO Hire CTO Coach CTO 192

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2022

This requires effort from your entire organization, and Handshake VP, Employer Partnerships Jessica Peluso outlines some changes that you can make to your brand, and your application, interview, and offer process that will help find the talent you are trying to attract and hire. Below is the transcript of Jessica’s session.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 208

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2020

One of the classic original SaaStr posts was on the Top 10 Questions to Ask a VP of Sales Candidate. We did an update of that classic post below together with this brand new video on the topic: Use this script for hiring that first VP of Sales. Ready to hire your first VP Sales? And When to Hire One.

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Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing Sales 291

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2022

Many mediocre hires were made to fill slots, reference checks not made, etc. What we used to do, from ‘05-‘19: Do 30 interviews per position, ideally. Then when everything super boomed in 2H’20 and ‘21 it went kind of like this: Do 3-4 solid interview for a position, not 30. So did startups. jasonlk) May 23, 2022.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Startup 241

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

and Lenny asked us to join his podcast to talk about building a sales team — from the perspective of a product-first founder or exec. It was a pretty strong conversation and we took a lot of our learnings over the years and focused on how to learn to do sales right if you come from a product-first background: It’s good.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 234

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

And so many of you in fact are, well … hiring. Most of you are, in fact: According to our latest unscientific but directionally correct survey of over 2,000 SaaS execs, 64% of you are growing your sales team in 2024. Find those still hiring, and find 5 or 10 that truly are a match for your skills. Slow it down.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Interviewing 248

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

In the latest episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with Ashley Kelly, VP of Global Sales Development at Rippling. For context – Ashley had previously helped Sam scale Brex’s outbound sales from $2M to over $300M in ARR as Senior Director of SDR.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 233

SaaStr

AUGUST 19, 2022

So we’ve talked a lot of the years on SaaStr on how to avoid a mis-hire for a key VP role: We’ve talked here about the 48 Types of VPs of Sales, and making sure you hire the right type. We’ve talked here about how to hire the right VP of Marketing, so you get leads and not just blue pens with your logo on them.

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Sales Hiring Interviewing Customer Success Sales 218

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2022

Q: Dear SaaStr: What Are Some Good Strategies To Hire People In The Early Days? A few basic thoughts … that many still don’t get right: Don’t hire anyone that doesn’t understand their functional area better than you do. Don’t hire anyone you don’t believe in. If you’re not sure how to hire for a role, get an advisor that does.

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Sales Hiring Strategy Interviewing Startup 225

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What are some of the “ultimate sins” in marketing and sales and success in SaaS in the early stages? My list of some bad ones: Sales: Hiring any reps you wouldn’t buy from. Later, once you have a strong VP of Sales, it’s fine though. Your sales reps need to eat. Hiring just 1 rep.

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Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 219

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2023

At SaaStr APAC 2023, Scott Pugh, VP of Sales at Figma, shared how to scale these two sales teams while building culture. Pugh’s strategy is simple, albeit not always easy: Recruitment — how to hire the best talent to scale your sales organization. Define your hiring profile. Focus on the hiring profile.

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Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 208

SaaStr

AUGUST 4, 2021

Ask them what those top 3 are before you hire them. I’ve interviewed 100s of VP of marketing candidates over the past years and I can tell you one think — it’s easy to spot the ones that won’t work out. How have you worked with the sales team in the past? Were they close to the VP of Sales?

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Interviewing Sales Hiring Marketing Branding 354

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2023

This week we have a special 2 guest episode, with the best hiring guru’s in the game, Chuck Brotman & David Teichner. 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.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing SMB 104

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. In this interview, David Sacks talks about how 70-80% of investor time is spent looking at AI.

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Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 227

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2024

Lemkin expresses concern about the changing work ethic and loyalty of sales and marketing professionals, observing a trend of multiple job-holding and lack of commitment. Lemkin acknowledges the challenge of meeting people’s high expectations and the existential nature of finding solutions to these hiring and motivation issues.

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Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Technical Review Scale 232

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Interviewing? One bit of advice: Please, please, actually research the company you are interviewing at. The other day I did a similar final, fourth round interview for a VPM. I ended the interview (politely) after 10 minutes and told him to watch the video. Looking for your next role? Been through a lay off? For real.

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Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting 212

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?

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 222

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

That when you make a mis-hire, you'll always look back and say you should have made a change 3-4 month earlier? When to hire them. How to interview them and qualify them. Some classics here: How My VP, Sales Doubled Our Sales in 90 Days. If Your VP Sales Isn’t Going to Work Out — You’ll Know in 30 Days.

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Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Underperforming Technical Team 211

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2022

Most of you are hiring twice as many sales reps as last year. This isn’t an epic insight, but I did the poll because I find so many SaaS founders underestimate how many reps you have to hire. If you want to double, you have to at least double your sales team. At least. #23. Of course not. #24. Another Sigh.

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Sales Hiring Interviewing Revenue Sales 200

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2020

A little while back we put together some of the top sales & marketing mistakes SaaS companies and founders make, especially in the early days. Sales: Hiring any reps you wouldn’t buy from yourself. Later, once you have a strong VP of Sales, it’s fine though. Your sales reps need to eat. Hiring just 1 rep.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2020

As you scale up in SaaS, one thing I can almost guarantee is that you are going to hire some VPs who were either fired or quit their last role. So you’ll end up hiring VPs who went through a significant transition at their last gig, sometimes an involuntary one. They are good managers, and they know there is no upside here.

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Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing Startup 312

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2023

On a sales front, how do you evolve past founder-led sales, or together with it, so that you can scale your organization? Founder-led sales can be an immense strength and rapidly become a limiting factor. PST, Laura Connell, Partner at Atomico, shares how to scale beyond founder-led sales on your path to Series B.

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Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales 189

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

Product marketing can be difficult, and managing product launches and rollouts can be complex. Your sales rise to a very high level You may realize that your sales are reaching high levels, but at the same time, you may encounter a situation where there needs to be more structure or control in your sales process.

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Sales Hiring Product Marketing Scale Marketing 193

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2021

There’s nothing wrong with hiring folks from the competition. Only hire them if you still would if they worked somewhere else. The time will come when you are first tempted to hire someone from your competitor. Hiring from your Competitor. Interview them, learn from them … but generally, stop there.

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Sales Hiring Interviewing Engineering SaaS 199

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 22, 2020

If you think sales is a simple job, I have a few hundred professional connections who would like a word with you. There’s a range of key skills that separate the best from the rest, and success belongs to companies who can identify and hire reps who have those precious skills. By mastering your sales interview questions.

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Sales Hiring Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 76

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2021

We’ve talked a lot about hiring a VP, Sales. We’ve talked about the 48 Different Types of VP Sales , What a VP Sales Really Does , and a Script to Use When Interviewing a VP Sales. In those cases, no “big mistake” hire was made. But still, some hires didn’t work out.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Point of Sale Sales 156

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2022

So we’ve talked so much over the years on SaaStr on how to hire a great VP of Sales, the difference they’ll make, and how the level-up comes quickly. And VPs of Sales do, too. Don’t hire a VP of Sales that isn’t truly comfortable selling to your buyer persona, especially in B2D and fintech.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 240

SaaStr

AUGUST 29, 2023

So there’s a situation I see happening with many (not most, but many) SaaS companies as they build out the first management team: They hire a VP of Sales that doesn’t think much of the VP of Marketing. Does this always fail, when sales and marketing don’t really talk, and aren’t a team?

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Sales Hiring Marketing Sales Interviewing 197

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

Market challenger sales are very different. In fact, this is where the name challenger sale originates. Sales cycles lengthen, demand more work, and consumer more time. When you interview salespeople for your startup, do you consider their experience at a market leader or market challenger? How do you sell a new product?

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Sales Hiring Scale Startup Interviewing 222

Sales Hacker

APRIL 30, 2020

What’s your approach when hiring sales reps? Companies often hire sales reps who have knowledge of, or even a passion for, the brand’s product or industry — which is great because it gives you a team of “walking brochures” who can spout off all the benefits of your product. The best training for new sales hires.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Underperforming Technical Team 93

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2024

The 1000+ unicorns of Covid fueled this, with ample capital to hire, hire and hire. The other day I interviewed yet another other great AE who had recently become a Director of Sales. Not just hire and manage people?”. Before They Hire Anymore. Ask in the interviews. Constantly.

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Sales Hiring Interviewing Startup Customer Success 230