Sales Hacker

JUNE 10, 2021

There’s one thing recruiters are unanimous about. 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. Our recruitment team at EASI has gotten really good at this. Sales courses are largely absent from college curricula.

Sales Hiring 105

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 105

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 253

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 253

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Many will want to quit when you finally have revenues, just not enough to hire anyone else or pay anyone a decent salary. From $1m in ARR, and Then Forever After: Recruiting Great VPs. You need to learn to become great at recruiting. Why is my sales team less efficient at $20m ARR than at $2m in ARR? It never ends.

Sales Recruiting 252

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 252

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2021

Flock Safety’s Founder and CEO, Garrett Langley, and its VP of Growth, Alex Latraverse, know a bit about sales. Enough to go from 0 to 100 sales reps in about 18 months — and they’re looking to be well beyond 100 by the end of this month. The three things that led to ramping up sales at Flock Safety were: Achieving product-market fit.

Sales Recruiting 171

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 171

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2024

1: How Sales and Marketing Have Shifted Since 2020 Expectations and the types of people working in SaaS have shifted over the past few years, and much more in sales, marketing, and customer success. . #1: He had a friend help him hire an email marketer to send ticket emails to the events. There’s no choice.

Sales Hiring 224

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Scale 224

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. For all those reasons, hiring and management must be on point.

Sales Hiring 80

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting B2B 80

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 8, 2020

According to First Round’s 2019 State of Startups report , sales leadership is the most difficult hire to make. And with sales being a top priority for founders…. …along with it getting harder to recruit top-quality talent… Image: State of Startups. But this is not a hire that you want to cut corners on.

Sales Hiring 81

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 81

Tom Tunguz

MAY 15, 2017

It’s another thing altogether to have the sales team staffed to close that amount of business. The bookings capacity of the business is the amount of business a sales team should book in a certain period. They build a pipeline, learn the sales motion, and close a few accounts in the first few months.

Sales Hiring 114

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 114

The Angel VC

APRIL 1, 2017

At the excellent SaaStr Annual 2016 conference about a year ago, a very experienced SaaS CEO said on stage that an internal recruiter can be a startup CEO’s secret superpower. I couldn’t agree more, and I think startups should make that hire sooner rather than later. Let’s say you want to hire 10 people in the next 12 months.

Sales Hiring 168

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Software Review 168

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

She was hired because they saw a bit of softening in new business growth, and she came to help diagnose what was going on and help scale the business. Lattice had a product-led growth flow on the website while the sales team was still trying to sell the PLG companies The good news is Lattice had a lot of activity and initiatives at play.

Scale 226

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 226

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

Companies were growing their sales organizations and bringing in more revenue. The biggest obstacle to hiring was that there simply weren’t too many great candidates on the job market. Companies everywhere have frozen their hiring and laid off workers — with sales reps often among the first to go.

Sales Hiring 95

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 95

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Hiring a global team to achieve the vision What do you do when your company’s location limits your access to talent? You spread your hiring net and draw in as much talent as possible. Their first step to achieving this was hiring a sales leader to build a sales team. Self-service.

Scale 196

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 196

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. My general rule for start-ups is “young at heart” Hire folks of any age that are young at heart, with a joy of discovery and learning, and special things happen.

Sales Recruiting 321

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 321

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

I thought it would be worth drilling down deeper into each of them, and sharing the learnings and mistakes: 1/ Spending less time fixing things, more time recruiting senior folks to own them. No one spends enough time recruiting as it is, after $1m ARR or so. Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. You can do this.

Part-Time VPE 263

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 263

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. 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. You need to hire 2 to really see what works, and what doesn’t. More here.

Sales Hiring 297

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 297

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 16, 2019

So if scaling your sales organization is a priority in 2020, here are the things you need to be aware of to make sure you do so successfully. In my experience both as a salesperson and as a recruiter, it’s primarily been four things: They want the work they’re doing to matter to them. that you’re invested in their success).

Sales Recruiting 53

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Trends 53

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. My favorite joke when I meet a brilliant founder is to ask them if they know there’s an easier path to becoming an Account Executive than founding a company.

Sales Hiring 125

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors Technical Cofounder 125

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2023

So backstage at SaaStr Annual this year, and in a number of other conversations since, I’ve had a chance to get a few quiet moments with maybe two dozen top CROs and VPs of Sales. Yes, macro issues come up, and how they have to sell to more stakeholders now, and sales cycles are longer. But the best long ago adapted.

Sales Recruiting 214

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Onboarding Sales 214

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

It’s so, so easy to stand out in recruiting if you’ve actually done your homework. Invest those extra cycles. We took 1 day to deliberate, cancelled all our other interviews and hired him on the spot.” I hired him on the spot.” I ended the interview (politely) after 10 minutes and told him to watch the video.

Interviewing 224

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting 224

Neil Patel

OCTOBER 25, 2020

But should you build your own in-house marketing team or hire an agency partner? When you hire an agency, you are not just hiring one person. You are hiring a whole team and their network, which can sometimes be ten or more people. You won’t have to build out a management structure for that department either.

Sales Hiring 145

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 145

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.

Sales Hiring 77

Sales Hiring Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 77

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

You’ll need to hire aggressively to get to the next level and continue that rapid growth. But what roles should you hire for, and what will your org chart look like at each stage? David Sacks: SaaS Background and Investments. Head of Sales. Positions Needed: FP&A Analyst, Accountant, HR, Ops, Recruiter.

CTO Hire 244

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 244

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2021

They talked about product adoption, sales alignment, freemium models and lessons they have learned throughout their successful SaaS careers. As two CEO who love the art of sales and scaling, this one really was special. 20 VCs do come to me to invest in the company now. Jyoti Bansal: Let’s switch topics to sales.

Sales Recruiting 247

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 247

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2021

And then, I would have invested more wisely in Year 1 especially. Not Hiring 2-3 Sales Reps to Start. I should have hired 2-3 as soon as we were ready for 1. More on that here: When You Hire Your First Sales Rep — Just Make Sure You Hire Two. You just can’t settle or hire a B player.

Sales Recruiting 263

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale SaaS 263

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 12, 2019

A little over a year ago, I got the opportunity to start a new team within our sales organization – a team of Relationship Managers dedicated to growing our current customers at scale. The opportunity emerged out of a shift in how we practice sales. Starting a new sales team is not unlike doing improv. Hire for ownership.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

A few factors that contribute to high-performing sales teams: High quota attainment. The best startups invest in their sales teams and work hard so most of the reps hit and exceed quota. Turning over a sales team is very hard on the organization. A great VP of Sales is worth her weight in gold.

Sales Hiring 319

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 319

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Think about it — who else is so invested in your long-term success? If they’ve bought 7%, 10%, 20% of your company (with no exit on the horizon) … they’re pretty invested personally. A Few Good Hires / Potential Hires. VCs can bring you 1-2 great hires, you wouldn’t get to otherwise.

Sales Hiring 211

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Investment Acquisition 211

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. Now, I just invest in SasS companies.

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting 257

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Your sales team is integral to your business’s success: not only do your salespeople bring in the big deals, but they also represent your company and culture to every new and potential prospect. So why is sales team culture still an afterthought for so many organizations? People all across the company are so proud of our sales team.

Sales Hiring 143

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 143

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Today, she advises and invests in companies on these topics and others. Should you hire a COO for your startup? How you should you go about recruiting the right person? Allison is an incredible builder of teams. She’s written extensively on the topic and co-authored a book The Customer Success Economy.

Scale 281

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 281

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Startup founders are seeing hiring become their day jobs . In 2021, 42% of founders were kept up at night by concerns about hiring the best talent. Despite the shift to remote work, the great resignation, and the insane amount of hiring that is occurring, it still surprised us to see hiring becoming such a focus.

Sales Hiring 82

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Startup 82

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 29, 2021

Without the product management, you won’t be able to actualize that vision, because there’s no one to handle research, logistics, and all the other elements that go into successfully building and marketing a product. This is why, even for early-stage startups, the sooner you hire your first product person, the better.

Sales Hiring 60

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Development Team Review Management 60

OpenView Labs

APRIL 14, 2021

While hiring all talent is tough, hiring executives can be particularly excruciating. And the specter of making the wrong decision looms large—one wrong hire is all it takes to poison a culture. He hires dozens of executives every year for OpenView portfolio companies like Expensify , Highspot , and Calendly.

Sales Hiring 55

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Technical Review Technical Advisors 55

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2023

It’s the most common objection you’ll get in SaaS sales … Not Right Now. It can’t strategically improve sales software, financial software, quoting software, recruiting software, QA processes, call center software, etc. And when you hire a real, great VP of Sales. Truly qualified leads and prospects.

Sales Recruiting 253

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Software Review 253

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

I probably will pass on investing in you if I don’t know you want money. We recently did a New New in Venture event and I asked the question of many top VCs including David Sacks, Keith Rabois, Aileen Lee and more. “Give the VP of Sales More Time” This is always terrible advice. In one sales cycle, or less.

Part-Time VPE 297

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 297

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

Sales Hacker

APRIL 19, 2022

In this article, I’ll outline the principles of compensation design , how to build sales compensation plans , and include resources to set OTEs and quotas that keep your reps happy and hungry for more. Why Sales Comp Planning is Key to Rep Retention. Who should be responsible for sales compensation planning?

Compensation 88

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Retention 88