Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

If you’re looking to move up the ladder into a sales leadership role, your resume is key to getting your foot in the door. In this article, I’ll share my 3 ground rules of resume-writing, cover the parts of a leadership-level resume, and share a sample resume that will help you take your career to the next level. Volunteering.

Leadership 76

Leadership Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales 76

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2023

So one recent survey we did really brought out a healthy debate: does your VP of Sales really need to be a product expert? Many of the comments said it was more important a VP of Sales understand process and leadership more than the product itself. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. At least a little bit.

Scale 231

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 231

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. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales. Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 259

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2023

Some engineers by training, others in sales or product originally. But a few uniting characteristics of the very best: Relentless Recruiters. You have to be constantly recruiting the best. The best founders usually spend at least 20% of their time recruiting. Some ruthless with competition, some more zen about it.

Sales Recruiting 218

Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling Engineering 218

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

This happens with some regularity in SaaS, I’ve learned (and to be clear: I’m not talking about any company I’ve invested in, am an advisor to, board member of, etc – Because when it’s still a very small team, with no true management team … co-founders can kind of hack it to $1m-$2m in ARR together.

Sales Recruiting 236

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 236

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

More on that here and a great video discussion below: You’ll probably be ready for your first VP of Sales by $1m in ARR. We’ve talked about this a lot on SaaStr, but hiring a true VP of Sales before you have 2 reps hitting quota (and thus a repeatable, if not yet fully repeating process) is too early. Earlier is better.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

We’ve talked a ton on SaaStr over the years on how to make sure your VP of Sales and top hires really work out. We can pretty much summarize a lot of it into the following: Your VP of Sales should have lots of experience selling at your average ACV. for that type of sale. That they are the right ones. Ask who they are.

Sales Recruiting 323

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 323

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 103

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 103

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

You need engineering, product in all start-ups — but in SaaS, even in the very early days, you also need sales, client success, true support, demand gen marketing, etc. Routine Sales. You gotta hire 2 great sales reps as soon as you can. This didn’t work well until I had a Great VP of Sales. That was me.

Sales Hiring 280

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Scaling 280

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Storyblok started with a leadership-first hiring plan and a recruitment strategy that involved the following: A test to know how candidates handle different tasks and their expertise level. Their first step to achieving this was hiring a sales leader to build a sales team.

Scale 199

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 199

Buffer Resources

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

I’ve never created LinkedIn content with the “goal” of lead generation or immediate-term sales. Another cool example I really like is Tito Bohrt — he stands out with the pseudo, “ Sales Mad Scientist ” — which demonstrates confidence and a unique identity online.

Sales Recruiting 128

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 128

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 17, 2022

As cross-functional leadership teams across the country clamor to prioritize and agree upon the top threats to address, many underestimate the importance of effective change management. Related: 6 Change Management Hacks for Sales and Marketing Alignment that Lasts. Change management and change intelligence.

Sales Recruiting 77

Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Strategy Management 77

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

It’s so, so easy to stand out in recruiting if you’ve actually done your homework. Sometimes the bar is shockingly low, even for leadership roles” — David Fallarme, VPM, Spotdraft “One time, a candidate had created a free trial account on our SaaS tool, plus trials on competitors. Now I see who they sell to!”

Interviewing 229

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting 229

SaaStr

JULY 30, 2020

I’ve been reminded of this question in several meetings lately where founders are doing pretty well, getting to and past Initial Traction, but with hindsight it’s interesting that the founder that took the CEO gig perhaps was better suited to a different role, say CTO or SVP of Sales or President or COO or SVP Product.

Sales Recruiting 315

Sales Recruiting Venture Capital CTO Hire CTO 315

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

You might never have considered a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) because it’s not been a common role until very recently, and because you might not have the kind of revenue that needs its own manager. If you’re a company that has a 100% sales-driven business model, it makes sense to hire a big-deal revenue person. Is a CRO right for you?

Sales Hiring 241

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 241

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

For example, a great Stretch VP of Sales might get you to from $50k to $500k a month in new bookings. To recruit the team and resources it takes not just to meet the plan this quarter, but the next one and the following quarters as well. Many first-time VPs just can’t recruit great managers under them.

Sales Recruiting 235

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Metrics 235

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2022

The role of a VP is to own everything required to hit the goals for a functional area – Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Finance, or Customer Success. This includes: Recruiting the team. Instilling Confidence and Managing Up and Down. This can be hard. And many first-time VPs have never done this.

Sales Recruiting 264

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Finance Engineering 264

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 19, 2023

I socialized with them at elegant black-tie events, fine client dinners, and weekend leadership retreats. Maybe it goes without saying, I never heard them mistake the mail room guy or the security guard for a leadership team member.) Related: Recruiting Saleswomen of Color: What Are You Waiting For? But they didn’t see me.

Sales Recruiting 85

Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Sales 85

User Pilot

AUGUST 21, 2023

In this ultimate list of product manager interview questions, we have tried to simplify the process of hiring great product managers. Product management encompasses the entire SaaS lifecycle from ideation to launch and everything that follows. What to look for in product managers? Leadership. Communication skills.

Interviewing 83

Interviewing Underperforming Technical Team Management Sales Hiring 83

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

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2021

Also, an all-time SaaStr fan-favorite, Jeff Lawson recently chatted with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin to discuss his thoughts on collaborating, managing and working with developers. You might also include developers on sales calls from time to time — it makes everyone feel heard. In turn, developers need to adapt.

Sales Recruiting 163

Sales Recruiting Development Software Review Management 163

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

Your best sales reps can close so much more than your average rep. Move the bottom 10% out and give the best leads to your top performer, and watch sales go up 20%. The best VPs of Sales design comp plans so the team never wants to leave. The best VPs of Sales design comp plans so the team never wants to leave.

Sales Recruiting 217

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 217

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. Recruiting is easier, but the things that don’t change are customers don’t care.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

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. They have low attrition.

Sales Hiring 323

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 323

Sales Hacker

MAY 6, 2021

What’s the difference between a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)? The VP of Sales. Great VPs of sales have gravitas and tact, command the room and hold their end of the table regardless of who is on the other side. Singular focus on sales. As the title would hint at, the VP of Sales should focus on sales.

VP of Engineering 93

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 93

SaaStr

AUGUST 23, 2022

My general learnings: By 20-30 employees, you should have 1-2 good managers in place such that at least 50% of the company can run based only on weekly staff meetings, 1-on-1s, and “grab me when you need me-s” E.g., a great first VP of Sales that can just handle sales. management team by 50 employees or so.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 195

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

As he told me a few days ago, he has observed the lack of sales management and sales execution skills as one of the most consistent deficiencies limiting the potential of early stage SaaS companies. Sales execution deficiency manifests itself at roughly the same time as product market fit.

Sales Hiring 184

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Compensation 184

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 268

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 268

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 20, 2022

Strong sales reps are the lifeblood of your business and how you choose to invest in them matters. For frontline sales managers, attributes like competency, quality of work, ease of execution, and length of contribution indicate reps’ overall job success, but you can’t rely on those inputs to tell you if they are personally satisfied.

Sales Recruiting 98

Sales Recruiting Scale Retention Sales 98

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2022

If you want to get into SaaS sales, start at SDR and knock it out of the park. You can hear a great story of how Sam Blond, CRO of Brex … started off as our first and best SDR ever at Adobe Sign / EchoSign here: In most well-run SaaS organizations, the VP of Sales is constantly using the SDRs as a farm team for AEs.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Sales SaaS Management 195

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. For example, relationship managers who made more phone and video calls saw 4.8%

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

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. Image: State of Startups. Image: State of Startups.

Sales Hiring 81

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 81

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 7, 2020

Fortunately, more organizers than ever before are consciously seeking out female sales experts for panels, presentations, and podcasts. At Sales Hacker, we’re serious about diversity, and for that reason, we’ve compiled a list of 530+ female sales experts to consider for your next event. Leadership. Sales Development.

VP of Engineering 121

VP of Engineering Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Payment Services 121

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Welcome to Sales Hacker’s first-ever Influential Women in Sales list! In this exclusive list, we wanted to honor not just female leaders that promote their own sales platform (no shame in that!) They say “You can’t be what you can’t see,” and the sales floor is no exception.

Sales Recruiting 111

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale Sales Hiring 111

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2021

A new edition, new services, an outbound sales team, an account management / upsell team. From $1m to $10m ARR or so, as you build your first management team: You shouldn’t be the VP of Sales Anymore As You Scale. You still need to spend 15-20% of your time in sales. Add a layer. the prospects).

Part-Time VPE 273

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 273

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2022

If it explodes beyond your wildest dream, and you can manage to keep up and build a strong team, the answer is usually a long time. Could he or she recruit a better team? Often, just one great new VP of Marketing or Sales or Customer Success or Product will tilt the curve enough that you’d back to Better Growth.

Sales Recruiting 227

Sales Recruiting Customer Success SaaS Management 227

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

A head of sales that doesn’t recruit at least one strong rep in the first 90 days. A VP of Sales that has never done outbound, if they don’t take it on fairly early — they never really will. But the top VPs of Sales know you have to get it going soon. Never will. That hits quota or better. Never will.

Sales Recruiting 324

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring SMB Engineering 324