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 254

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 254

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 227

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 227

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 22, 2015

On December 2, SaaS Office Hours at Redpoint will welcome Maia Josebachvilli , VP of Strategy and People at Greenhouse, a fast growing recruiting software company. Maia is especially well known for her thought leadership in developing best in class recruiting metrics. She was also selected for Inc’s 30 under 30.

Sales Recruiting 100

Sales Recruiting Metrics SaaS Sales Funnel 100

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. Hiring sales leaders will get harder.

Sales Recruiting 53

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Trends 53

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

This was Storyblok’s strategy when it started expanding its team. 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. You spread your hiring net and draw in as much talent as possible.

Scale 195

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 195

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

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. Map out your change management strategy.

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. At a C-level you are interviewing the client to identify culture fit, blockers, budget, vision and can you execute, fund and build your strategy.” I ended the interview (politely) after 10 minutes and told him to watch the video.

Interviewing 225

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting 225

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

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 237

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 237

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

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

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 247

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 247

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 13, 2021

Although Linda started her career in sales, she has spent the past twelve years scaling post-sales teams and moving hyper-growth companies like Zendesk, Slack, and now Gong upmarket into the enterprise realm. Moving upmarket means larger customers and higher revenue, but it’s not without its challenges.

Scale 177

Scale Customer Success Strategy Sales Hiring 177

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

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. See, hiring and sales aren’t dissimilar.

Sales Hiring 81

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 81

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

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

SaaSX

JULY 12, 2020

Determining if sales or customer success should own customer expansion and renewals is the age-old SaaS question. If you are a SaaS founder, sales, or CX leader you have probably spent a lot of time thinking about this topic. What matters is leadership, clarity, and team composition. . Leadership. Team composition.

Sales Recruiting 90

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 90

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 29, 2022

When I ventured out to build my first Customer Success department at a tech software company, my leadership team thought I was nuts. At the time, I was a sales engineer, and my job was to close deals and move on to the next prospect. However, I found there were two flaws in our customer management process.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Recruiting Technical Review Compensation 98

InsightSquared

MARCH 6, 2018

Sales operations has been around for quite some time, but lately the function has been gaining momentum. Instead of behind-the-scenes sales support, sales ops now acts as a strategic partner for sales VPs and leadership. Start building out your sales operations department by hiring someone to own your CRM.

Sales Recruiting 119

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Sales 119

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.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Scale 171

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

And for Intercom’s VP of Sales EMEA, Sanj Bhayro , scaling is just what you need to invest in to ensure growth becomes as constant and linear as it can be. Sanj has plenty of experience scaling sales teams at growing businesses, and that’s precisely why, as of November of last year, he‘s overseeing EMEA sales at Intercom.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 21, 2023

Designing a successful post-sale strategy requires choices, says CXology’s Tim Conder. In this way, you can create some objective data that shows this pattern and trends across all accounts. Q: Is there a proven strategy for engagement and continual alignment? A: First, it matters how you recruit.

Sales Recruiting 52

Sales Recruiting Scale Customer Success Sales 52

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 19, 2022

Sales compensation planning can be a tricky beast to tame — but know that you’re not alone. I asked 12 incredible sales leaders across the SaaS industry to share their biggest challenges with comp planning and how to overcome them. Related: New to sales compensation planning? Top 10 sales compensation challenges.

Compensation 94

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Finance 94

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 52

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Social Media 52

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.

Part-Time VPE 363

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Scale 363

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. But also the cost it has on their careers — and your sales team.

Sales Hiring 79

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting Compensation 79

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

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 23, 2023

Why do product managers need them? That’s what Dave Martin , a product leadership coach, has talked about in his talk at this year’s Product Drive Summit hosted by Userpilot. Many companies lack differentiation strategies and drive product development by copying competitors. Ready to dive in to learn more?

Scale 89

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting Software Review 89

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Getting the team right is one of the hardest parts of scaling sales. But no sales team can afford to grow without intention. While building a sales team, we’ve focused a lot on our sales culture. Here’s how we went about growing a sales team that is both world class and culture-additive.

Scale 160

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 160

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 11, 2019

Here’s a quick reality check: the competition to hire women in sales is stiff and becoming stiffer. Even more sobering: the global recruitment agency, Norman Broadbent, found that it often takes at least eight phone calls before women can be persuaded to even apply for a position. Your Sales Leadership Team All Looks the Same.

Sales Hiring 54

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Social Media Sales 54

ChurnZero

JANUARY 25, 2024

Skillset 1: Sales acumen In 2024, driving revenue is a primary responsibility of CS. This means that sales acumen is no longer just a bonus for CS professionals—it’s a new baseline for many companies. Customer success manager roles The CSM role is becoming more strategic, with increased responsibility for driving revenue.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 52

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2020

That was the most over the top entrance that the sales leader for a company that moves boxes around the world has ever gotten. So we did about 442 million in sales last year. The top 25 freight forwarders combined to do 100 billion a year in sales. Rely on your success, know you are doing something right and scale faster.

Scale 198

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 198

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 27, 2022

In this episode of the Sales Hacker Podcast, we have Scott Barton , VP of Industry Solutions at Varicent. He’s an expert in the sales world, particularly in revenue operations and incentive compensation. Join us for a great conversation about driving the right behaviors within your sales team. powered by Sounder.

Compensation 80

Compensation Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Leadership 80

Sales Hacker

MARCH 12, 2020

Like most things in life, hiring sales talent is a matter of timing. Especially since the best candidates with strong sales skills are usually snatched up within 10 days. That’s why it’s critical to overcome indecision and move quickly when recruiting sales talent. Is it unrealistic sales quotas?

Sales Hiring 76

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Compensation Underperforming Technical Team 76

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

“Give the VP of Sales More Time” This is always terrible advice. If a VP of Sales can’t improve things in one sales cycle or less — she never will. In one sales cycle, or less. It doesn’t work because freemium is rarely a go-to-market and marketing strategy. More on that here.

Part-Time VPE 297

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 297