SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2021

The #1 biggest mistake I see from $1m to $10m ARR is chasing new market segments, new categories, new areas where you have 0 or almost no traction. Break your customers into say Small, Medium and Larger segments. Align your marketing budgets. Your sales headcount. Hire a VP of Sales that knows what they are doing.

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Headcount Pricing Market Segmentation 294

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2021

Sudheesh is one of the great sales strategists I know and this is a must-watch session. #2 2 “Secrets to Aligning Marketing and Revenue Strategies with Marqeta’s CMO” A great session with Marqeta’s CEO, who previously helped run marketing at Mulesoft. I loved it.

Scale 267

Scale Finance Market Segmentation Enterprise 267

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

Creating great sales email sequences requires a lot more work than just writing a few punchy pitches. The key to creating sales sequences reps will use. Many companies start their sales engagement initiative with just one sales ops person who’s also in charge of sales enablement and working with the marketing team.

Scale 99

Scale Technical Review Sales Systems Review 99

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2021

But really, it means you aren't doing any effective marketing. Few things will demotivate your sales team more than a very low win rate. Do you need better sales leadership? Are you using sales folks to try to close deals at ACVs they aren’t experienced enough at? A very high close rate sounds great.

Scale 280

Scale Market Segmentation Leadership Engineering 280

Sales Hacker

JUNE 16, 2022

It’s been a tough couple of years, Sales Hackers. From layoffs at Redfin and Tesla to the plummeting crypto markets , companies are starting to tighten their belts — and the economy has shifted from the so-called “Great Resignation,” with a job market heavily favoring employees, to the “ Forced Resignation.”. Ralph Barsi.

Scale 91

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 91

Sales Hacker

MAY 6, 2021

From B2C consumer-focused tech to the next B2B enterprise cloud giants, B2B, and B2C technology companies are springing up left and right and sprinting toward multi-billion dollar valuations (whether on the private or public markets) faster than ever. What’s the difference between a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)?

VP of Engineering 93

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 93

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 15, 2014

In the past, we have benchmarked the revenue per employee of large publicly traded SaaS companies and determined that the average is about $200k of revenue per person. But, that analysis examined revenue per employee that only one point in time. It’s the fastest revenue per employee growth, recording 18.6%

Benchmarks 100

Benchmarks Revenue Scale Metrics 100

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2022

When you think of scaling up, many things may come to mind, like hiring, culture, marketing, and sales. Here are three things that helped 6sense reach this mark and beyond: Defining their revenue operating model by hiring for RevOps and not taking the common DevOps and SalesOps approach. The friction between sales and marketing.

Scale 169

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 169

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” You can’t always expect a great VP of Sales to double sales in 30-60-90 days. But you have to see progress in one sales cycle. If, in one sales cycle, things aren’t improving on several core metrics, they never will. The best VPs of Sales hit the ground running.

Part-Time VPE 173

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 173

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

Revenue is good. Lots of revenue is great. Optimized revenue is better. Because the world of e-commerce is so restless, as soon as your company finds itself bringing in steady revenue, the first question anyone will be asking is: How can we make this performance even better ? What is revenue optimization?

Revenue 40

Revenue Pricing Outsourcing Services Merchant Services 40

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

Your sales team doesn’t have time for efficiency blockers in a competitive, fast-paced market. Learn how these factors impact your prospecting, and what you can do to yield better outcomes in sales. #1: Learn how these factors impact your prospecting, and what you can do to yield better outcomes in sales. #1:

AI Search 90

AI Search Social Media AI Sales Funnel 90

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 28, 2018

Here’s a recap of the best sales articles from 2018 from Sales Hacker! With 2019 is right on the horizon, I’m taking this as an opportunity to look back at the kickass year we had at Sales Hacker. for making Sales Hacker what it is. The 18 best sales articles of 2018 from Sales Hacker. More on that later…).

Sales Hiring 96

Sales Hiring Sales Underperforming Technical Team B2B 96

SaaStr

JULY 6, 2020

I got the VPs of Sales, Product and Marketing I needed. 60+ NPS, 130%+ net revenue retention, however you measure it is special. If yours is, invest more there and worry a little less about pressure to do new things, new market segments, etc. 6/ Do not be scared we will block a sale. Invest more there.

Part-Time VPE 247

Part-Time VPE Scale Market Segmentation Finance 247

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2020

2 often has a better product, at least for some market segments. #2 Just revenue growth. It simplifies things and makes it easier to rally sales, product and marketing. #2 When you’re #1, especially in sales … you end up trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the customers. Post-traction, with a brand.

Innovation 248

Innovation Market Segmentation Pricing Branding 248

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

When writing the post Vertical SaaS Startups Require Different Go To Market Than Horizontal SaaS Companies , I realized that there is a perception on my part and perhaps more broadly that vertical SaaS companies enjoy greater sales efficiencies than horizontal SaaS companies. Revenue 0.28. Revenue Growth 0.20.

SaaS 100

SaaS Sales Market Segmentation Startup 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 3, 2012

When going to market, startups tend to pursue one of two sales strategies, either education sales or execution sales.These sales strategies are substantially different. They demand different sales cycles, pricing and market positioning - potentially even different team members. The Education Sale.

Education 100

Education Sales Market Segmentation Consulting 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

One of the hardest thing to do in sales, especially for early stage SaaS companies, is to disqualify customers. When a startup disqualifies a customer, they turn away a revenue opportunity, a chance to add $1k of MRR or $3k of MRR, and meaningfully grow the top line. Imagine a startup at $15k in MRR.

Sales 100

Sales Compensation Market Segmentation Startup 100

Sales Hacker

JUNE 21, 2019

And for sales success, nothing beats a strategic sales plan. Designed specifically to help your sales team drive more sales, a sales plan can show you where you’re at, where you want to be, and even more important, how to get there. The question, of course, is how to create a sales plan that actually impacts sales.

Sales 69

Sales Forecasting Market Segmentation Sales Enablement 69

Navint

APRIL 3, 2019

There is a correlation between business performance and the maturity of your recurring revenue business, but correlation doesn’t always turn out the way you would expect. We’ve developed a Recurring Revenue Maturity Curve that we use to help clients navigate these potential pitfalls and enable recurring revenue growth.

Revenue 45

Revenue Scale Compensation Innovation 45

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 19, 2012

Developing a sales strategy is critical for software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups. The first step in developing a sales strategy is to build a robust market segmentation. Compared to the small business part of the market, there are far fewer potential customers - only about 12,500. Payroll Segmentation.

Marketing 100

Marketing Sales SaaS Market Segmentation 100

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 19, 2012

Developing a sales strategy is critical for software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups. The first step in developing a sales strategy is to build a robust market segmentation. Compared to the small business part of the market, there are far fewer potential customers - only about 12,500. Payroll Segmentation.

Marketing 100

Marketing Sales SaaS Market Segmentation 100

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 16, 2018

A proper outbound sales strategy has real science behind it. Market Segmentation combined with tailored messaging. Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in 6 months: our outbound sales system is fueling this growth. How To Build An Efficient Outbound Sales System. Evaluate the attractiveness of each segment.

Scale 84

Scale Sales Hiring Payment Services Payment Methods 84

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Enterprise sales is not a simple switch to make from SMB sales—it’s a completely different beast. I recently caught up with a founder I talked to last year who didn’t have the time (or desire) to deal with sales and wanted to hire someone to ‘”validate the market” for him. Let me be clear.

Sales Hiring 74

Sales Hiring Enterprise Scale Startup 74

Totango

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

This is why we are so proud to have received multiple leadership awards from TrustRadius in the customer success category, including: TrustRadius Best Relationship: Highlights companies that follow through on their sales and marketing promises, deliver on implementation expectations, and identify customers who would buy again.

Customer Success 112

Customer Success Software Review Technical Review Enterprise 112

InsightSquared

APRIL 14, 2021

Today, the average Chief Revenue Officer’s (CRO) tenure is a shocking 16 months, according to Revenue Collective. CROs, and sales leaders alike, often walk into their new role blind. They work tirelessly to assess the funnel quality, sales process adherence, and the overall go-to-market strategy. What can be saved?

Scale 62

Scale Metrics Sales Forecasting 62

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 24, 2017

The story behind Fleetmatics and Geotab illustrates the way two companies pursued the SMB logistics market in radically different ways, but built roughly similar sized businesses. Based in Massachussetts, the company generated $320M in revenue in 2016. How did a business at this price point scale, especially with an inside sales team?

Sales Hiring 186

Sales Hiring Strategy Venture Capital Marketing 186

Baremetrics

MAY 26, 2021

That's the size of the company, annual revenue, number of employees, market share, etc. Geographic: Sometimes, this is a subset of the demographic segment. Value-based: This segment is grouped by the economic value the group seeks. Needs-based: This grouping is defined by each segment's particular needs.

Social Media 105

Social Media Market Segmentation B2C Churn 105

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 2, 2013

A key component in a startup’s formula for success is educating customers about the product and driving sales. The sales and marketing teams of a startup are responsible for this. There are many ways to structure sales and marketing teams. There are many ways of structuring sales and marketing teams.

Startup 100

Startup Management Marketing Sales 100

The Angel VC

SEPTEMBER 16, 2013

The next logical step is sales, and so I want to write about what you can do to convert as many of those leads into paying customers. The next logical step is sales, and so I want to write about what you can do to convert as many of those leads into paying customers.

Scale 153

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Sales 153

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 24, 2023

TL;DR Customer acquisition attracts and converts new customers through marketing and sales efforts to expand the customer base and drive revenue growth. Businesses can establish a foothold in new market segments by effectively targeting and acquiring new customers and creating initial traction for their new products.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Retention Customer Lifetime Value Churn 103

User Pilot

JULY 30, 2023

You should put more focus on acquisition than retention when you’re launching new features /products or aiming to expand your customer base, or when the market share or churn rate is low. Customer retention requires more focus when you have high churn rates , high acquisition costs, and a business model reliant on recurring revenue.

Acquisition 95

Acquisition Retention Customer Lifetime Value User Experience 95

User Pilot

OCTOBER 26, 2023

TL;DR Growth initiatives are strategies aimed at expanding a company’s customer base, market share, revenue, or profitability. Market Development involves selling existing products to new markets. Market Penetration focuses on selling more existing products within the current market.

Acquisition 104

Acquisition Scale Onboarding Marketplace as a Service 104

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 12, 2017

On top of that, why are sales people some of the few employees subject to variable compensation structures? Do other roles have employees that are all equally internally motivated while sales just attracts the classic “slimy” stereotype that everyone loves to hate? Sales performance is easier to measure than other roles.

Compensation 79

Compensation Sales Hiring Sales Payment Services 79

Sales Hacker

JUNE 14, 2018

There are many levers a sales leader or organization may pull to gain scale, accelerate revenue, drive cost savings, or augment sales team structures. A viable and proven option is handing over some or all of your sales efforts to outsourced sales professionals. 5) DO ensure sales and marketing are aligned.

Outsourcing Services 57

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Sales Outsourcing Outsourced Development 57

SaaSOptics

AUGUST 11, 2022

Before reaching out to investors, you should have a clear idea of how a capital injection will be used to maintain or develop different pieces of your organization, whether it’s product, leadership, sales and marketing, or research and development. Option 2: Selling the business.

Scale 97

Scale Scaling Technical Review Venture Capital 97

Totango

AUGUST 9, 2022

B2B customer segmentation gives you the power to customize your service and even personalize it for individual clients. This yields superior customer satisfaction, translating into higher revenue for your business. This article will give you six best practices for optimizing your B2B customer segmentation.

B2B 99

B2B Social Media Market Research Customer Success 99

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2022

No dominant market segment. While Sprout Social is going more upmarket per the prior point, no one segment dominates it — allowing them to span from $89/month customers to big ones like Salesforce. #5. A 30-45 day sales cycle, fueled by a 30-day trial. Sales and Marketing are 39% of revenue.

Scale 56

Scale SMB Market Segmentation Scaling 56