SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2020

Q: What makes a great sales leader? The best sales managers / directors / VPs: Recruit great team members. Sales requires a linear number of hires to grow bookings. So you have to be a great recruiter to scale. But the best sales leaders know where they are #1. Decrease sales cycles.

Sales Recruiting 270

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 270

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

In the “old” days, there was a rough rule that as soon as you are bringing on more than 1–2 reps a quarter, you needed to hire a director of sales ops. That at that point, at a minimum, there would be too much administrative work for your VP of Sales to handle it herself. You want the sales ops help scaled up and helping before then.

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 226

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

The toughest part in the end is always recruiting. Recruiting. Over time, that’s recruiting more and more senior folks, so the target changes. As your company scales, you’ll start to hit 15%+ attrition in your employee base just naturally each year. You’ll have to be recruiting new ones all the time.

Sales Recruiting 178

Sales Recruiting Scale Compensation Business Model 178

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

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. Here are some things to remember when you think about scaling your next big SaaS company.

Sales Recruiting 175

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 175

SaaStr

AUGUST 28, 2020

I know we’ve hit a number of these points individually before on SaaStr, but after getting asked about the top mistakes hiring your first sales team so many times over the years, I thought it would be worthwhile to assemble a Top 10 List. Make fewer of them and you’ll scale faster with less stress. Yes, you may be terrible at sales.

Sales Hiring 323

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 323

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Does it get easier or harder to scale SaaS as your company grows? Generally, it gets easier to grow at a “good”/modest rate at you scale, but harder to grow at an outsize rate. Efficiency goes down in other places (sales efficiency usually, marketing efficiency often). Account expansion starts to work.

Scale 201

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Branding 201

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. Additionally, they had to figure out how they would sustain the revenue stream to retain the staff. Prioritize customer and employee satisfaction.

Scale 199

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 199

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

Ah the VP of Sales. The first post is What a Great VP of Sales Actually Does. The second post is a script for you to use (and modify as you see fit) – 10 Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales Candidate. Just so you know, there are 48 Different Types of VP Sales. The toughest hire. Such a high failure rate.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2021

Most of us can’t afford to hire a VPM 12 months before we have our first customer, and we can’t survive through 10 sales reps without one. It’s not quite as terrible as waiting too long for a VP of Sales. A great VP of Marketing can help make the sales reps better qualitatively, even before you have a VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 350

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 350

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

It’s an approach that’s served him well along the road to building the HubSpot sales team, where he was CRO for nine years. That experience led to his bestselling book, The Sales Acceleration Formula. A data-driven framework for scaling. Mark’s latest ebook, The Science of Scaling , outlines a precise framework for success.

Scale 226

Scale Scaling Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring 226

SaaStr

JULY 22, 2019

SaaStr Scale, our one day, San Francisco based event. The Playbook To… Hear from different revenue leaders on the playbooks to revenue growth, scaling, building better teams and more. The Playbook to Building a Thriving Sales Culture with PatientPop SVP of Sales Justin Welsh.

Scale 185

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Sales Hiring 185

Sales Hacker

APRIL 23, 2024

Before Common Room, Linda led product marketing for serverless computing at Amazon Web Services, where she saw firsthand the impact connected data and person-level insights had on accelerating product adoption, earning new customers, and expanding account revenue. 11:07 – Differences between intent data and signal-based selling.

Sales Recruiting 83

Sales Recruiting Scale AWS Management 83

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2023

SaaStr 630: Sales-led vs. Product-led? SaaStr 629: CRO Confidential: Sales Recruitment in 2023 For Candidates and Hiring Managers With Flexport’s Ben Braverman   3. SaaStr 628: Revenue Alignment: How to Pull Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Together with Divvy CRO Sterling Snow  5.

Sales Recruiting 198

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital 198

SaaStr

MAY 14, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: 15+ of The Top Sales & Marketing Mistakes SaaS Startups Make (Updated) Cloudflare: Our Top Reps Are Hitting 129% of Quota. 7 Things All Founders Should Know About Sales with Dave Kellogg: SaaStr Workshop Wednesday LIVE 2.

Sales Recruiting 203

Sales Recruiting Scale Generative AI AI 203

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2022

When you think of scaling up, many things may come to mind, like hiring, culture, marketing, and sales. But what are the essentials of scaling up, and how do you navigate obstacles along the way to function as a high-impact organization? The go-to-market segment worked together on key metrics across the revenue board.

Scale 181

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 181

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2020

Founder-led sales generally stops scaling around $1m-$2m ARR. A sign to hire a real sales leader. Over the years at SaaStr we’ve talked a lot about hiring a great VP of Sales, when it works, when it does, and how it moves the needle. The distraction of building a real sales team isn’t worth it yet.

Sales Hiring 291

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 291

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Pretty incredible at scale. A new revenue team. 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. What changed? Be on the lookout.

Sales Recruiting 235

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Metrics 235

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. Not just with buzzwords.

Scale 231

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 231

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. By the time he left to join Google Cloud as EMEA VP of Operations and Customer Growth, Salesforce had around 17 billion dollars in revenue and almost 50,000 employees.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2023

SaaStr 628: Revenue Alignment: How to Pull Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Together with Divvy CRO Sterling Snow  2. SaaStr 629: CRO Confidential: Sales Recruitment in 2023 For Candidates and Hiring Managers With Flexport’s Ben Braverman   3. Really, Really, Low.

Sales Recruiting 192

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AWS 192

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. You should be striving for zero voluntary attrition on your sales team.

Sales Recruiting 217

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success 217

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2021

An oldie but a good on that here: Your #1 Sales Rep Should Be Driving an M8 Convertible By Month 12. It also means cutting lose folks who after a sales cycle or two will never hit quota. Sales is hard. Done right, sales reps shouldn’t be that expensive in the early days. This sets an example for everyone.

Sales Recruiting 241

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Startup 241

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2020

Rely on your success, know you are doing something right and scale faster. That was the most over the top entrance that the sales leader for a company that moves boxes around the world has ever gotten. I’m Chief Revenue Officer at Flexport. We’ve scaled it pretty far pretty quickly. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW.

Scale 199

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 199

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

Q: What’s the number one challenge for scale-up founders? In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. Upsell and retention is an art, science and craft.

Part-Time VPE 235

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 235

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2021

In the past, we’ve touched on several different ideas to help you scale, to do Even Better: Imagine capital doesn’t matter. A new edition, new services, an outbound sales team, an account management / upsell team. And also — to understand where you can’t let it all go. Add a layer.

Part-Time VPE 273

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 273

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2022

She brings in even better reps, and the revenue per rep goes up. A great VP of Customer Success in just a quarter or so decreases churn and increases account revenue growth. It’s hard enough just to maintain KPIs and metrics as you scale. Sales growth slowly declines as she struggles to bring in enough reps.

Sales Recruiting 192

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Churn 192

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

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2019

SaaStr Scale is THIS THURSDAY in San Francisco! The Playbook to Building a Thriving Sales Culture with Fmr. The Playbook to Building a Thriving Sales Culture with Fmr. PatientPop SVP of Sales Justin Welsh. The Playbook To Re-Igniting Growth with Predictable Revenue Co-Founder and CEO Aaron Ross.

Scale 140

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Sales Hiring 140

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

” now we have a strong team, enough revenues to start taking things more seriously, and a global (if accidental) footprint. Still, an overall deep-dive on lessons learned the second and third time around: Not Easier : Recruiting – Not Easier. Sales — Not Easier. I know how sales works much, much better.

Sales Recruiting 325

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 325

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Recently, Redpoint Office Hours welcomed Allison Pickens to clarify the COO role and when startups should consider recruiting one. Whereas a decade ago, a board might have hired a professional CEO to scale the operations of a startup, today, more boards seek COOs. The CoS doesn’t manage anyone. The Four COO Archetypes.

Sales Recruiting 192

Sales Recruiting Startup Scale Sales Hiring 192

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2021

Not Hiring 2-3 Sales Reps to Start. More on that here: When You Hire Your First Sales Rep — Just Make Sure You Hire Two. Scaling Too Slowly — and Too Quickly. I should have invested a little more in sales reps, more quickly, one we had some initial traction (see above). We should have taken $2m more.

Sales Recruiting 265

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale SaaS 265

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. And now it’s all about like, can you really scale and execute? Dev Ittycheria : Thank you.

Sales Recruiting 249

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale VP of Engineering 249

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2019

The Playbook: To Recruiting Your Sales Team, with Brex CSO Sam Blong. To Scaling High-Performing Teams, with Gusto COO Lexi Reese. To Growth Hacking at Scale, with ex-Drift and Segment VP Growth Guillaume Cabane. To Defining the Journey from Prospect to Champion with Kathy Lord, SVP Sales at Intacct.

Scale 121

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Growth Hacking 121

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. How to manage customer success. About recruiting and helping you scale. When to hire her (more here ).

Sales Hiring 355

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Engineering 355

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. It does mean a well-oiled machine that hires strong reps of all backgrounds, and gets them the help and training so they can scale up and succeed.

Sales Hiring 323

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 323

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

Founders were able to recruit on-site. Revenue leaders were able to network once again. Fast forward to today, and there is an amazing amount of B2B-centric content out there, and many others have put together amazing events around the hard-learned lessons of scaling revenue and scaling SaaS companies.

Scale 282

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 282