SaaStr

JUNE 8, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design a Sales Reps Compensation Plan at Just $10k MRR ? A bit more and a deeper dive here: A Very Simple Sales Comp Plan For Your First Sales Reps The post Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design a Sales Reps Compensation Plan at Just $10k MRR? Then try it again (e.g., a new market, a new vertical, etc).

Compensation 244

Compensation Scale Sales Business Model 244

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Meghan Gill, SVP of Sales Ops and Sales Dev at MongoDB, shares different consumption-based compensation models that drive the right behaviors. Compensation will drive it and have unexpected results. If you want to get rid of the cobras, paying for every cobra killed clearly wasn’t the right behavior to compensate.

Compensation 182

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 182

Predictable Revenue

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Learn how to keep your outbound sales team motivated to reach quota with this step-by-step guide to building an effective SDR compensation plan. The post Quick Guide to SDR Compensation appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Compensation 147

Compensation Outbound Sales Team Revenue Sales 147

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

Dear SaaStr: As An Employee, As an acquired employee, How Do I Negotiate My Compensation in an Acquisition? Because it’s seen as their money, as “extra” compensation on top of the deal price. The post Dear SaaStr: As An Employee, How Do I Negotiate My Compensation in an Acquisition? appeared first on SaaStr.

Compensation 177

Compensation Acquisition Sales Hiring Finance 177

Predictable Revenue

APRIL 4, 2024

This time, we're diving into the nuanced world of startup sales compensation with Graham Collins, Head of Partnerships at QuotaPath. The post Crafting Sales Compensation Plans with Graham Collins appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Compensation 130

Compensation Sales Startup Revenue 130

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2021

No marketing budget can compensate for a substandard SaaS product. Why should they tie their career and compensation to a second-tier offering? Why should they tie their career and compensation to a second-tier offering? Presented By: Henrique Dubugras – CEO – Brex – @hdubugras.

Compensation 342

Compensation Scale Enterprise Software 342

SaaStr

APRIL 21, 2023

What’s changed is the majority of startups that are venture-backed don’t seem to get the CEO’s and founders’ compensation packages approved by the board anymore. Eventually, everyone does when the company adds a true CFO and outside directors and even a compensation committee pre-IPO.

Compensation 278

Compensation Government Finance Startup 278

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2020

If the founders are the highest compensated people in the start-up, at least pre-Scale (e.g., So once you’ve raised a bit, if you make sure at least someone else on the team makes more than the founders … that great VP you just hired for example … you’ve probably found the right compensation level for you as CEO.

Venture Capital 336

Venture Capital Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 336

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2022

Transparent compensation information is concern #1. Second, many of us worry about being fully transparent with compensation. It’s time to get over it. Second, many of us worry about being fully transparent with compensation. Concern #1 was a lack of transparent compensation information. Fix this today.

Revenue 305

Revenue Sales Hiring Compensation Startup 305

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2023

CEO hires 2 reps, in the beginning, each barely pays for themselves, but by months 4–6 they are able to close 3x or more of their total compensation. By 8-10 sales reps, you probably need a first head of rev ops / sales operations to handle training, onboarding, compensation, quotas, etc.

Sales Hiring 328

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Compensation 328

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2020

CEO hires 2 reps, in the beginning, each barely pays for themselves, but by months 4–6 they are able to close 3x-5x their total compensation. By 15 sales reps, you probably need a first head of sales operations to handle training, onboarding, compensation, quotas, etc. Then: Have to scale from reps 3–8 or so.

Sales Hiring 300

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 300

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

They may not necessarily raise another round anytime soon, but they’re definitely not out of the mix – so at best their presence in 2024 will make sales compensation even more confusing than it already is. They’ll have much more budget than the rest of us, and it will warp and distort sales compensation this year. #4.

Sales Recruiting 317

Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Software Review 317

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Driving Stock-Based Compensation Much Lower. Quality Management is Their Biggest AI Play at the Moment This makes sense. Using AI to understand the efficacy of contact center agents is a big use case. #4. New Share Grants Are Down -60%.

Scale 289

Scale SMB Compensation AI 289

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Are you compensating your teams to sell recurring revenue? Compensation is a great motivator to make your team care and think about different clients and which verticals are likely to get higher revenue. .

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 293

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

But building a sales compensation plan that both aligns your sales team’s compensation with your customers’ objectives and recruits top salespeople can be incredibly difficult in usage-based pricing. The problem comes down to incentives. The more customers like and use your product, the more revenue you bring in.

Compensation 92

Compensation Sales Recruiting Sales Systems Review 92

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

The Seven Things all Founders Should Know About Sales. Tunguz, MongoDB, Nick Mehta, Bessemer and More!!

Generative AI 289

Generative AI Scale Compensation AI 289

SaaStr

OCTOBER 19, 2023

One thing I have learned, though: If the founders are the highest compensated people in the start-up, especially pre-Scale (e.g., The second time, I funded the prototype myself ($0 salary) and then we raised a $2.6m seed and I took a small salary (no need to be $0 anymore, but anything large would decrease the runway).

Scale 298

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Marketing 298

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2023

On commissions / pay-out: For start-ups where cash matters, I strongly suggest compensating the reps mainly on cash brought in. Or just the part attributed to your current year? Approaches vary here. First, what you pay on vs. quota retirement can vary.

Compensation 282

Compensation Churn Revenue SaaS 282

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2022

The reasons for this kind of nomadism can be complex—compensation, a growing remote-first workplace, morale, or a company’s reputation might contribute to their decision to leave. How do they sufficiently value and compensate an engineer’s skills in such a competitive market? Individual Growth. Key Takeaways.

CTO Coach 276

CTO Coach CTO Hire New CTO CTO 276

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Mistake #3: Not designing a sales compensation plan for PLG. “We We are using the sales compensation models from the 1970s, and these models drive quota-fulfilling behavior.”. In a sales-led compensation plan, the team is rewarded more for the first revenue from a customer and less for the expansion revenue.

Technical Review 289

Technical Review Technical Advisors Scale Compensation 289

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2024

Paid $419 million to buy Spiff Saleforce has said they are putting big acquisitions on hold for now, but they did pay more than $400m to buy sales compensation management platform Spiff. # That’s a big change. #3. 4: 33% of Revenue Outside North America; APAC Growing Fastest # 5.

Compensation 302

Compensation Scale AI Acquisition 302

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2024

Because Customer Success — they’re compensated on avoiding churn. But as you get bigger and better, your customer success team can get more and more involved as you pass stage 5. They’ll get the check for you if in the end, A/R doesn’t with a dedicated process like the above. And if at all possible.

SaaS Payments 290

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 290

Predictable Revenue

JANUARY 31, 2022

Learn how to incentivize sales team behaviors that drive revenue, reduce turnover, and create a positive work environment–without relying on financial compensation. The post How To Incentivize Sales Team Behaviors appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Sales 260

Sales Compensation Revenue Strategy 260

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2023

QuotaPath is the most adaptable compensation solution to bring Sales, RevOps, and Finance all on the same page. Motivate reps and retain top talent with a better way to design compensation structures and automate commissions. Organizations using Bob are able to accelerate hiring, retain the best talent, and elevate employee engagement.

Cloud 261

Cloud Scale Startup Sales Hiring 261

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2022

As a small company, you can not compete with tech giants in terms of compensation alone. Benefits and compensation: Benefits and compensation are a crucial part of taking care of your employees. Look after your people . It’s the people working together who make a company, not just the leadership.”.

Development Team Review 296

Development Team Review B2C Compensation Technical Review 296

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

Fourth, compensation will become less flat, and there will be some comp deflation for mediocre reps. You have to self-manage more in this distributed world, so AEs that struggle to do their own demos, or to manage Salesforce, or log data … will struggle. They’ll get left behind.

Sales Recruiting 354

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review Sales 354

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2022

SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. Top Podcasts This Week: 1. SaaStr 602: Secrets To Combining PLG and Enterprise Sales with Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover. ?. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund. ? ?.

Sales Recruiting 306

Sales Recruiting CTO Compensation Software Review 306

Tom Tunguz

JULY 11, 2024

It will require changing sales compensation plans & customer contracts, which database companies have navigated successfully. If an AI agent replaces an SDR who is compensated for meetings, then why not charge this way? This aligns value well, but may inject unpredictability into the pricing model. There are challenges here too.

AI 229

AI Pricing Software Compensation 229

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2024

The Top 8 SaaStr Tips to Building an Effective First Sales Team The most important tips and best practices for founders when building out their first sales team: Get sales experience yourself first Close the first 10-20 customers yourself to understand the sales process This will give you critical insights to effectively train and manage your first (..)

Sales Hiring 273

Sales Hiring Scale AI Search Compensation 273

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Tie compensation to these metrics to incentivize performance. A classic on founder compensation, always one of the most searched topics. The company will need a Sales Ops/Enablement professional for every 30-50 salespeople to manage training, onboarding, territories, and compensation plans.

Sales Hiring 287

Sales Hiring Technical Advisors Compensation Outsourced Development 287

Tom Tunguz

JULY 10, 2022

A key part of the formula: crafting the right account executive compensation structure to reward this strategy. But, as Lee Kirkpatrick, former Twilio CFO, shared during Office Hours , Twilio employed this strategy to achieve top quartile NDR while achieving strong ARR predictability with a usage-based pricing model.

Strategy 311

Strategy Sales Compensation Retention 311

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2021

Here’s how: Align Compensation: If you plan to close enterprise deals, you must be prepared to pay for the right salespeople. At TripActions, the sales reps are compensated based on the customer’s adoption and successful use of the platform. Subscribe. Create a Sales Engine.

Scale 298

Scale Sales Hiring Enterprise Sales 298

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2024

Decisions took much longer, more egos were involved, especially on compensation. — so it’s not a firm “No.” But it did have the exact issues you’d expect. The downside? The company was a lot less nimble. And strategic decisions took forever. I don’t think you can really have 6 top decision makers with a founder mandate.

Investment 262

Investment Compensation Startup Scaling 262

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

And that was customer success managers who were really just farmers — compensated 100% or close to it for Upsells, not Retention. Incent Sales Reps to close leads , but also give them the compensation to properly treat the prospective customers with respect. But I knew this was the wrong way to build a customer-centric company.

Compensation 298

Compensation Customer Success Interviewing Sales 298

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

And yes, while some day the compensation can be significant, in the early days, your actually often one of the lowest paid folks. Dear SaaStr: What’s Really So Great About Being CEO? It’s a really, really, really hard job. But: You never have to work for an idiot.

Compensation 290

Compensation 290

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2022

SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. SaaStr 605: Increasing Runway Without Sacrificing Growth with Norwest Venture Partners’ Sean Jacobsohn & Scott Beechuk and Andreessen Horowitz GP Kristina Shen. ? ?.

Sales Recruiting 293

Sales Recruiting Compensation Cloud Retention 293

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

A really great deep dive on that with MongoDB’s SVP of Sales of Sales Ops here: Four Sales Compensation Tactics for Consumption-Based GTM with MongoDB’s SVP of Sales Yes, the first way is slightly more aligned with your business and cash-efficient. And may seem more appealing in the early days.

Scale 298

Scale Sales Payments Compensation 298