SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2020

Nothing matters but recruiting and using your personal network. Sam Blond, CSO at Brex explains why recruiting, networking and employee happiness is the key to this playbook on recruiting your sales team. Sam Blond | Chief Sales Officer @ Brex. I’m doing The Playbook To Recruiting Your Sales Team.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 195

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2023

In particular, hiring for your sales team is critical in an uncertain economic outlook. Additionally, sales professionals looking for a new role should choose their next company wisely. Great Companies Attract Great Talent Blond and Braverman have enjoyed successful careers as sales leaders in high-performing companies.

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 244

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Speakers share their playbooks on everything from achieving product-market fit to optimizing CAC:LTV ratios and scaling go-to-market strategies. Finding and recruiting top talent is consistently ranked as one of the biggest challenges for growing SaaS companies. Competitive Intelligence and Market Insights and New!!

Sales Recruiting 193

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 193

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2021

One of the starkest differences I see between First Timers in SaaS and Second Timers is when they hire their VP of Marketing. They often hire a VP of Demand Gen Marketing even before they have their first paying customers. It’s not quite as terrible as waiting too long for a VP of Sales. Second Timers know.

Sales Hiring 352

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 352

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2021

The other day I saw a VP of Sales flame out and resign with no notice from a SaaS company doing $10m ARR growing quickly. At his first board meeting, he kept talking over the VP of Marketing. So I thought it might be helpful to brush off the topic of alignment between Sales and Marketing by updating a classic post on the topic.

Sales Recruiting 317

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Revenue 317

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

This chart holds the secret to successful hiring of go-to-market teams. A stack rank of attributes within HubSpot account executive candidates that correlate to quota attainment. The pushier the account executive, the worse the result. I think it’s still one of the best books on how to repeatably scale sales teams.

Sales Hiring 349

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 349

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2024

Sam Blond, the former CRO at Brex with 15 years in tech sales, took the stage at SaaStr Europa 2024 to share nine easy sales concepts that so many get wrong. Sam got his first job in tech sales as an SDR for Jason Lemkin’s company, EchoSign, which later sold to Adobe and launched his career. They did this right at Brex.

Sales Recruiting 296

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 296

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

Make sure you know how your customers buy and tailor your go to market strategy and messaging to that. When building a list, try to define your potential customer as granularly as possible – size, location, industry, ideal buyer, sales process, technology stack, etc. Very early on it’s weighted towards product vision and sales.

Sales Recruiting 325

Sales Recruiting Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring 325

SaaStr

AUGUST 14, 2020

A mistake many founders make is hiring a VP of Sales who has many strengths — but not at sales per se. A VP of Sales who is smart, polished, and worked at the right place, in a management-level position. That can talk about quota attainment and sales operations and scaling and number. you might ask.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 363

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how to hire a Great VP of Sales. And we’ll keep talking about it — so long as 70% of first-time VPs of Sales don’t make it 1 year. I wanted to take a moment to explore the flip-side … a guide to why first-time VPs of Sales that finally get their shot — fail.

Sales Hiring 359

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount 359

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2023

In this week’s episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, continues a mini-series on founder-led sales with Colin Zima, founder and CEO of Omni. The post SaaStr CRO Confidential: Omni Founder Colin Zima on the Power of Leveraging Your Network for Sales and Recruiting (Pod 658 + Video) appeared first on SaaStr.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Social Media Sales 246

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2021

Q: What are the most common challenges of a VP of marketing transitioning into a Chief Revenue officer CRO role? Way, way too many senior marketers think CRO is “the next step” for them. But here’s what happens: They don’t know how to recruit an A+ sales team. Recruiting 4, 5, 20, 50 great AEs is not the same at all.

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Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Growth Marketing 321

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

The result was a 5x increase over initial projections – growing from an $8M revenue target to $40M actual results – driven by a belief that market demand justified the investment. Rather than seeing this as a liability, Wiz leveraged it as a strategic advantage — even in its sales team.

Scale 189

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 189

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

Justin Welsh, former SVP of Sales at PatientPop explains how he started in SaaS in 2009 as the second sales hire at Zocdoc. Justin used Sales Culture to grow a successful PatientPop team to 140 employees and 55 million in revenue. Justin Welsh | SVP Sales @ PatientPop. I was a local sales manager or regional manager.

Sales Recruiting 332

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 332

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024

On the other hand, if I were selling sales and marketing tools, I’d be all over social media, especially LinkedIn. Especially if your other marketing efforts are more limited. In the middle is recruiting. He didn’t see the value until he had to recruit at scale. It always helps with recruiting, done right.

Social Media 306

Social Media Sales Recruiting Scale Finance 306

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

We’ve talked a lot over the years about how not to hire a wrong VP of Sales — 70%+ of the first VPs of Sales don’t make it even 10 months. And figure out if they really are great: For your prospective VP of Sales, did her top 2 hires at least crush it and blow out their quotas ? Recruiting.

Part-Time VPE 352

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 352

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

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. The three things that led to ramping up sales at Flock Safety were: Achieving product-market fit.

Sales Recruiting 259

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 259

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. Yes, you may be terrible at sales. It’s sales, after all. Here’s my Top 10 list: #1.

Sales Hiring 334

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 334

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. Corporate Marketing). The toughest hire.

Sales Hiring 364

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 364

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2022

We’ve talked a ton about How to Hire a Great VP of Sales on SaaStr, but I wanted to highlight a few VP of Sales “personas” that I rarely, if ever, see work out. Because again and again, many of your will hire this VP of Sales. Here are the types of VP of Sales that just never work out. Sales is hard.

Sales Recruiting 306

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Scale 306

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

So we’ve spent a ton of time over the years on SaaS talking about hiring a great VP of Sales. Not only because it really matters, but because hiring the wrong VP of Sales can set you back a year — or longer. So many VPs of Sales disagree with me here — at least at first when I make the point. Sales is hard.

Sales Hiring 308

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 308

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2022

Having learned from thousands of customers and prospects, Sarah Lash, Envoy’s head of enterprise sales, will talk about what it takes to guide and scale enterprise sales programs during an uncertain future. In my first six months at Envoy , I grew the sales team from six to 17. Combine Strategies To Drive Sales.

Sales Recruiting 246

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 246

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2021

Q: What are the top 3 biggest concerns in managing a first sales team? A few of the top ones: Recruiting. Top sales people want to work for a great VP of Sales. If you don’t have one, it’s very hard to attract top sales reps. All sales execs want to make a lot of money :). Paying the best ones well.

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Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Onboarding 290

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. To stick with founder-led sales longer than most folks do, i.e. past $1.5m-$2m ARR or so.

Sales Hiring 328

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 328

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

I've never seen a great VP of Sales hide from a miss. We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr over the years about how to hire a great VP of Sales — and how to course-correct if you’ve made a miss hire. Every great VP of Sales has 1 or 2 folks that wants to follow them from their last role. Nothing gets better in 1 sales cycle.

Sales Recruiting 305

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales Marketing 305

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

If a sales exec makes it anything but effortless to schedule a job interview with them, Basically it won't work out — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  ?? Many of them aren’t in market, or may take 3-4 reach outs to take a meeting. At least for sales execs, never hire them if they are slow in the recruiting process.

Sales Recruiting 263

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Interviewing Sales 263

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. That they can get away without no one in the role, or a just a junior person in marketing, in product, in success, in biz dev, etc. I Need a VP of Sales.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

SaaStr

JUNE 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What’s the Best Way to Get Ahead in SaaS Sales? It is important to decide which of 3 life tracks you want to be on: Super-successful sales rep / individual contributor. Successful sales manager. I.e., become a VP of Sales someday. Leverage “sales” to become a founder, business owner , etc.

Sales Recruiting 264

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Sales SMB 264

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Either by yourself, or with a Sales Ops / Marketing Ops / Some Sort of Ops leader under you. Look for dashboards, strong project management, strong pipeline projection after $5m ARR. If you don’t see things getting more organized, that manager can’t scale. Inability to hire great Directors / managers under them.

Scale 354

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 354

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

And age-ism is going to cut out some of the very, very best talent in the market. Still, an overall deep-dive on lessons learned the second and third time around: Not Easier : Recruiting – Not Easier. In the early days, especially as a first-time founder, I thought I could recruit anyone and everyone. Maybe more.

Sales Recruiting 361

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 361

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

In SaaS, #1 most common misfire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” or variants thereof. Because in SaaS start-ups, it seems like the majority of first VP Sales fail.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

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. A sign of a marketer that may have reached their limits. Especially, if the marketing spend keeps growing but the leads don’t. Many first-time VPs just can’t recruit great managers under them.

Sales Recruiting 315

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Metrics 315

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

In the latest episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with Ashley Kelly, VP of Global Sales Development at Rippling. For context – Ashley had previously helped Sam scale Brex’s outbound sales from $2M to over $300M in ARR as Senior Director of SDR.

Sales Hiring 316

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 316

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

What are the top 10 mistakes founders are still making today when hiring their VP of Sales? In this post, we’ll delve into the common pitfalls founders encounter when hiring a VP of Sales. 1: You Can’t Stay Founder-Led Sales Forever. . #1: 1: You Can’t Stay Founder-Led Sales Forever. This one is newer.

Sales Hiring 309

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review 309

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

Great product, driven team, good early product-market fit, great vision. But after that, it starts to break down when you have to recruit a true management team, and in many cases, additional capital. They’ll know … Who can best recruit a management team? Check, check, check and check. My learning?

Sales Recruiting 278

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 278

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2024

Dedicated Slack Channel For Every Metric From the early days at Secureframe, they have had a dedicated Slack channel for every metric: every net new sale, every expansion, every churn, and every expense. Work with Great Executive Recruiters ”The first time I saw an invoice for an executive search, I think I had a heart attack,” Shrav joked.

Sales Recruiting 304

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 304