SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2022

Scaling your sales team can be one of the hardest things to do in SaaS. What’s the best way to help your sales team navigate today’s changing markets and changing priorities? And what’s the right time to fill crucial sales leadership roles? 1 Buyers Expect Personalization in Outbound Sales.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scaling 278

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 364

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 364

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

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 289

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 289

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

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 299

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 299

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 351

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting 351

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 334

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 334

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2024

Scaling to $150M ARR and beyond is no simple task. Back then, remote first was a recruiting advantage. Will this change as Grafana Labs scales? But they’re still one of the last remaining open-source companies at scale. All they sold was the visualization layer with no sales team. How did it come to be?

Scale 292

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 292

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

2021 will be the year SaaS sales evolves the most since the Appexchange ecosystem started to take off ~15 years ago, which spawned the entire notion of a true sales app stack. The permanent move to distributed sales teams. Almost every SaaS VP of Sales and CRO I’ve talked to in the past few months isn’t going back.

Sales Recruiting 354

Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review Sales 354

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. The VPM giving their all to create leads, opportunities, and more. 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

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 312

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 312

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 289

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 289

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

So just as supply chain logistics juggernaut Flexport was beginning to scale, founder CEO Ryan Petersen came to SaaStr Annual to share his top lessons — and mistakes. When building a list, try to define your potential customer as granularly as possible – size, location, industry, ideal buyer, sales process, technology stack, etc.

Sales Recruiting 325

Sales Recruiting Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring 325

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 237

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Compensation 237

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 328

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 328

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

We’ve talked a ton on SaaStr over the years on how to make sure your VP of Sales and top hires really work out. We can pretty much summarize a lot of it into the following: Your VP of Sales should have lots of experience selling at your average ACV. for that type of sale. That they are the right ones. Ask who they are.

Sales Recruiting 334

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 334

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2024

What does it take to scale a team from 2 to more than 1,100 people in just a few short years? When Remote had 120 people two weeks into 2021, they planned to scale to 600 that year. At the same time, you want to give trust and power to people who recruit, and you do that by ensuring they understand what the culture is.

Scale 261

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 261

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Mark Roberge , SaaStr fan-favorite and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital brought together some of the top CROs in SaaS during the SaaStr Annual to share some of their greatest learnings and pivotal moments leading some of the Cloud 100 SaaS companies. From a GTM execution standpoint, they weren’t focused.

Scale 277

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 277

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 304

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 304

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

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 303

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review 303

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

Tom Tunguz

JULY 25, 2020

In interviewing great CMOs , the product marketing leader is the first marketer most startups should recruit, and often the first key mishire. Product marketing is the vital work of developing a customer lifecycle journey, pricing, sales support materials, analyst relations, and press.

Sales Recruiting 201

Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring 201

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. Q: What is the Future of Lead Generation, and How Do You Stand Out? People don’t do that today.

Scale 289

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 289

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 170

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team 170

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2022

Imagine a coverage model, from end to end, for the full customer life cycle: from demand generation to sales to post-sales. Sales Cycle. This includes everything from inside sales to account executives to strategic asset allocation. Post Sales. Execution is not just a sales process. Land the account.

Scale 274

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 274

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2022

Q: Dear SaaStr: When Should The CEO Step Away From Sales? It’s just, as you scale, what you do in the sales process as CEO evolves and changes. Anyhow, my VP of Customer Success, VP of Product and I were in one small conference room working with the Sales Operations team. But you don’t get to stop doing sales.

Sales Recruiting 288

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 288

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2020

There’s a common thinking that sales teams should be relatively high churn. That the bottom 15-20% of the sales team almost has to churn each year, because it’s survival of the fittest. Reps have to fight for the best leads, prove the highest close rates, exceed the mean of the bell curve, to not just thrive, but survive.

Scale 299

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 299

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 304

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review Scale 304

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. If they are just saying the wrong things to customers and prospects. Be present.

Scale 292

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 292

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. Just by making sure more of those precious leads actually close. Because leads are so precious.

Sales Hiring 352

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Marketing 352

SaaStr

JULY 2, 2021

I’ve written a lot about this, but for most start-ups, you can boil it down to two criteria any first VP of Sales just has to meet: Has she built at least a small team before? If you can hire 2–3 great ones, you can likely scale and hire 20–30. No VP of Sales is equally great at both inbound and outbound sales.

Sales Hiring 290

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Development Team Review 290

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. The post SaaStr Scale is coming to SF!

Scale 191

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Sales Hiring 191

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Throughout her time there, she scaled the SaaS company from $1M ARR to pre- IPO, along the way, creating the category of customer success software, and paving the way for Gainsight’s $1.1B COOs have become more common in management teams as ways for founders & CEOs to build the management team to scale a business.

Scale 299

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Customer Success 299

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. 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. Selling to CFOs and finance. appeared first on SaaStr.

Social Media 304

Social Media Sales Recruiting Scale Finance 304

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 224

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 224