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. You’ll have to be recruiting new ones all the time. That means you are constantly recruiting. Dear SaaStr: How Should I Design My First Sales Rep Compensation Plan?

Quota 67

Quota Promote Follow-up Closing 67

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Either by yourself, or with a Sales Ops / Marketing Ops / Some Sort of Ops leader under you. By $5m in ARR, managers have to have begun to recruit great managers under them. A sales team in Europe, or in a more cost-effective locale. And finally, bonus sign #7: Things have flattened in their functional area for 2+ quarters.

Pipeline 140

Pipeline Sales Growth 140

Martech

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Recruiting/HR. aimed at recruits and existing employees. Key takeaways and next steps Along with our research, we created a social media maturity model built on the axis of content goals (marketing versus business) and production quality (a function of content, design and planning). aimed at buyers and prospects.

B2B 132

B2B X-functional Pharmaceutical B2C 132

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2022

What was the first warning sign your VP of Sales wasn't going to work out? A new VP of Sales doesn’t always double sales in 30 days — although it can happen in SMB sales. The old playbook does help, but every great VP of Sales knows they quickly have to evolve it to any new role.

Price 95

Price Pitch Sales Education 95

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

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? But who can find, recruit, and somehow convince an A+ team to join you? Who can best inspire and “recruit” customers?

Start-ups 89

Start-ups Trust Engineering Product 89

Veloxy

NOVEMBER 22, 2023

Imagine the impact of having a well-coordinated, highly skilled, and motivated field sales team driving your business growth. Mastering field sales management is essential to achieving this vision, and it all begins with understanding the role, building a high-performing team, and implementing effective sales processes.

Territory 130

Territory Objectives and Key Results Represent Drivers/motivators 130

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

Basics: The Building Blocks of the Finance Team To understand how finance teams impact an organization, it’s helpful to break down various functions and how they support the business. This function can be outsourced in the early days of a startup, but it is usually brought in-house after Series B. Sign up for free.

Finance 66

Finance Strategize A/B testing Growth 66

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2022

The role of a VP is to own everything required to hit the goals for a functional area – Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Finance, or Customer Success. This includes: Recruiting the team. While the answer may sound obvious, I’m not sure it always is in early-ish stage start-ups. This can be hard.

Finance 101

Finance Engineering Start-ups Product 101

ClickFunnels

JANUARY 31, 2022

Its funnel building functionality includes a drag-and-drop page editor, a variety of funnel and page templates, split testing, and more. It has an in-built email marketing functionality that allows you to build your list, set up an email autoresponder, and send broadcast messages. Kyvio’s Features. Smart Funnels. Unlimited pages.

Price 219

Price Commission Referrals A/B testing 219

SaaStr

AUGUST 23, 2022

My general learnings: By 20-30 employees, you should have 1-2 good managers in place such that at least 50% of the company can run based only on weekly staff meetings, 1-on-1s, and “grab me when you need me-s” E.g., a great first VP of Sales that can just handle sales. A great VP of Marketing that can just get you leads.

Engineering 73

Engineering Meeting Product Customers 73

Understanding the Sales Force

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

And “We don’t know what we don’t know about sales” is a true statement in most companies. As a result, they can’t anticipate when in a sales cycle or sales process they will be impacted, and don’t have the awareness to take steps to work around it and improve.

Legal 85

Legal Sales Contract Outside Sales 85

SaaStr

JULY 30, 2020

I’ve been reminded of this question in several meetings lately where founders are doing pretty well, getting to and past Initial Traction, but with hindsight it’s interesting that the founder that took the CEO gig perhaps was better suited to a different role, say CTO or SVP of Sales or President or COO or SVP Product.

Growth 126

Growth Follow-up Start-ups Meeting 126

Salesforce

OCTOBER 30, 2023

You have to accept that while Marketing Cloud is a whole different platform and the user interface (UI) does look different than Sales Cloud or Service Cloud, you will soon be super comfortable. If you don’t have access to a fully functioning Marketing Cloud account like I did at my job, you can still learn a lot with Trailhead.

Start-ups 130

Start-ups Consult Drivers/motivators Networking 130

Highspot

APRIL 11, 2023

11, 2023 — Highspot , the sales enablement platform that increases sales productivity, today released its first Global Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B) Impact Report, which highlights the company’s ongoing commitment to transparency and accountability around its DEI&B efforts.

Strategize 52

Strategize Pipeline Launch Networking 52

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2022

The difference between a Good, a Great, and a Mediocre VP: A Good VP Maintains Velocity in Their Functional Area. A Great VP Increases Velocity in Their Functional Area. Sales growth slowly declines as she struggles to bring in enough reps. More here: Should You Fire an OK-but-Not-Great VP of Sales? And quickly.

Growth 72

Growth Engineering Start-ups Closing 72

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. When velocity stalls in a functional area, there will always be a lot of excuses, many of which will sound and even be correct. “My team’s too small.” You’ll see: Bookings that stop increasing. ” Etc.

Growth 90

Growth Pipeline Meeting Product 90

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

A strong sales leader is vital to any company hoping to scale. With this in mind, hiring for the Head of Sales role is one of the most important things a business can do. Unfortunately, too many companies focus on the wrong things when hiring their sales leaders, which can lead to hires that aren’t the best fit for the business.

Objectives and Key Results 73

Objectives and Key Results Negotiate Sales Growth 73

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

In this episode of the Sales Hacker Podcast, we have Hakim Myers , Business Recruiter at Nextdoor , where he recruits for people, finance, and legal functions for startups. Join us for a revealing conversation on sales and talent from the perspective of a recruiter in an executive search firm.

Negotiate 81

Negotiate X-functional Legal Finance 81

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2023

It’s the most common objection you’ll get in SaaS sales … Not Right Now. Instead, the reason most SaaS purchases are really made are >> initiatives << Companies have decided to improve a functional area this year. So that means statistically, the functional area of your app is the odd man “out” at any big company.

Strategize 98

Strategize Contract Prospecting Up-sell 98

Salesforce

DECEMBER 12, 2023

In many organizations, the highest performers are often promoted to sales leadership positions. That’s because leading a sales team to success takes a different skill set. In this article, we’ll run through the top traits needed for successful sales leadership — and how you cultivate them in your company.

Sales 59

Sales Strategize CRM Drivers/motivators 59

Martech

MARCH 12, 2024

Thinking and planning for those needs helps identify individuals or functional areas that can support building content for social channels. Regarding the “village,” based on our research and experience, there are four parts of your organization that need to be involved in supporting social media: HR for recruiting and retention.

B2B 96

B2B Strategize Networking Promote 96

Highspot

JULY 27, 2022

You know your work is essential to your sales organization’s success. But does your Chief Sales Officer understand your impact? To help you get started, we’re breaking down the 2022 State of Sales Enablement Report. To help you get started, we’re breaking down the 2022 State of Sales Enablement Report.

Strategize 97

Strategize Quota Sales Process 97

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

So an amazing founder CEO often can also be the VP of Sales, VP of Product, hack Marketing, fly across the globe as the VP of Customer Success, and sometimes, even continue to write some code. In every single function. So you don’t have to directly manage at least several of the key functional areas in the company at all.

Finance 115

Finance Engineering Gaming Meeting 115

Search Engine Land

JANUARY 27, 2023

What I am talking about is optimizing for searches done by social media users within social media platforms that have search functionality. Social media platforms have allocated decent budgets to further improve their search functionality. Hence, making it a great platform for sales and after-sales.

Engineering 127

Engineering Networking Entertainment Follow-up 127

Partners in Excellence

AUGUST 15, 2022

A reader wrote me, “Dave do you think sales enablement professionals need selling experience?” ” It’s a follow on to many of the discussions about “Do sales managers need sales experience?” ” My immediate reaction to both those questions was “HELL YEAH!!!!”

Sell 91

Sell Manufacturing Finance Trust 91

SaaStr

DECEMBER 31, 2020

The most common objection you’ll get in SaaS sales, which will drive you nuts at first, is … Not Right Now. Companies have decided to improve a functional area this year. It can’t strategically improve sales software, financial software, quoting software, recruiting software, QA processes, call center software, etc.

Strategize 122

Strategize Sales Process Customers 122

Sales Pop!

JULY 3, 2023

Hunting the top talent for your sales team requires putting in some elbow grease to scout, choose, and onboard a perfect match. A typical hiring process would involve a job description, must-have experience, and also knowledge of various sales techniques. But what would motivate a sales professional to join your company?

Sales 52

Sales Technique Commission Construction 52

Sales Pop!

MAY 9, 2023

In business, a successful sales team can make all the difference. Creating high-performing sales reps means supplying them with everything they require to reach their objectives, from motivation and professional growth. Building a successful sales team requires the right talent, strategy, and leadership.

Drivers/motivators 98

Drivers/motivators Sales Follow-up Pipeline 98

Search Engine Land

JULY 14, 2023

SEO conversions and tracking go well beyond a direct sale or lead in your pipeline. They can be: Newsletter and SMS subscribers that turn into sales. Candidate acquisition Recruiting talent is expensive and competitive. Looking at the bigger picture SEO conversions are more than just sales, leads, and traffic for CPMs.

Conversion 96

Conversion Commission Drivers/motivators Territory 96

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. About recruiting and helping you scale. Let’s distill it to this: You hire a VP to Own a Functional Area. Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Success, Support. When to hire her (more here ). About this and that.

Engineering 141

Engineering Pipeline Inside sales Growth 141

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

Whether you need to hire dozens of sales reps in the next few months or you’re a scrappy startup and need your first three sales hires, building a business will nearly always involve hiring for sales. Although hiring is the hardest job we have to do as sales leaders, it’s certainly one of the most important tasks to get right.

Sports 139

Sports Negotiate Technique Presentation 139

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development. Is a CRO right for you?

Appointment 91

Appointment Lead generation Strategize Pipeline 91

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2023

Q: Where Should SDRs Report — Marketing or Sales? A VP of Sales might seem the logical place to have your first SDR team report. It’s too much to learn on the fly for most new VPs of Sales. Sales leaders who have only done inbound and responded to leads aren’t those people. At first, you recruit the initial team.

X-functional 69

X-functional Closing Growth Contract 69

Lead Fuze

JUNE 30, 2023

Creating a robust lead generation strategy is essential for sales reps, recruiters, startups, marketers and small business owners alike. Conclusion Inbound Lead Generation: Attracting Customers with Style As a sales rep or marketer, your goal is to turn interested contacts into paying customers.

Lead generation 52

Lead generation Cold Call Referrals CRM 52

SalesProInsider

OCTOBER 28, 2021

Smart business owners set up all kinds of systems to gain efficiencies in core functions such as product/service delivery, accounting, procurement, etc. Yet many don’t take the same approach for their sales function. The owner hires a sales rep and sets them loose, expecting they’ll know what to do. Sales Process.

Process 83

Process Sales Follow-up Up-sell 83

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. 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. The original version here on Lattice Engines’ Sales and Marketing Hub.

Cross-sell 120

Cross-sell Sales Start-ups Up-sell 120

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2020

When I catch up with founders on the march from $1m to $10m in ARR, the number one topic has always shifted to recruiting. Where do i find a great VP of Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Product, Customer Success, etc.? Review your goals for the month and quarter, and status updates from each functional area. But it’s not.

Meeting 139

Meeting Presentation Pitch Start-ups 139