GTM
There's some great content out there on the subject of hiring your first VP of sales at a startup, so in this post I'm going to do some quick thoughts on the subject in an effort to complement the existing corpus. In other words, this is
Demandgen
Download USS_Nimitz_%28CVN-68%29_general_quarters_drill%2C_ca._2013.oga It’s that time of year, I suppose. You’ve hopefully approved your 2021 operating plan by now -- even if you’re on an increasingly popular 1/31 fiscal year end. You’ve signed up for some
Enterprise
(This is the third in a three-part restructuring and build-out of a previous post. See note [1] for details.) In the first two posts in this series, we first defined a repeatable sales process and then discussed how to prove that your sales process is repeatable. All that was just
Enterprise
(This is the second in a three-part restructuring and build-out of a previous post. See note [1] for details.) In the prior post we introduced repeatable sales process as the Holy Grail of enterprise software sales and, unlike some who toss the term around rather casually, we defined a repeatable
Enterprise
(This is the first in a three-part restructuring and build-out of the prior post. See note [1] for details.) The number one question go-to-market question in any enterprise software startup is: "do you have a repeatable sales process?" or, in more contemporary Silicon Valley patois, "do you
Culture
Most of us are familiar with Mark Leslie’s classic Sales Learning Curve and its implications for building the early salesforce at an enterprise startup. In short, it argues that too many startups put “the pedal to the metal” on sales hiring too early – before they have enough knowledge, process,
Demandgen
There's a common debate out there, it goes something like this: "Our sales development representatives (SDRs) need to look for pain: finding business owners with a problem and the ability to get budget to go fix it." Versus: "No, our SDRs need to look for
Marketing
I spoke this morning to a private equity (PE) firm's gathering of portfolio company CEOs, CROs, and CMOs. Our topic, one of my favorites, was how to get sales and marketing working together to drive business results. While I talked about the predictable subject of alignment, I covered
Finance
The other day I heard a startup executive say, "we will start to accelerate sales hiring -- hiring reps beyond the current staffing levels and the current plan -- once we start to see the pipeline to support it." What comes first: the pipeline or the egg? Or,
GTM
I was talking with my old friend, Mark Tice, the other day and he referred to a startup mistake as, "on his top ten list." Ever the blogger, I replied, "what are the other nine?" Mark's been a startup CEO twice, selling two companies
SaaS
You start by listing every rep your company has ever hired in order by hire date. You then record their sales productivity (typically measured in new ARR bookings) for their series of quarters with the company, up to and including their current-quarter forecast (which you shade in green).
Management
Many moons ago when I was young product marketing manager, I heard a new VP of Marketing speak at a marketing all-hands meeting. He spoke with a kiwi accent and his name was Chris Greendale. What he said were six words that changed my career: Marketing exists to make sales