Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr)
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- Jason Lemkin created and runs SaaStr, the world’s largest community for B2B/SaaS founders, and is the managing director of SaaStr Fund, a $90 million venture capital firm specializing in early-stage enterprise investments. He is also the mastermind behind two major tech conferences each year-one in the Bay Area, drawing in over 15,000 people, and another in Europe, with a crowd of more than 3,000 SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. Before SaaStr, Jason wore many hats: CEO and co-founder of EchoSign (later bought by Adobe), vice president at Adobe Systems, co-founder and president of NanoGram Devices Corp., vice president of NeoPhotonics, and a senior director at BabyCenter. In our conversation, we discuss:
• How far you should go without a salesperson
• Signs it’s time to hire salespeople
• Why you need to hire two salespeople
• How to compensate your salespeople
• How to interview salespeople
• When to hire a VP of Sales
• How to prevent their flaming out
• How to scale your sales org
• How to improve the relationship between your sales and product teams
• Much more
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Find the transcript and references at: www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/bu...
Where to find Jason Lemkin:
• X: / jasonlk
• LinkedIn: / jasonmlemkin
• Website: www.saastr.com/
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• X: / lennysan
• LinkedIn: / lennyrachitsky
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Jason’s background
(06:18) The importance of sales in B2B businesses
(11:23) Signs that you should start hiring salespeople
(14:19) Attributes to look for in early sales reps
(19:08) Hiring a VP of Sales
(26:43) The role of a VP of Sales
(30:06) Interviewing salespeople
(45:16) Determining sales compensation and quota
(53:34) Transitioning from 100% commission to a smaller percentage
(56:58) Indicators of a hard-to-sell product
(59:39) Scaling the sales organization
(01:05:26) Understanding sales roles and titles
(01:10:02) Product involvement in sales, and vice versa
(01:20:32) Thoughts on product teams taking on P&L responsibilities
(01:27:23) One thing founders can do to become better at sales
(01:31:02) The ideal trial length for a free trial sales team
(01:39:50) Closing thoughts
(01:41:43) Lightning round
Production and marketing by penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Fantastic to see Jason on here - I could listen to him all day. Brilliant man. Thank you both!
Jason is great!
It was very enlightening the conversation around EVERYONE raising prices and not earning it. I was thinking it was limited to my and a few other companies that weren't adding value; actually decreasing value. A "one year free pass", I'm afraid that is the new norm, because business don't give money away and the sales goal is just higher for 2024.
Everytime I come across your content, I start with a healthy dose of skepticism, but you seldom fail to deliver. Absolutely unbelievable that such an info dense podcast is freely available.
I work in product at B2B SaaS and a lot of the information that Jason talks about comes from such a wealth of learned experience. Excellent work, Lenny. Thanks for this.
Yea this was top tier. Phenomenal information from Jason
Amazing "Mini Course". Thank´s one more time!
This is such amazing content! Solo founder here selling my own product, just starting to hire my first sales people, this advice is gold! So super grateful!
Jason is amazing
I have had 3 years of mentorship from joining the SaaStr community and I've been in the game forever. Jason is awesome.
That's wonderful Mark, excited to hear this. I'm a solo founder in Oakland and CRAVE community and mentorship. I tell people, "I'm coachable" 😊 Please let me know if you are willing to share your experience
The insights on when to hire salespeople are spot on. Adding to that, it's crucial to align sales metrics with customer success outcomes, as this fosters a culture of customer-centricity which can significantly reduce churn in the long run. Plus, always look for reps who can teach and tailor the conversation to the customer's needs, not just sell.
Such a great convo!
Fantastic interview, I really enjoyed the conversation. I thought the length was perfect. Brilliant!
We definitely went deep!
Great interview, thank you for sharing. This was the third of your interviews I’ve watched now and I’m glad to have found your channel
Incredible interview! Jason's material is value packed. One thing, though, "be kind" and the Israeli flag don't go hand in hand.
Great episodes everytime!
Lenny, interview someone from Canva next, I totally love the product and would love to hear about their culture and product management in general. Thanks man!
Working on that 🤞
Amazing job, both of you.
This was awesome.
Lenny, I am in if the newsletter is $5-6 per month. It is just how much I think a newsletter worthy to pay for. Maybe repositioning the newsletter as industrial insights?
This is news to SaaS sales folk, but 101 in other industries. Tech struggles to understand its role in a business. Too much in love with its technology. Go talk to medical and industrial sales professionals. Tech sellers sell dreams, but come across as commodity sellers.
Thanks. Enterprise B2B sales AEs make 150-150, not 75-75. It would have helped if Jason gave company examples and ranges. Looks like bottom of barrel SaaS apps.
I think the math and point mostly holds, but for sure. The even bigger stressor is how long it takes to see if an enterprise AE can close.
@@Jasonlkdealing with this right now - took us a year to offboard an AE because 'hey the sales cycles are long, give him a chance, these prospects move slow". High ACV enterprise SaaS, i'm down to monitoring activity/inputs and just general paranoia at this point.