CRO Confidential: Principles that drove Wiz’s $0 to $100M Journey with Wiz CRO Colin Jones (Pod 665 + Video)

by Amelia Ibarra | Jun 2, 2023 | Blog Posts, Company Culture, Customer Success, Hiring, Leadership, Podcasts, Sales, Sales, Videos | 0 comments

In 2020-2021, many SaaS startups faced a unique challenge. With teams spread across the globe, they had to find new working patterns to scale their businesses in a distributed environment. Wiz, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies focused on security solutions,...

10+ of The Top Mistakes Sales Reps Make … That Kill Deals (Updated)

by Jason Lemkin | May 29, 2023 | Blog Posts, Early, Sales | 0 comments

Q: What are the common mistakes in the sales process that may lead to customer loss? A non-exhaustive 🙂 list: Not listening. Too many reps just talk and talk, trying to get the pitch out. They miss a chance to learn what problem the prospect actually wants solved. Not...

Sales Reps Really Do Have to Close 4x-5x What They Take Home, and More: Iconiq’s Sales Compensation Guide

by Jason Lemkin | May 23, 2023 | Blog Posts, Sales | 0 comments

So leading growth stage VC Iconiq has published its latest and very detailed Definitive Guide to Sales Compensation here.  It’s very detailed and oriented more toward growth-stage scale-ups — but it’s excellent.  Everyone should have a read. I...

7 “Easy” Ways to Increase Sales in One Quarter. Or Even Just One Month.

by Jason Lemkin | May 20, 2023 | Blog Posts, Growth, Sales, Sales | 0 comments

Dear SaaStr:  What Can I Do To Grow Faster, Right Now? My 7 top tips to increase sales quickly. Hire a great VP of Sales. Yes, I am a broken record here. But I’ve seen it 100+ times. Hire a great VP of Sales, and even if nothing else changes … she’ll...

CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers With CoSell.io Co-Founder & Co-CEO Brendon Cassidy (Pod 660 + Video)

by Amelia Ibarra | May 17, 2023 | Blog Posts, Early, Podcasts, Sales, Sales, Videos | 0 comments

In this week’s episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond wraps up the founder-led sales series with one of the most accomplished sales leaders in the world, Brendon Cassidy.  Cassidy was Blond’s VP of Sales at Echosign and, before that, was one of the first sales...

6 Reasons To Not Stick With Just Self-Service

by Jason Lemkin | May 15, 2023 | Blog Posts, Q&A, Sales | 0 comments

The ultimate test for every SMB SaaS vendor is if you are OK losing your largest customers as they scale If you aren’t, it’s hard to stay truly SMB over time If you are, you have to live with elevated churn, lower NRR. And the loss of your top logos, again and again....

Dear SaaStr: How Does a Sales Rep Truly Add Value?

by Jason Lemkin | May 13, 2023 | Blog Posts, Sales, Sales | 0 comments

Q:  Do salespeople add to the value received by customers? They do in the enterprise. At least the good ones do. That’s what a lot of founders miss if they haven’t worked with great mid-market and enterprise sales execs before. Let’s break sales down into 2 types:...

SaaStr CRO Confidential: Omni Founder Colin Zima on the Power of Leveraging Your Network for Sales and Recruiting (Pod 658 + Video)

by Amelia Ibarra | May 10, 2023 | Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Company Culture, Customer Success, Early, Leadership, Marketing, Podcasts, SaaS Product Pricing, Sales, Sales, Videos | 0 comments

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.  Omni is trying to build the next-generation business intelligence (BI) platform. In a year’s...

7 Things All Founders Should Know About Sales with Dave Kellogg (Video)

by Amelia Ibarra | May 9, 2023 | Blog Posts, Sales, Sales, Videos, Workshop Wednesdays | 0 comments

One of the most essential things SaaS founders need to get right is their sales strategy. From day one, it’s critical to drive results to impress your investors, acquire customers, and set your sales team up for success. Dave Kellogg –– Independent Consultant, EIR at...

15+ of The Top Sales & Marketing Mistakes SaaS Startups Make (Updated)

by Jason Lemkin | May 6, 2023 | Blog Posts, Company Culture, Early, Featured Posts, Hiring, Marketing, Sales | 0 comments

A while back we put together some of the top sales & marketing mistakes SaaS companies and founders make, especially in the early days.  I thought it would be worth a quick update of the post. We’ve all made many of these mistakes ourselves, myself included. 🙂 I’m...

Dear SaaStr: If You Sell a Multi-Year Deal, Does The Whole Amount Count Toward Quota?

by Jason Lemkin | May 6, 2023 | Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Compensation, Growth, Q&A, Sales | 0 comments

Dear SaaStr: As a salesperson, if you sell a multi-year SaaS deal, does the whole amount count towards your current year quota? Or just the part attributed to your current year? Approaches vary here. First, what you pay on vs. quota retirement can vary. On commissions...

Cloudflare: Our Top Reps Are Hitting 129% of Quota. But 100 of Them Are Closing Almost Nothing.

by Jason Lemkin | May 4, 2023 | Blog Posts, Sales, Scale | 0 comments

So Cloudflare is one of our hero Cloud / SaaS companies and even under tougher macro conditions, still grew a stunning 37% at $1.2 Billion in ARR! But it’s getting harder for Cloudflare, just like it is for many of us.  The toughest metric is new customers. ...

10 Things New Sales Reps Are Taught. That Maybe They Shouldn’t Be.

by Jason Lemkin | Apr 29, 2023 | Blog Posts, Early, Sales, Sales | 0 comments

Q: What sales tactics that are taught to new salespeople bother you enough that you refuse to use them? A few that I think really do you a disservice in SaaS, especially before you have a huge brand: “Be careful of prospects that waste your time.” Yes, your time is...

CRO Confidential: How Founder-Led Sales Can Transform Your Business with Roam CEO and Founder Howard Lerman and Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund (Pod 655 + Video)

by Amelia Ibarra | Apr 28, 2023 | Blog Posts, Company Culture, Customer Success, Hiring, Marketing, Podcasts, SaaS Product Pricing, Sales, Sales, Videos | 0 comments

Former CEO and founder of Yext and current CEO and founder of Roam, Howard Lerman, shares successful strategies and lessons learned building two successful startups with Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, in this week’s episode of CRO Confidential.  Typically, sales...

Secrets to Scaling a Company in Hypergrowth Mode with Celonis President Sales & Field Engineering Chris Donato and SVP Business Development & Ecosystem Shelli Vivona (Video)

by Amelia Ibarra | Apr 25, 2023 | Blog Posts, International Expansion, Marketing, Marketing, Sales, Sales, Videos, Workshop Wednesdays | 0 comments

While many of the companies on SaaStr are based in North America and then expand to Europe and APAC, we’re seeing more and more expansion going the other way. Celonis started 12 years ago in Germany and recently began its move into the U.S. market. This has...