10+ Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales During an Interview (Updated)
One of the classic original SaaStr posts was on the Top 10 Questions to Ask a VP of Sales Candidate. All the questions still hold today, interestingly. I wanted to update it for today, and yes there’s been some inflation. So it’s really 13 questions now...CRO Confidential: What It Really Takes to Be Successful in Enterprise SaaS Sales with Christian Smith, CRO of Splunk
In this week’s latest episode of CRO Confidential, Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund and former CRO at Brex, sits down with the CRO of Splunk, Christian Smith. Splunk is a 20-year-old Enterprise software giant that has accomplished many things — a 2012 IPO, a $28B+...To Really Scale, You Need $1M on Your Balance Sheet for Every $2M in ARR
There's a moment in time in every SaaS company where money doesn't really matter anymore. You have enough to hit your goals. And there's a much earlier moment in time where every single dollar matters. Between the two is the art of investing your balance...How Revenue Leaders at Box, Calendly, and Lattice Scaled From $0 to $100M+ and Beyond
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.
Dini Mehta, former CRO at Lattice, Kate Ahlering, CRO at Calendly, and Mark Wayland, CRO at Box, share their stories and offer advice to founders on how to scale companies from $0 to $100M ARR in Revenue and beyond.
10+ Simple Tips To Help Any Account Executive Close More (Updated)
In many ways, our sales skills have arguable atrophied the past few years. In the peak Go Go Days of 2021, sales wasn’t exactly easy, but it was often closer to order-taking than we’ve seen in a generation. Budgets rapidly inflated, and many inbounds were ready to...A Very Simple Sales Comp Plan For Your First Sales Reps
Dear SaaStr: What is a good model for SaaS product sales commission? The average package price is USD 500 for subscription/month. At the end of the day, most SaaS companies pay their reps all-in (base + bonus) from 20%-25% of what they close in total comp —...From Zero to Hero: How to Dominate Outbound SaaS Sales with Rippling and Founders Fund on CRO Confidential
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. Together they share how they scaled an outbound sales team from $0 to $300 million and how you can replicate their success step-by-step.
Dear SaaStr: Should I Go Into SaaS Sales?
Dear SaaStr: Should I Go Into SaaS Sales? If you aren’t sure you want to go into sales — don’t do it. Maybe in 2021, when many SaaS leaders were growing at simply unprecedented rates, could succeed in sales if you weren’t sure you wanted to sell. Not today. A...How to Win Big by Serving High-Growth Startups with Zendesk’s Head of Startups
15 years after launch and at over $1B in ARR, 33 of Zendesk’s 50 largest customers were startups that scaled up as customers. Today, Zendesk continues to drive a significant percentage of new business through the Zendesk for Startups program, supporting the startup ecosystem in search of the next generation of top customers. During this session, we’ll hear from Brad Bowery who leads the program at Zendesk on why Startups may be the missing segment in your Go-To-Market approach. Learn the various ways Zendesk and its peers approach this segment and get some insight from insiders on how to succeed when courting VCs and their portfolio companies.
Dear SaaStr: Should SaaS Pricing Be Adjusted for Different Geographical Markets?
Dear SaaStr: Should SaaS Pricing Be Adjusted for Different Geographical Markets? Your public pricing? Usually the answer is — Not Today. First, it’s complex to manage. Second, your users will see the pricing is “cheaper” somewhere else and get mad. Third, it’s...Running a PLG and Sales-Led Motion at the Same Time: What’s New at ZoomInfo with CEO Henry Schuck
In the latest installment of SaaStr’s What’s New series – where we sit down with the leaders in SaaS and Cloud for the inside scoop on what’s top of mind and what’s new, SaaStr CEO and Jason Lemkin chats with the CEO of ZoomInfo, Henry Schuck. In this episode, Jason and Henry discuss: PLG vs. a sales-led motion, and which is more efficient, the macro-environment in SaaS and what to expect next year, and of course,What’s new at ZoomInfo.
Why The Greatest Sales Teams Just Kill It On Dec 31. When Everyone Else Has Gone Home. (Updated)
Lol 😂 agreed — Sam Blond (@samdblond) January 3, 2021 There are some real mysteries in SaaS. Even now that I understand them, I still see them as a bit of a mystery. Let me list a few: Why do customers buy a ton of seats up front, when they could start with a...Salesforce: Your Job’s at Risk If You Sell Less Than $400k a Year
So quotas are relatively well understood, if sometimes complicated to get right in practice. Keybanc and Sapphire have some great overall metrics here: Overall, the median AE closes $750,000 a year, and that’s actually up from 2022 — mainly due to hiring...5 Steps to Build Your First GTM Playbook with Stage 2 Capital
The landscape for Go-to-Market (GTM) will be changing over the next 12 months in terms of roles within GTM, in combination with how buyers make purchases and the decision-makers involved. Mandy Cole, Partner at Stage 2 Capital, shares the five steps every company needs to take to build their first GTM playbook centered around the buyer.