Theoretically, the relationship between sales and marketing should be easy –– after all, these teams are responsible for pulling in more business and increasing revenue. However, it is often the case that relationships are complicated between these teams, and sometimes they can even butt heads.
Unfortunately, this type of tension is all too common and plagues many companies. But there is hope. Greenhouse CMO, Carin Van Vuuren, and VP of Enterprise Revenue, Ankur Passi, share their approach to bridging the communication gap to bring the traditional frenemies together.
So this post is, in some ways, a repeat. I’ve made this point before. But never in its own post. And I’m making it again because it’s something between all these Calendly invites, and side hustles, and more that everyone has gotten worse at....
So I use SaaStr itself as a bit of a lab to keep my learnings on sales & marketing fresh. We have 150+ sponsors and I continually learn from them. One thing I’m a bit embarrassed to admit is we didn’t actually crunch the numbers to see what happens...
Ok so many folks have been in cut, or conserve, or hold down cost mode for a year or so at this point. Great. And if growth is still mediocre, maybe you have to keep doing that. But for many, growth has returned, or remains strong, and for many, it’s even...
Dear SaaStr: When Should The CEO Step Away From Sales? Never. It’s just, as you scale, what you do in the sales process as CEO evolves and changes. I remember when we closed Groupon as one of our Ten (or so) Largest customers, back in the day. They’d brought us...
Ah, hiring those first 1 or 2 sales reps. So often, they are mis-hires. But when you get that Sales Magician — they really can be a game changer. If that’s you, hiring your first few sales reps, here are our Top 10 SaaStr Posts on Hiring Your First Few...
So I was on a group Zoom with a number of CROs and VPs of Sales the other day and a consistent theme came up: everyone was surprised how high OTEs (On Target Earnings) had held up in the current environment. Why? Well, one would think OTEs would have to come down as...
So there’s a situation I see happening with many (not most, but many) SaaS companies as they build out the first management team: They hire a VP of Sales that doesn’t think much of the VP of Marketing. And doesn’t work with them. So they bypass...
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Price a SaaS Product in a New B2B Market? I’ve lived it. It’s not as complicated or as hard as it sounds. The simplest answer is usually to copy the pricing from the closest public company or other break-out leader you can find that is...
Q: If We Have Two Overlapping Products is it Better to Have One Sales Team or Two? It’s almost always better to have different sales teams handling different products Why? If for no other reason — Incentive Alignment. Sales reps work on commission, and they are driven...
Dear SaaStr: How do some salespeople make millions? A very few SaaS AEs can make $1m a year. It’s hard to pull off. But — it does happen regularly. It happens because they are (x) in the top 1% and (y) at a SaaS company closing tens of millions of new...
So one of the parts of sales that will likely drive you a bit nuts as a founder is FUD and Counter-FUD. What’s FUD, if you haven’t heard the term before? Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Winning a deal vs. a competitor by getting the prospect to worry...
Building your first sales team will be an endless series of mistakes. It’s OK. Plan for it. But there are a few avoidable, key mistakes I see start-ups making > 50% of the time. Just make fewer of these mistakes, and you’ll scale faster, and just as...
