YouSaid · the spoken record

Jason Lemkin

lines on the record: 158
first: 2024-02-18
most recent: 2024-02-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“No, no, you pick a OT a salary. But you gotta, okay, let's step back for a minute. You got a pay market. You've got to pay market. And this in the early days, if you're bootstrapped or really, and this stresses folks out, like I just talked to this great rep, Bloney, but he wants 150k OTE, right? And in fact, it's a step down. He had 170K at Slack, but he knows this isn't a startup. He wants 100, he might take 140. NOTE.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first three months of a new rap, you're lucky if they can close as much as their take-home pay is, their OT, okay? And so in the really early days, my early, early day comp plan is, look, your first three months, you keep 100% of what you close. Of course, that's not profitable for the business, but you got to invest in them, right? You keep 100% of what you close. And if you have enough going on your business, usually that's enough to put supper on the stove. And that's what I.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everyone gets this wrong We worry, look, at scale when you're extremely mature, extremely mature and very profitable, you really got to tweak this stuff very carefully. And we could talk about that if that's relevant. But in the beginning, we get this all wrong. What matters is, can a sales rep close more than they take home? In the very beginning, that's all that matters. It's just you selling, right?”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And too many people went into sales. Not. The other weird thing about B2B sales in good times is actually a lot of these folks are not really what you might think of salespeople. They can't do Outbound. They can't pick up the phone. All they know how to do is to manage leads that come in and say, I want to buy today. And you need those people too, okay? And I'll fairly. I'm not saying you don't need those people too, but that's not always what we think of as sales.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you talk to a great transactional VP of sales that's hiring tons of reps to do it, they'll make them do they're still doing this, they'll make you do sell the pen fast in the process. They don't have time. They're doing 20 interviews a week, 30 interviews a week. You got to sell me this pen. But if you're a founder and you, and I'm talking about you've already talked to a bunch of candidates, you're down to one or two. Make them tell them, look, this isn't a trick. I'm not that great at selling my product myself, right? But I got to know that you're going to be happy and successful here. So do a demo for me. And if they won't do it, they're not a salesperson.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm like, I know you're mad at me today, but this is, you know, it is your fault, 100% your fault if any of your hires fail. Don't blame them. And I'm guilty of this. I get upset when people start and they don't give it their all, right? Or they don't do it. I mean, you know, what if you hired someone for your podcast and they decided, you know what, I don't want to do the podcast this week. I'm tired. I'll do it next. You're so mad at them. But you should have seen it during the hiring process, right? So tying it back, that's why you've got to do the sell me this pen. You've got to before you hire the salesperson, have them sell your product for real. Do the demo. And if they need more time, give them more time. Let them watch another demo. Don't have them feel like it's a trap or spook them. Treat them the way you would like to be treated. But if you skip this step, I mean, you know, what's the point? You're not helping them.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The job. What I don't want you to do, Lenny, is bouncing three months after. So let's slow down. Let's talk about the questions you have on your mind. And let's have a safe space where we can make sure you're going to be happy and successful there, right? And sometimes even the founders get mad at me for doing this because sometimes the candidate bails.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, that poor Cloudflare woman that blew up, right, with the thing there's so many issues there we could dig into, but it's all Cloudflare's fault for hiring her. Okay, let's forget about that. She didn't close a single deal. Okay, so objectively in sales, should you retain your job in sales if you can't close a single deal? Like, I don't want to get into some of the triggering things, but remember, if you hire someone and they fail, it's all your fault. She didn't know what she was getting herself into. No candidates can do enough diligence ever. There's not enough time. There isn't enough time. And this is true all the way to the top, right? And so when as an investor or board member, it's funny when I do interviews, I do this thing at the, I try to be the last interview sometimes and the founders don't want me to do it. They want me to sell, right? I want to be the last one. And what I want to do is when Lenny, you've decided to join Ellen at her startup, right? At the end, I said, look, Lenny, I've talked to Ellen. She loves you. You have the job. You've got.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People don't even do reference checks and they don't stop doing this demo because they were so worried the rep would go to Gusto or go to deal or would go to remote. There was no time. I got to get like this SDR has 50 offers. Lenny, we got to hire this SDR with three weeks of experience. We've got to decide today. And that's the way. And hiring has not come back. And if those hires bounce, not only is it bad for you, but it's a disservice to the, it's worse for the hire.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And everyone in recruiting change, people stop doing reference checks. They stop doing these tests and they would just hire warm bodies late 2020. I can tell you a funny story in a second. And it was okay until it wasn't in our hiring processes have not reverted back to pre-March 2020. And I think it's failing founders left and right. I can't tell you, I would say 95% of the hiring I see out there people don't do reference checks anymore, Lenny. And we can talk about when they work and when they don't, but no one does them. No one does them. You're going to invest so much. If forgetting about the salary, it doesn't really matter, so much time. Your time, your leads, everything's so precious to bring Jason into your company and you're going to go through all this recruiting process and you're not even going to do any reference checks”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll tell you until like the boom until everyone in late 2020 got so desperate to hire anyone with a pulse. Almost everyone in sales had to come and they had during an interview process they actually had to do the pitch. They would come, and you used to do it in person with this screen. You can do it on Zoom now. It really doesn't matter, but do it for real. Do it for real, and everyone would see.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right? Software, I think hopefully all your audience would agree when it's done right, software is magical. It solves incredible problems. Incredible problems, what Airbnb does, what Uber does, what Sausset, things solve, I can track my customers, I can manage, I can automate my communications. It's magical. You shouldn't have to use boiler room tactics and use car tactics when you have something, but it doesn't sell itself, except for a little while late 2020, early 2021 that screwed the whole world up when products actually sold themselves”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're not, and that's why the best reps will also tell reps when not to buy their product, as painful as that seems in tougher times in 2024, the best reps say, no, you know, we're not there yet. We're not the right. If you need this feature, if you need this integration, I want you back in six months when you use this big product that isn't that great. But today we're not the right solution for you. That's the best ones do that. They have the confidence to know to close it. And the rest of the world thinks this is like some sort of adversarial transactional thing. And it's not.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then I'm actually Lenny, when is that how much you have 280,000 miles on the civic? Let me help you get you into that Model 3 performance today. And I've even got a special discount for the end of this month. And let me just help you. And I've spent four calls answering all your questions and I've explained to you all the things and why this supercharging network is better than the regular one that doesn't really work at the charger near your house. And I've gone on Google and I've seen there's no charging network near your house. There's only superchargers. I kind of got you, don't I? And that's the job of SaaS and sales because we're not selling commodities.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is why so many people are struggling in 2024 because they can't solve their products at sales reps, as companies, they can't solve big problems anymore. Our job as sales reps in SaaS is to not sell a used car. We are selling a Tesla Model 3 performance. It has competition. I might not need it this week, okay? But it's pretty darn good, okay? And I'm going to help you understand Lindy because you're in the market for the car why this is the best one. I'm going to be honest about where it's not.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And 98 out of 100 folks won't bother an interview. They won't bother. They're just going to click on apply on the ATS and tell you, hey, I recently stumbled upon whatever. It looks like you have time to discuss, right? But that one that actually does enough work and watches the video and then can sell it to you and they're going to make mistakes. They're not going to get it right, but they have enough confidence with the core problem to be solved because here's the mistake that 99% of founders and sales reps make. We're not really selling in B2B. We're solving problems.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am shocked how many salespeople I have met, Lenny, from SDR to SEB of sales, that by the time, and I'm doing an interview for like a portfolio company, this isn't a screen interview. They haven't even watched an explainer video yet. I could be the fifth or eighth interview and they don't know how the product works. They have not even gone to the effort of searching YouTube or the homepage and watching it. And forget about explainer videos enough, but so many companies do webinars now and they publish them on the like really good stuff, customer testimonials, right? If you're a sales rep, you don't actually have to know how the webhooks work or how to provision an API key, but you need to know the product as well as that webinar that's on YouTube.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, really the simplest one, and early in my career I thought this was silly or hated at this Glen Gary Glenn Ross. I don't know if it was Glen Gary Glen Ross or that toxic Leo movie about sales, which is still entertaining. But one way or another, Lenny, it's got to be sell me this pen. But it's not sell me this pen. It's sell me this app. So, I don't like surprises. I don't like games. I like to do this in a second interview or whatever. Give them time and I don't like to judge too harshly. But whether it's the first interview or the second, they got to sell you this pen. They've got to put in the 30 minutes of work. And maybe it's two hours. But here's the thing. Today's world, you can go on YouTube or someone's website. There's an explainer video for every product under the sun, isn't there?”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You think they can just hit refresh on the dashboards and track them from home? No, Mark Benioff today is still flying to me customers. He said the other day, you know, why does Mark Benioff go to Davos, right? He sits, and I've never been to Davos. He sits at the same place at the top of some staircase. And Salesforce drops millions of Davos. And he waits to meet customers, prospects, and partners in person all day because it's efficient because it's efficient because he can do 50 or 100 customer or prospect meetings a day at Davos. He's still doing it at 30-something billion in revenue, right? So this idea that is there some truth at, like, for example, when I worked at Adobe back in the day, it is true that Adobe, which was parts of the business, you know, sales literally was not dashboards. Like, I get it. Okay, at $4 billion, $10 billion in revenue, but most of your audience is now ready to hire at $4 billion or $10 billion in revenue.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, okay, you think, okay, there's an element, let's call it north of 50 or 100 million, where for what's sometimes called commercial sales, SMB sales, it really is all process, okay? So for sure, I agree. But, you know, at Salesforce, they're trying to close $100 million plus deals. You think that the sales leadership doesn't need to be in those deals?”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's this vast pool of veterans with great Linktons and great resumes that are so burnt out, Lenny. And let's not blame them. I know it sounds like I'm blaming them or being negative. And I'm trying to not be negative. I'm empathetic. I am empathetic to the burnout, but you can't hire these. There's too many. The industry is littered with the burnt out. They're littered with it. And if you hear a touch of cynicism, if you hear anger, if you hear, I don't want to meet customers in any of, and I'm going to say any VPR role, product sales, marketing customer sales. If they don't want to meet customers, they're first, let's make it a 14-day test. You know, they're never going to want to meet customers.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They don't want to work. They don't want to work. I literally just got this LinkedIn email to work with me at Astor from this person who'd been reading SASTER for eight years. Like, I want to run account management customer success for you. Here's what you're doing wrong. Here's how to do it. I'm like, this is pretty good, right? And I DM'd her back. I'm like, great. To be honest, you realize that you're actually going to have to talk to customers and sponsors yourself in the beginning. No response. Just out. Just out. And that was the best one I got the last 30 days. That was the best inbound that I personally got. So I know it sounds triggering or critical, but as founders, we have to be honest that”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm going to spend that first month getting Salesforce up and running. I'm going to send the first month on territory planning, Lenny, because we really, with our three reps, I really want to make sure we've nailed territories, right? Lenny will do the South. Elaine will do the east. Jason will do the west. When you hear process, process, process, from marketing, product, sales, customer success too, boy, it's the death of customer success. And it's not that you don't need process. It's just, it's even worse than it was than a few years ago. And I know this is going to trigger some people, but the truth is they don't want to work.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when you hear that story, if I don't want to travel out of Pleasanton, or they say, here's what you're going to hear from the wrong person for anything, even up to 50 million of revenue. I'm going to spend that first month working on process.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's too many VPs of product, too, Lenny, that don't want to meet customers anymore either. The majority of VPs of products that I interview, they don't answer, they don't say meet customers. Every single great VP of product, chief product officer I've ever worked with in my entire career. You know what the first thing they do in the first two weeks? They like leave me alone. I'm going to go talk to 20 customers. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. I'm going to go talk. They don't want to sit out of meetings and look at PRDs and talk out of their navel in endless internal meetings, all the best ones they say. They just leave. They literally say, leave me alone. I will see you in two weeks. I'm going to go meet with 20 customers. And that's what product should do. Sales, whether it's prospects or existing customers, it can vary, right? But they should be like on my first day. I want to join five calls.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting, VPS sales and VPA product, I look for the same answer. One of the Colombo style questions I ask him, and I mean, it's barely even counted. In B2B. If I don't hear from the VPS sales or the VPA product that I'm going to go meet customers, out, I'm out.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he lived in the East Bay in Pleasanton in the East Bay, which is maybe 20 minutes east of Oakland. He said, I'm willing to visit customers, but I won't go as far as the peninsula in San Francisco. He's just happy at home. He's happy at home, Lenny, and he doesn't want to sell. And this guy has the best LinkedIn and the best references, but you don't want to sell anymore. He needs a job. He wants to be a VP sales. And I see this across the industry. And I'm struggling to find answers. And I think the biggest hiring, we talked about a lot of tactile hiring mistakes that you can make today in sales. The biggest strategic mistake you can make today in sales, because there's so many veterans. There's so many folks that work at Twilio and Mongo and wherever pick any great company you want, right? There's so many veterans out there. You just can't hire the ones that don't actually want to sell anymore. And there's too many. There's too many.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Out the weapon and the 10x feature. They like working on a team. They like hunting. They love it. But then sometimes I just think burnout is always a reality, but I just think that the last three years have been so yo-yoed that folks are just, they're out. Out and don't hire them. No matter how smart they are. And that's the test. I'll tell you, I talked with a really great VP of sales candidate that had worked with a top 10 tech company. And I asked him what he wanted to do in this next role. And he's like, yeah, I got a great team. I've got eight people that I can bring with me. We're ready to lock and load. I'm like, okay, well, let me tell you one of my views in today's world is that you've got to actually visit more customers now, not less. And in a distributed world, it's more important to visit customers.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They don't want to do it. They don't want to do it. 2021 was crazy because everything was too crazy. There's too much money, too much going on. 2022 was the knife falling. That was crazy too. 2023 was just hard, okay? And whether it's burnout or whatever out or just too much of change, I would say I've probably interviewed for different reasons 50 VPs of sales in the last 12 months. I would say the majority don't want to do sales. It's my first screening question. And that's why they got to carry it bag because it proves they actually still care about the craft. And the best sales folks love sales. It's a craft. They love money. Yes, they love money. And that does matter. Do not hire a sales rep that doesn't like money. Trust me on this one. There's 0% chance they all work out either. But they also like the craft. They like honing the script. They like beating the competition. They like figuring out the counterfeit. They like figure.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At least for a little while, and more importantly, if they don't want to. Think in today's world, you got to run from them. Exactly whether they fully carry a quota, a half quota, whether they backfill the sales team, you want a salesperson, and here's the thing, Lenny, you want to say, this is going to sound silly, but it's not. Trust me on this for anyone watching, listening. You want a head of sales that actually wants to do sales. And I got to tell you, and I'm still struggling with this myself after the last three years or so, so many folks in all functions, we could talk about other functions too, okay, but especially in sales, don't want to do sales anymore.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you will regret it if you don't hire these first couple sales reps that have a couple years of experience if you're in B2B with B2B sales. They need a couple of years of experience and they need a certain amount of maturity. And maturity is a real issue in these are in any early hire because we just don't have time to babysit people. There's no onboarding. There's no training. So they need a couple years of experience. Ideally, something close to your deal size. We could chat about why. That would be nice. And enough maturity that you can trust them with that lead. You can trust them with your customer, right?”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, listen, as hard as it is for a lot of founders to even get their arms around. The reason is you've got to be that crummy first head of sales with them. You've got to manage those reps. You've got to be in the field with them. You've got to be figuring it out before you can hire the person. You just have to. Even if you're terrible at it because you're still going to be a good middler. You're still going to be a good middler.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You want your VP of sales in deals 20, 30 hours a week when they start. And I see VPs of sales today start. They're in no deals. I'll go to a board meeting and VPS sales will be there two, three months, and they'll have a logo on the word. I'm like, how's it going with Airbnb? And they'll be, I don't know, I got to ask John. Don't know because it isn't even in the deal. Isn't even in the deal. So I see this too often. Another company I'm on the board on, I really like this VP of sales a lot. He joined and six months in, you know, sales were down from where. The new bookings were down from where they were six months before. And as he was honest, he's like the biggest problem is I feel like I didn't have time to learn this product. It's a complicated product. It's more complicated than the product I last all than I just didn't have time.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sales themselves. Yeah. Not just be a box. Not just be a boss. Have a vota. And the reason I was on the fence was because I was like, well, listen, in theory, it's great. But let's say you're a hot startup and you want to go from two to six this year. Okay. So I want to add four million of new bookings. And let's say I can do 400K in quota per rep. That means I got to have 10 reps. She walks in with two. I'm at a race, aren't I? I got to hire eight in the next six months to hit my plant. And I got to put numbers on the board. If I'm out there as an individual contributor or sales rep, I'm never going to hire eight people, am I? It's never going to happen. So I used to say, I don't know if it matters, but what I've learned the last 18 to 20 months when everyone has gotten lazy, Lenny. Everyone in tech has gotten lazy is I see way too many VPs to sales that come in and never have any idea how to sell the product. Never, never. They only want to be managers. Now, whether they carry a bag or whether what they do is they join calls with the reps, right? Whether they back fill the reps.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the second point I wanted to make, and I was on the fence for years of when you hire a VP of sales, do they need to carry a bag? Do they need to sell themselves or not? Does it matter? Does it matter? And I wasn't sure for a long time. And the reason I wasn't sure for a long time is not that you don't want a VP of sales carrying a bag. And I do think a VP of engineering also should commit code. And carrying a bag.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, when I started, when I came out of my own startup and started interviewing other folks, I remember I would interview a lot of folks at places like GitHub back in the day. I'd be like, do you have a technical background? Like, are you an engineer? Have you ever built any software? They're like, no, I don't. I don't know. I don't know. And I was curious how you could do it. But GitHub was so well established that it's 10 questions. It's 10 questions. And grab a sales engineer. It's 10 questions and grab. So you got to be really good at 10. Then you grab a sales engineer. That doesn't work in the early stage startups. So you got to find these sales folks that are a bit of products of aunts and dropping the VP of sales in that isn't a product savant, which is a big issue. That's all Mr. or Ms. Process. This is the issue. They're all Mr. or Ms. Process.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It ain't gonna work. It never, ever, never, ever, ever, never, ever works. You're asking them to find product market fit to be the first rep, to be the second rep, and scale it all at the same time. It's mission impossible to do all four at the same time, right? So that's the biggest mistake is, Lenny, I can't get sales going at my company. I can't do it, but I raised $4 million in my C plus round. I'm going to go out and hire the VP of sales. That VPS sales will not be there in eight months. And you know what else? $2 million of the four will be gone. Because they'll never understand the product. They will never understand. And if there was one thing that there's so many things we could talk about, but if there's one thing I could reinforce for this audience, it's that, you know, that early sales team, they've got to be product gurus for your product audience. They've got to be product experts. And later as you scale, they can't be or you can't scale.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Insanely good at selling that. And the folks off the street, the new BP sales, often doesn't even understand the 10x feature. It's too subtle. It's too subtle why the fact that your product is localized in Portuguese magically means you can win these deals. I'm making up something that doesn't quite make sense. So you need two reps that are hidden quota and then you hire VP sales. If you hire it before then, you're doing a Hail Mary”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Almost all VPs of sales, their job is to take you from rep three to 300, to take you from 300 to 300, to take something that's just starting to repeat, okay, a script that's just starting to work, leads that are just starting to come in, and then take Lenny and Jason, the two reps I have, as quirky as they are, they're crushing it, okay? And then I'm going to hire a more heterogeneous type of person going forward. I'm going to hire the person from Cloudflare into it. They can't all be like letting Jason. They're pretty quirky. But at least I can learn from them. What's working? What are the objections, right? How do we get around that feature gap? Like we're one year old, we're two years old. We got a lot of feature gaps. Okay. This integration doesn't quite work. How do we box around those issues? How do we sell our 10x feature? Because if you're a startup, your product isn't very good. Your software is not very good. And you have a competitor, but you have some 10x feature that is driving people to buy you something you're doing that does not exist in the marketplace. And the really good reps get.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two things. One that's evergreen and one that's maybe especially apropos for today's environment. The evergreen one. Which I've talked about for over a decade. And I think folks that have been through it will see it, which is you need two sales reps hitting quota, closing deals before you're ready to hire a manager for them.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Close our first five figure deal, first six figure deal, first seven figure TCV deal. Didn't scale completely, right? Inside of Adobe was harder to scale inside of a 20,000 person company than it was in a six-person company, but he was still there. He still made that far to the journey, but he was the only one that I knew could actually that I would buy my product from. Not that I would buy something from, but I would buy my product from. And leads are so precious in the early days, right? It's so hard to find leads. That's the problem. You hire this perfect person from Snowflake and you have three leads a month and you give him two and he doesn't close them. Your companies could have died. Leads are so precious. That's what folks don't get. And so wait, and I know it's painful. And I know most founders have hired this person with the right LinkedIn that they wouldn't buy their product from just keep interviewing. Just keep, you need that quirky hyodoromic that loves your product and can sell it. They're out there.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Product that is so feature poor and does nothing, but they love it. They love it. They love it. And my first rep I had like this back in the day, he had gotten let go by a prior startup and he was struggling and he was living in his brother's garage at the time because this was not your number one person at Snowflake. But of all the 30, he came in and what's now Adobe Sign EcoSign, he described the whole problem. He described how he would solve the problem for our customers in the early days of this category, right? And it was clear whatever it took we needed him and whatever we needed to backfill the garage or whatever, this was the only one that could sell the product and he did it for a decade.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Almost every first time founder hires someone because they worked it Twilio or Cloudflare or wherever and they talk the talk and they can say ACV and NRR and they can talk all these acronyms, none of which matter, none of which matter. And they get so we all get attracted to logos on our resume. But in our gut, I always ask them, did you know that Jason was going to buy from Jason? Like you're right. I wouldn't have bought, I wouldn't have bought from Jason, but he worked at Twilio. So just wait, wait, and interview 30 sales reps, however you find them through LinkedIn, through use recruiters, use contingent recruiters. It's exhausting. Do everything, work your network, and then be flexible in the beginning. We're looking for pirates and romantics in the early days. We are not looking for folks with massive sales operations teams and enablement teams. You're looking for someone, you're looking for that quirky one that's got a few extra IQ points that for reasons that make no sense has fallen in love with your little”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then eight of the next 10 are sort of okay, but you know it's now really going to work, but you might hire him if you get tired. And if you're lucky, one or two of them, they're like magicians. They ask the right questions, which we could talk about. Then take a pause and say, look, no matter how strange their background was, whatever they did, it's not the right background. It's not our same deal size. It's not our industry. They actually weren't very good at their last job. They got let go at their last job. But I would buy from Lenny. I know I've been doing this for a year. But every day, I would buy from Lenny because Lenny just explained to me my product and my customers' problems in a way that I actually believe. Forget about what's on her LinkedIn or his LinkedIn. I would buy for money. That rep always works because you can trust them with those leads.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I talked to so many founders that screwed up their first sales hires and they always nod when they hear it those first couple reps have to be people you would buy your own product from. That's it. Now we can talk about other criteria. We can talk about normalizing for deal size. We can talk about industry experts.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think as soon as you've got those 10 customers and more than 20% of your time is booked up with customers, you need leverage. You need leverage. You've got to get, if you do it too early, if you're not spending 20% of your time in sales and 20% of your time in recruiting, you're failing as a founder. You need 20% of each, 20% in sales and 20% recruiting. Nothing else really matters at some level. As a CEO, maybe not as founders, but as CEOs. But once you cross the 20%, you need leverage or your calendar will die. So you need to hire rep and you've got to hire two because otherwise there's no AB test. You have to A-B test humans. You have to A, B test humans. You've got to hire two as hard as it is. And there's just one cheat code to those first two. There's one cheat code”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and this is where sales reps are terrible. Most sales reps, once you go beyond the five basic questions, they can't tell you how a database works or how to eliminate hallucinations from your product or how to do payroll in eastern southern Guam. The sales rep, we can talk about this. They need help, right? They need help from the founders in the early days. They need help from sales engineers or product people, which is my favorite place to get the help as you scale, but they need help. The beauty to founders is they don't need help in the middle. And you can be 10 times better in the middle than any sales rep that you're bigger at your bigger competitor. If you're running, I'm just making up serum, but if you're running a new serm startup, you can run circles around 98% of the sales reps at Salesforce or HubSpot, right? They have the brand, they have the partners, they have the integrations, but they cannot answer the questions you can answer.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe you don't know how to find one, but once you have someone in your spider web, Lenny, the conversation you and I just had was A. In any founder should be there by day one, right? By day one. And prospects love it. If I want to buy CRM, I don't get to talk to Yomini at HubSpot or Mark Bettyoff, but I get to talk to you in your CRM company. It's like magical for early adopters, right? So bear in mind, no matter how bad you think you are as a founder, you're pretty good at the middle part of sales. So find a way to get any prospects, get really good at the middle, and then work up your courage. Work up your courage and find how to ask for next steps and money. What would it take? Lenny, how can we get going on Riverside? What would it take? We would love to have you, right? What would it take to get you going next week? You've got to learn that little motion, but you don't have to learn all the stuff you think is SMARMY other than how to go from middle to just ask for how we can get going.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even if you hate sales, even if you think it's icky, even if you don't like it, as a founder, you've 95 times out of 100, you've got to find a way at least to close the first 10 customers yourself. You've got to find a way. And we could dig into how to do that if you don't like sales. The hack, though, is that even if you don't like sales, customers love to talk to the CEO. The customers love it. And here's the other thing as a founder, you're really good at the product in the market, hopefully even in the early days. So what I mean, so what's important is even if you don't know how to do Outbound, even if you don't know how to send a cold email, even if you don't know how to do any of this stuff, and even if you don't know how to ask for a check, even if you don't know how to open or close, almost all foundlers are A plus middlers, A plus middlers, A plus middlers, right? And before we started, you and I talked about podcasting content, and immediately was an A-plus conversation, okay? Maybe you don't know how to close a big sponsor. Okay, I'm just making that up.”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it can be most companies are a hybrid, right? Even folks that are, even there's weird hybrids, like there's folks like Mongo and Snowflake. Mongo has a, well, maybe Mongo is a much better example. Mongo has a free low-end version, and there's open source too. It's a little confusing. And then there's not a lot in the middle. And then there's a lot of big, right? There's all different ways to combine a product-led or self-serve motion with sales-led in it. Too many founders in the beginning think it's either or. Not either”
2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source