YouSaid · the spoken record

Jason Lemkin

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158
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2024-02-18
most recent
2024-02-18
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1
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podcast

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  1. “And some founders are like, I'm going to work on the five that pay us 20 bucks a month, not the five that'll pay us $5,000 a year. And I find too many folks that don't like sales, too many folks that have not had any life experience in a sales-led environment flee from those customers. And I've never seen that lead to success. We're surprised who our niche is sometimes. We talk about nailing our niche, but sometimes we're surprised that niche that finds us.”

    2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Be honest about that. Just be honest about, yes, the motion that it will take to get those first 10, 15, 20 customers. And if they were able to find you by putting your credit card and no one had to talk to them, then that's your DNA today. It doesn't mean you won't go upmarket later like a slack or a canva. But if you can get them all to do that and you never have to talk to them, then get really good at viral loops. Get really good at almost B2C type motions, get really good at this kind of stuff and higher growth hackers and do the whole almost B2C-ish motion, which we have itself serve. But if your first 10 customers come in and say, you know what, Lenny, I'll pay you $5,000, but you've got to solve this problem I have with online video. That is not a self-serve motion. It is not a self-serve motion. And even worse, sometimes worse is your first 10 customers, five of them sign up online, but it takes a huge amount of effort for $19 a month. And then five say they'll pay you $5,000 a month.”

    2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “18 months ago when things were easier, right? Maybe 20 months ago, they were doing $5 million in revenue, growing over 100% with the sales life motion. Things got harder. Things got harder as they did for many of us. And they decided to fire the whole sales team. And now they're doing less than one. From 5 million with beloved customers. If I told you the logos, your jaw would drop. Over 5 million 20 months ago to 1 million today because they fired the sales team because the founders didn't like sales. They thought it was icky. They didn't want to do it. They were tired of doing it. And I can tell you several stories like this. So you got to be honest about the sometimes we get it just right on day zero. Sometimes we know exactly how our company is going to work or Lenny's podcast is going to work. We can predict the future perfectly. But I find in B2B, a lot of times the industry we end up winning in, the segment of the industry, the type of customer is not what we initially thought and either lean into it and be a success or run from it because sales is icky.”

    2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “And you say, hey, I don't like sales, so I'm going to do a PLG motion. You'll fail. One of the things that I've done with so many founders over the years, and it shocks them at first, is your first 10, 15, 50 unaffiliated customers, the ones that find you from the ether, they are alike the next 50, 100, 200, 1,000. And you can either embrace them or run for them. And too many product e founders find that, hey, gosh, I'm going to have to do sales and they exit it.”

    2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “If you truly build a self serve product, you can either never have a sales team or Slack defer it or like Canva really defer it. Okay, Canva didn't really build a sales team until they were well north of 500 million in revenue because it's epic self-serve, right? Slack started all self-serve. And by the time they went public, the majority of their revenue was enterprise sales. So you can sequence things. You can have hybrid models like a third of Asana's revenue is still from self-serve and two-thirds are from a self-serve motion. So there's all different hybrid things. The most important thing, though, I've found is however you get those first 10, 15, 20 customers, be honest. Be honest. And if you've talked to them as a founder and you know that they need a sales type motion, they need effort to deploy it. They have questions about security. They have questions about competition. They have onboarding requirements.”

    2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I think it's great. I think it's an evergreen topic, but I think there remains a consistent set of confusion, fears around how to build a sales team. And it's evergreen. The tools change. And the pace has changed, but the issues are like, I love to dig into them because we keep making the same mistakes as founders and executives again and again and again.”

    2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I'm so excited. Long time. What's the expression? Longtime fan first time dialer or something. First time caller? Yeah, first time caller. I don't know if that exists in 2024 or not, but yeah, that's me. So thank you so much for letting me come.”

    2024-02-18 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Here's the mistake that 99% of founders and sales reps make. We're not really selling in B2B. We're solving problems. Our job as sales reps in SaaS is to not sell a used car, okay? 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. 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 the 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