How to Be a Much Better Sales Executive in 60 Seconds

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.

We’ve all gotten worse at getting back to prospects and customers — fast.

Contact Me has its place, perhaps. But why does a prospect have to wait days to just set up a Zoom? Or to get a demo?

As a sales exec, you may not know actually the product well. You may not know how to create urgency. You may not know the competitors perfectly.  But one thing is in your control today — you can be more responsive.  In fact, you can be hyper-responsive.

A few recent examples:

Example #1: I was recently chatting with a VP of Sales about a job position, which I get he wasn’t 100% sure he wanted. But he took 4 days to get back to the startup on it. And then said he was in no rush, and could talk about in 2 weeks.

Don’t hire that one.

Example #2:  A little while ago, I reached out to 3 top support vendors. None allowed a free trial anymore. And when I hit Contact Me?  No human even got back to me the same day. Sigh.

If you haven’t read it yet, head on over to Part 1 of Ask Me Anything with SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin to learn about sales in SaaS, how to create great SDRs and AEs, developing an impactful content strategy, and potential SaaS trends for the next 12-18 months. 

In Part 2 of Ask Me Anything, Lemkin will answer these questions:

1. How do you balance being authentic as a new startup and getting customers to buy into your vision vs. appearing well put together with everything going on?
2. How do you fix GTM?
3. Will there be any new categories in the next 5-10 years? 

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Recently, I was talking to the CEO of a pretty successful SaaS company doing ~$3m in ARR, growing nicely, in a good space. Doing just fine.

And he was proud he’d just hired a VP of Sales at a below-market rate.

Dude.  I told him.  That’s a negative.  

Because at your size and growth rate, It Just Doesn’t Matter.

If they are any good. You don’t want to save money on a great hire. You want to instead, make sure they are accretive.

Because it turns out, once you hit just $2m in ARR, and maybe even much earlier — every great hire will be accretive.

If they are truly great, they will make you more money than you pay them in cash. I guarantee it, in fact.  (The mediocre, however, will burn your cash fast at this stage).

Up Next: Wednesday, September 20th @ 10AM

Topic: For b2b Generative AI Apps, is Less More? with A16z 

Speaker: Kristina Shen, General Partner at A16z

Workshop Wednesdays is new series where we’ll be bringing some of the best SaaStr speakers to you LIVE, every Wednesday. 

Each workshop will be hosted in a live, interactive 30-minute format at 10am Pacific each and every Wednesday. This workshop will be 100% LIVE, not pre-recorded, and will be hosted in an, interactive 30-minute format, including Q&A.

“My App Stack” is a new series where we dig in with top CMOs, CROs, CTOs and CEOs on just what apps they’re really using to run their business.  I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader.

This week we have Sarah Scharf, VP of Marketing of Vanta!

This edition of the SaaStr Weekly is sponsored in part by DevRev

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So you close them, get the reference account, get the learnings, and get off to the races.

Time kills deals. Drama kills deals. Friction kills deals.

In the early days especially, leads are so precious, the last thing you want to do is kill a deal.  This usually either means “identical” pricing, i.e. pricing your app the same as the rest, to remove friction — if it’s earned it. Or pricing a smidge lower than the others, to respect the fact you may still be feature-poor compared to them, nothwithstanding your 10x Feature. 

Nuanced answer: A lot. But, the precise number today doesn’t matter.  At a practical level, if you are growing quickly, you’ll typically grant 6-8% a year in additional grants (and dilution) — and maybe get half back as folks leave.  

VC answer: 10–15–20% should be set aside in each round, depending on the situation (more detail below).

What do I mean?

I just want to tease this out because Internet Advice is so confusing here.

You need equity for your employees.

At least in my limited experience, the amounts are often the most “generous” in U.S.-based companies. Most Silicon Valley-based, traditionally structured start-ups set aside 10%-20% of their cap table in the beginning for employees, and then “refresh” that after each venture round for future hires, so that there is usually at least 10% or more ungranted in the pool.

That typically will also last you at least until the next venture round, if there is one.

However, the reality is you can always add more shares. All that matters is the board and shareholders (in most cases) agree. Your lawyers can do it in just a few hours.

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