Are marketers just doing a bunch of arts & crafts? Are salespeople spoiled brats? I don't want to offend anyone, but I think most folks would chuckle at this: Sales and marketing leaders don't naturally get along. So what's the solve for a siloed marketing and sales? Let's talk through some key steps towards holding everyone accountable to meeting our revenue goals: Team communication responsibilities Identify how much pipeline and revenue comes from Marketing Defining a Marketing...

You wanted to know about me?! I'm flattered, humbled, and happy to share what's been inspiring me lately. Everything from my favorite comedians to my thoughts on the Innovator's Dilemma. I want to know what you're wondering about! Submit your question at [email protected], dropping a note on LinkedIn, or leaving a comment on Spotify. Grab the 3 Steps to a Perfect Pitch guide here https://clickhubspot.com/pitch

Today's listener Q&A is all about scaling your culture. We want to move GTM and sales away from an uncontrollable art form to a data-driven, predictable process. And that starts at the top. Our questions is -- "How can sales culture be influenced from the top down?" Here's what you can expect: "Scalable Visibility" through inspecting every aspect of your GTM Effective coaching strategies for your sales team Hiring high-quality, best fit candidates through training and...

Today we have another mailbag question, and let me tell you: I love these. Today's question is one that's come up a lot lately for the portfolio over at Stage 2 Capital -- "How do you decide whether CS or Sales owns revenue from customers?" Here's what you can expect: Pros & cons in specializing roles between hunters and farmers A framework for decision making based on LTV captured in the first sale Designing the most motivating compensation plan The concept of Leading Indicator of...

Is the startup you're about to join gonna become a unicorn? That's the billion dollar question. It's so hard to tell. But one of the leading indicators of that that's rarely talked about is whether they're scaling to massive revenue through only inbound leads. It's so hard to find those companies. And if you do latch on. That's what happened with Carrie Bosworth, who a few years ago joined Checkr as the SVP of Sales. They scaled to huge revenue numbers through inbound only, but they knew...

You're looking for your next job. The last one didn't go so well. You gotta get this one right, and you found one. But how do you know if it's good and how do you know you can help? That's an important riddle. And today we bring in my friend Dini Mehta , the founding CRO of Lattice. She saw that this company wasn't exactly growing in its infancy, but she came across Jack Altman, Sam Altman's (OpenAI) brother, who's one of the most brilliant founders she met. So she had to assess...

Expanding from selling a single product to multiple products. It's almost a required journey for getting to unicorn status. And yet that journey often leads to failure. Most companies think, "Mobilize the organization, train the sales team, build the product, get the customer support folks trained, change the website." Only, that's the approach that leads to failure. So today we bring in Ryan Meadows, head of Global Sales at Klaviyo, to walk us through how his company has scaled to...

If a sales rep receives more than three hours of coaching a month, they beat their quota by 7% on average. If they receive less than two hours of coaching a month, they miss by 10%. (Corporate Executive Board) Building a world class coaching culture is one of the most important ways to scale your sales and revenue. And that's what Jonathan Vassil (CRO, Toast) has done. Jonathan talks bout: Importance and influence of a sales coaching culture Creating performance management...

Have you ever reflected on the term post sale? Why do we call that post sale? When did we stop selling? And what have we started to do? Create customer value. Renew and expand. I've never thought about it until today's episode with Sangeeta Chakraborty (CRO, Miro) — a recent Silicon Valley darling. And what's really cool and unique about her is she grew up in customer success. Customer success didn't even exist 20 years ago. And now we have this new generation of CROs that grew up from...

You're the sales leader of a unicorn. Selling the tool that every sales leader tries to optimize around. So the question is: How do you and your team use it? We're learning from Ryan Longfield (fmr. CRO, Gong) about how to run your sales org like a billion dollar company using the same software we're all using. Because it turns out, almost all of us are not unlocking its real potential You'll also hear from Ryan about: How to chart your career path based on priority and life stage Why...

You're a first time founder, CEO, or sales leader. You've crushed the Seed stage of your business, and got the $10 million Series A check. Now you're at your board meeting. The multi-decade venture capitalist is feeding you with advice and counsel. And you take it. The problem is: They're wrong sometimes. But how do you know — you've never been in this seat before? As an independent board member, Jen Grant (COO, Cube) has seen every angle of this equation and she's here to help us decipher...

You spoke and we listened. We cover a lot of the science of scaling in our episodes, but we know there's plenty of questions you still have. So we'll be answering listener questions periodically on the show. Send your question to Mark on LinkedIn, at our email address [email protected], or on Spotify's Q&A prompt on your phone. Today, Mark predicts the future of AI in the revenue space and how leaders need to think today in order to find success in the years to come. It won't be easy,...

We're in the Q2 board meeting, and we have a huge decision ahead: Who is our next sales leader? We're sifting through the candidates and one person says, ah, they're two big company. What does that mean to big company? Jeff Perry (CRO, Carta) knew he had to check his ego at the door if he was going to find success coming from a sales org like Oracle to lead a then 50 person team at Carta. Here's what it takes: Sales ops as a trusted internal partner for sales leaders Segmentation for...

Probably the most common and important early stage go-to-market question I get from founders and first sales leaders is this: What are creative new ways to create demand for my sales team? It's a forever question, and it's so hard. Usually it's about understanding what's coming next. Best practices that haven't been exploited yet. I have a hypothesis — it's community-led growth, CLG. My friend Paul St. John, the first sales leader at GitHub, arguably the pioneer on CLG, joins me to...

I'm rewriting some of my Science of Scaling framework after this conversation. It knocked me off my chair, if we're being honest here. It's about the commission plan. When I asked Nick Dellis (VP of Revenue, Mercury) about his team's commission plan, he said, "We don't have one." And Nick makes a strong case for why it might be high time for your company to ditch its commission plan too. Resource: [Free Download] Learn how sales teams are using AI and automation with our 2024 Report...

Today we're doing something a little different. We've heard from sales leaders, but what about the other side of the scaling equation: Venture Capital. Kyle Duffy joins us from Gradient Ventures, part of Google parent Alphabet, specializing in early stage investing in AI and machine learning. Exciting stuff, to say the least. Kyle unpacks early stages of go-to-market development — what are the biggest opportunities he sees, and what are the ones early stage founders fail to exploit? [Free...

We've gone from arguably the biggest bull market in the history of tech in 2020-2021 to arguably tech's biggest down cycles in 2022-2023. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last. What does that mean for a sales leader? What does that mean for the pressures you're getting from your CEO, from the leadership team, from the board? How do you manage expectations, culture, product pivots, and value prop with your customer? Take a breath. Exhale. Ang McManamon (Vp of Sales, Crunchbase)...

Sales leaders often diligence the CEO, but they quickly realize they should've done the same for the CMO. Same for the other way around. It's a topic not even Mark has yet to fully codify. Host Mark Roberge is joined by Sydney Sloan (CMO, Drata) and Adam Aarons (CRO, Drata) to discuss how the two navigated their way into a unicorn-worthy partnership. They'll talk about: The importance of marketing and sales alignment How to evaluate potential team members when joining a company Back...

Community-led growth involves multiple communities, including core user communities, spheres of influence (like executives or department heads), and the intersection of these communities. And when you run it alongside a PLG motion, it can be truly powerful. Host Mark Roberge is joined by Andrew Ettinger (CRO, Appen) to discuss applying a community-led growth model at your org. In this episode learn more about: The Three C's strategy Empowering developers and technical leads New roles in...

No matter what stage your company is in, you need to build a best in class sales team. And no one knows how to do that better than today's guest. Host Mark Roberge is joined by John McMahon (Board Member, Snowflake & MongoDB) to get super tactical on how to build a billion dollar rev org. They discuss: Plan & scale revenue based on productivity models Why zero attrition is a bad sign How to plan your manager to rep ratio through absorption rates The ratio to promote internal v....

Today we have the architect behind the go-to-market strategy. We're going to laugh, we're going to cry. We're gonna talk about the most important go-to-market strategic moves that made HubSpot what it is today. Host Mark Roberge is joined by Brian Halligan, (Co-Founder, HubSpot) to discuss the roles of a founder and first sales person in taking a company from startup to scale up . In this episode learn more about: Why, for a founder or first seller, it's not about acquiring customers --...

When you found a startup, you’re the first salesperson. Surprise! But eventually, if things go right, you’ll grow the company to a point where you need to shift from founder selling to scaling a global sales team. Host Mark Roberge is joined by Jonathan Anguelov, (Co-Founder, Aircall) to discuss this evolving role of founders. In this episode learn more about: The early sales responsibilities of founders How to apply adaptive learning and experimentation in your outreach Selling on value...

How do you set the right sales quota for a rep? What about the quarterly spend on account executives, marketing, or SDRs? Host Mark Roberge is joined by Matt Plank (CRO, Rippling) to discuss how to think through all the different projections on your sales and marketing spends. In this episode learn more about: The evolution of email as a growth channel The importance of demand generation and scaling Finding balance with inbound and outbound Why you should 5x quota on a rep’s OTE (on...

Hired by Sam Altman. Leading a team of two people. And then your product changes the world. Host Mark Roberge is joined by Aliisa Rosenthal (Head of Sales, OpenAI) to discuss how she leads sales at OpenAI pre and post-AI world. In this episode learn more about: What to do when your company launches the biggest most successful product known to mankind The power of giving your team product knowledge and understanding Her first duty as the sales leader was to un-do sales Building a...