Just Effing Demo
We do pretty extensive win/loss reporting at Host, and I remember one time reading a loss report that went something like this. “We were interested in buying Host and it made our short list. When we invited you in for a demo with our team and the CFO, things went wrong. After 20 minutes, your […]
How the Best Outbound Sales Teams Are Managed (Video + Transcript)
Managing a successful, high-performing outbound sales team is no easy feat. Depending on your company, the size of your team, the organizational culture etc., there are different ways you can go about managing your team. There are also some rules that apply in every situation, too. Aaron Ross engages in an insightful conversation with Ralph […]
SaaStr Podcast #142: Dave Kellogg, CEO @ Host Analytics On Why CAC/LTV Is The Most Important Metric In SaaS
Dave Kellogg is the CEO @ Host Analytics, the leader in cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM). Previously, Dave was SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce and CEO at unstructured big data provider MarkLogic. Before that, Dave was CMO at Business Objects for nearly a decade as the company grew from $30M to over $1B. […]
Can You Solution Sell without Selling Solutions?
Yes. And for those who get the distinction, I’d might add, somewhat obviously. But too many people don’t get it. Too many folks equate “solution selling” with “selling solutions.” In fact, they’re quite different. So, in this post, we’ll try to make the world a better place by explaining the difference between selling solutions and […]
Three Non Obvious Lessons Learned Selling to SMBs with Xero and Friends (Video + Transcript)
At SaaStr, we love talking about how to sell to SMBs because things are always changing and there’s always something new to learn. Keri Gohman, President at Xero Americas, takes the Main Stage with Alex Fala, CEO at Vend; Amit Mathradas, GM & Head of Small Business North America at Paypal; and Matt Rissell, CEO […]
Claire Hughes-Johnson: Build, Break, Stretch, Repeat Lessons from Scaling Google & Stripe (Video + Transcript)
Jason Lemkin sits down with Stripe COO Claire Hughes-Johnson to discuss what it’s like to scale a fast-growing company and how to manage hypergrowth. Having over 10 years of experience with Google and being intrinsically motivated by Stripe’s mission certainly helps. When you’re the COO of a global company that only continues to expand across […]
The SaaS Rule of 40
After the SaaSacre of early 2016, investors generally backed off a growth-at-all-costs mindset and started to value SaaS companies using an “appropriate” balance of growth and profitability. The question then became, what’s appropriate? The answer was: the rule of 40 [1]. What’s the rule of 40? Growth rate + profit should be greater than or […]
Detecting and Eliminating the Rolling Hairballs in your Sales Pipeline
Quick: what’s the biggest deal in this quarter’s sales pipeline? Was that the biggest deal in last quarter’s pipeline? How about the quarter before? Do you have deals in your pipeline older than your children? If you’re answering yes to these questions, then you’re probably dealing with “rolling hairballs” in your pipeline. Rolling hairballs are […]
How to Train Your VP of Sales to Think About the Forecast
Imagine a board meeting. Director: What’s the forecast for new ARR this quarter? Sales VP: $4.3M, with a best case of $5.0M. Director: So what’s the most likely outcome? Sales VP: $4.3M. Director: What are you really going to do? (The classic noob trap question.) Sales VP: I think we can come in North of that. […]
Outbound Always Works
These days, it can really feel like the Old Bag of Sales Tricks is starting to just not work anymore: With maybe 500x the SaaS vendors of 10 years ago, there’s so much noise. Emails get blocked, spam filtered. No one even has voice mail anymore. 50 calls a day feels awfully dated. Everyone gets […]
