EP 76: John McMahon (5x CRO and Enterprise Sales Expert) on The Startup Sales Playbook Every Founder Needs
The Logan Bartlett Show
Introduction
Logan Bartlett interviews John McMahon, a five-time CRO, about the biggest mistakes made by early-stage startups, how to hire a team for company growth, and the challenges of writing a book.
John McMahon has served on the board of MongoDB and Snowflake and is best known as a five-time CRO who has built the sales processes that power enterprise sales in Silicon Valley. In this episode, John talked through a ton of practical topics around sales, including the biggest sales mistakes that early-stage startups make, how to hire a sales team to supercharge your company, and more.
(0:00) Intro
(1:20) The Qualified Sales Leader
(9:57) Sales basics in building an efficient and scalable sales org
(16:53) Carlo Carelli - Greatest Salesperson in the World
(20:55) Product market fit
(26:07) The medic qualification process
(36:35) Difference between a champion and a coach
(42:51) Best interview questions when hiring
(53:49) The hardest part of transitioning to sales management
(1:03:06) On firing
(1:10:06) The process of letting someone go
(1:11:30) Accidental sales leader
(1:17:25) John McMahon as a sales rep early on
(1:21:24) Blade Logic and Opsware
(1:26:37) The most common misconception about sales
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Produced: Rashad Assir
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz
Music: Griff Lawson
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1
Follow on Socials
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow
📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow
🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow
About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
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