In this episode of the Revenue Builders podcast, our hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan talk to Hubspot’s original senior vice president for sales and later Chief Revenue Officer, Mark Roberge. Mark talks about working at Hubspot since day one, building the sales department from the ground up, offering advice on prioritization, hiring, addressing retention and reducing churn. Mark also shares his present journey as a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School and Managing Director of the VC firm Stage 2 Capital. 

Additional Resources:

• Donate to Build.org: https://build.org/
• Buy Mark's book: https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration-Formula-Technology-Inbound/dp/1119047072
• Listen to More Revenue Builders: https://forc.mx/3bfW5Od

HIGHLIGHTS

• Titles generally do not mean anything 
• You need to learn prioritization as a sales leader 
• The best sales reps don't necessarily make the best sales managers 
• There is no such thing as a universal top sales hire profile
• Don't take coachability for granted in hiring 
• How Mark addressed employee retention at Hubspot 
• Foray into investing and the lessons learned 
• Is an economic winter coming? 
• Mark's beef with most MBAs 

QUOTES

Mark answers why promoting your best seller as manager isn't the best idea: "The job of salesperson and manager is so different. Salesperson is going out doing great discovery, moving people through a process, being good with your time. Sales management is all about picking people and empathy, understanding, connecting, and coaching and discipline."

Mark's advice for success in hiring: "Have the discipline every quarter to sit down and look back on your people that you hired six months ago so that you now know are they doing well or not. And reflect on why and what those attributes are and iterate on your scorecard. And have the discipline to sue your scorecard in your hiring process." 

Mark's three biggest lessons about retention: "Retention is probably your biggest number, even more than top line revenue growth. Okay, that's learning number one. Number two, the root of retention issues is in sales. It's not in product, usually. Sometimes in product but most of the time the root is in sales. And number three, the best way to fix it is through compensation."

Check out John McMahon’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064