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Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Founder-led sales | Pete Kazanjy (Founding Sales, Atrium)
Dec 15, 2022
01:01:41
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Quick takeaways
- Founder-led sales is crucial for understanding and validating the problem being solved.
- Before hiring salespeople, founders should prove their ability to close deals themselves.
- Combining self-serve models with sales can lead to greater success in targeting larger organizations.
Deep dives
The Importance of Founder-Led Sales
Don't be afraid of sales as a founder or product manager. Getting good at sales behaviors will benefit you in various ways. Founder-led sales is crucial for understanding the problem you're solving, validating your product, and eventually teaching sales to others.
When to Hire Your First Salesperson
Before hiring a salesperson, ensure you can reliably close deals yourself (around 15-25% conversion rate). Look for early-stage sellers or deputies from successful sales organizations who can learn from your sales motion and help scale it up.
Signs that Hiring a Salesperson Isn't Working
If the hired salesperson has low win rates, poor activity levels, and isn't progressing opportunities, it may indicate that they are not the right fit. Look at leading indicators such as meeting bookings, opportunity inflow, and progression to identify any red flags early on.
The importance of adding a sales component to self-serve motions
Adding a sales component to self-serve motions can prevent stagnation and enhance growth. Many self-serve models fail to incorporate sales, resulting in limited success. Examples like Dropbox and Slack highlight the significance of combining self-serve with sales to target larger organizations and secure higher revenue contracts.
Sales mindset and skills for success
Developing a sales mindset involves shifting from familiar roles with limited interactions to engaging with numerous new prospects daily, seeking deep connections. Sales professionals must adapt to continuous context switching, rapid rapport building, and effective questioning techniques. The ability to learn and excel in sales grows with practice and a focus on high-quality behaviors. Building trust, identifying customer problems, and following up with impactful solutions are essential sales skills.
20.
Is That a Google Sheet? And You're Not Going to Close the Deal on the First Time?
2min
Pete Kazanjy is the author of Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook and the founder of Modern Sales Pros, an invite-only peer learning community focused on sales operations and sales leadership. He’s also the co-founder of Atrium, a B2B SaaS company that provides data-driven sales solutions. Pete got his start in product at VMware and then dove deep into the art and science of sales. In today’s episode, we talk about the importance of founder-led sales and how to methodically scale a sales department. He explains the difference between old-school sales and modern sales, which focuses on human connection and solving problems for customers. He also shares actionable tips to improve your sales technique and explains how to use data to monitor your success at different milestones in the sales process.
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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/founder-led-sales-pete-kazanjy-founding
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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:
• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny
• Flatfile—A CSV importer that says yes instead of error: mismatch: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny
• Merge—A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app: http://merge.dev/lenny
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Where to find Pete:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kazanjy
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kazanjy/
• Website: https://kazanjy.svbtle.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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Referenced:
• Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/Founding-Sales-Go-Market-Handbook-ebook/dp/B08PMK17Z1
• Brianne Kimmel’s SaaS school: http://briannekimmel.com/saas-school/
• Modern Sales Pros: https://modernsaleshq.com/
• The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898
• The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful-Strategies/dp/1119690358/
• Pete’s presentation on founder-led sales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAXIVAZJyPA
• Pete’s guest post on Lenny’s newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/sales-bottom-up
• The Cadence: How to Operate a SaaS Startup: https://medium.com/craft-ventures/the-cadence-how-to-operate-a-saas-startup-436aa8099e8
• Maker vs. Manager Schedule: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/
• Atrium: https://www.atriumhq.com/
• Greenhouse: https://www.greenhouse.io/
• Pete’s ICP Template: https://www.foundingsales.com/2-product-marketing#building-narrative
• Marissa Fuhrer Bell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissafuhrer/
• Data-driven sales master class: https://salesnerds.atriumhq.com/msp-nailing-science-of-sales-figma-webinar-video
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement: https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951
• The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership: https://www.amazon.com/Score-Takes-Care-Itself-Philosophy/dp/1591843472
• All-In podcast: https://www.allinpodcast.co/
• Encanto on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/encanto/33q7DY1rtHQH
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) How Pete met Lenny
(05:05) Pete’s background
(07:20) Modern sales vs. old-school sales
(09:17) What is founder-led sales, and why is it so important?
(14:58) When to hire your first salesperson
(18:20) Why you should keep your in-person events to around 10 people
(19:34) What a sales motion is and why it needs to be updated regularly
(20:55) What are the leading indicators of success?
(23:54) Why founders don’t need to be rock stars at sales
(28:28) Sales mindset changes—the number-one tip to improve your sales
(33:30) How modern sales should focus on helping customers solve problems
(36:00) A few tips to help you get better at sales
(36:40) ICP and personas
(39:14) Why you should hire junior sales staff in the early stages
(45:40) Signs your new hires aren’t a good fit
(47:38) The importance of using metrics for success
(49:33) Month-by-month expectations for sales hires
(51:19) Why work from home is bad for junior salespeople
(54:19) Why you shouldn’t be afraid of sales
(55:19) Lightning round
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
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