Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Founder-led sales | Pete Kazanjy (Founding Sales, Atrium)

Dec 15, 2022

Pete Kazanjy, author and co-founder of Atrium, dives into the essentials of founder-led sales. He shares why it's crucial for founders to be hands-on in sales and offers practical tips for building effective teams. The conversation highlights the shift from traditional persuasion tactics to a consultative approach, focusing on understanding customer needs. Kazanjy emphasizes the importance of measurable sales strategies and effective onboarding to drive growth, providing actionable insights for early-stage startups to enhance their sales techniques.

01:01:41

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Pete Kazanjy

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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.

The Importance of Leading Indicators in Sales Management

01:51

Why founders should sell their own product

01:09

The Importance of Being Together in a B2B Company

01:00

High level sales process: right customer, see current prices, share your solution

00:43

Intro

3min

The Importance of Effective Onboarding in B2B SaaS

2min

Evolution of Sales Strategies

28min

Transforming Sales: From Persuasion to Problem Solving

4min

Mastering Early-Stage Sales Strategies

19min

Insights and Recommendations in a Lightning Round

3min

Persistence in Sales and Connection

3min

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

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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/