The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors SaaStr 164: The Right Way To Sell To Enterprise Buyers, Why Sales Ops Will Be A C-Suite Role in the Next 10 Years and Whether Or Not To Engage With Pilots and Discounting with Mark Godley, President @ LeadGenius
Mark Godley is the President of LeadGenius, the startup that provides the power of human intelligence with the scale of machine learning. To date they have raised $16m in funding from the likes of a16z, Initialized Capital, Scott and Cyan Banister and SV angel just to name a few. As for Mark, he most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer for HG Data and before that was VP of Market Development for ConnectandSell. If that was not enough, mark also holds advisory roles in the salestech and martech space, including Omniquo, ZenIQ.io and The Big Willow.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
- How Mark made his way into the world of SaaS over 25 years ago? How has he seen the industry change so remarkably over that time?
- Why does Mark believe that many startups today are created with the wrong intentions? Who is ultimately to blame for this, the founders or the investors who back them? Why does Mark believe that SaaS founders should "ignore fundraising and sign customers"? What are the unidentified consequences to Mark of taking external money?
- How does Mark view the function played by discounting in onboarding your first few key customers? What does Mark think of pilots? How willing should founders be to engage with unpaid pilots?
- How can enterprise founders solve the 2 big problems today of. A.) Standing out in the sea of enterprise startups? Gain trust from enterprise CIOs when they are still a small team with little brand or track record?
- What does Mark believe is the secret to selling to enterprise effectively? Why must founders be both credible and vulnerable when selling? What is the difference between helping someone buy and selling them a product?
60 Second SaaStr
- What does Mark know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
- Why are data vendors their own worst enemy?
- What would Mark like to change about the world of VC and startups?
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