How to Move from Founder Selling to Scaling a Sales Team w/ Jonathan Anguelov (Co-Founder, Aircall)
Aug 30, 2023
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Jonathan Anguelov, co-founder of Aircall, discusses the transition from founder selling to scaling a sales team. Topics include early sales responsibilities, adaptive learning in outreach, selling on value vs product, and the importance of reviewing sales calls as a company.
The importance of personalization in sales and understanding customer pain points to tailor the approach accordingly.
The value of trust, transparency, and creating opportunities for employee growth within a scaling sales team.
Deep dives
Early Days and the Value Proposition
Jonathan Angloff, co-founder of Air Call, discusses the early days of the company in 2014 when they aimed to revolutionize phone systems. They introduced a cloud-based business phone system and call center software that integrated with other sales and customer support tools. Despite initial challenges in explaining the concept, they gradually gained traction in the market.
Founder Selling and Personalization
Jonathan shares his experience as a founder who valued sales and took on the role of selling the product from day one. He emphasizes the importance of personalization in sales and how he focused on understanding customer pain points and tailoring his approach accordingly. He also highlights the value of practicing and learning by doing rather than relying solely on books or theoretical knowledge.
Scaling the Sales Team
As Air Call grew, Jonathan transitioned from a hands-on selling role to a leader managing a sales team. He opted to hire young, smart, and ambitious individuals who were hungry to learn and grow. He created a weekly practice of reviewing and analyzing calls with his team, providing feedback and helping them improve their sales skills. He also stressed the importance of trust, transparency, and creating opportunities for employees to grow with the company.
Forecasting and Scalable Visibility
At the scale of 150+ salespeople, Jonathan highlights the challenge of forecasting and achieving targets. He developed a bottoms-up forecasting approach where each salesperson provides their forecast, which is then consolidated and refined at each level of management. This detailed forecasting process, combined with other data-driven models, allows for accurate predictions and enables the entire team to work together towards achieving company objectives.
When you found a startup, you’re the first salesperson. Surprise! But eventually, if things go right, you’ll grow the company to a point where you need to shift from founder selling to scaling a global sales team.
Host Mark Roberge is joined by Jonathan Anguelov, (Co-Founder, Aircall) to discuss this evolving role of founders. In this episode learn more about:
The early sales responsibilities of founders
How to apply adaptive learning and experimentation in your outreach
Selling on value v. selling the product
The importance of reviewing sales calls together as a company
The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network in collaboration with HubSpot For Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown.
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