Probably the most common and important early stage go-to-market question I get from founders and first sales leaders is this: What are creative new ways to create demand for my sales team? It's a forever question, and it's so hard. Usually it's about understanding what's coming next. Best practices that haven't been exploited yet. I have a hypothesis — it's community-led growth, CLG.My friend Paul St. John, the first sales leader at GitHub, arguably the pioneer on CLG, joins me to demystify how he built a revenue machine and all the unique attributes of doing that on top of a very successful CLG company.Free Resource:[Free Report] Learn from 1,000+ startup founders on how AI is scaling their sales strategy https://clickhubspot.com/ias The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Learn more about HubSpot for Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown

Nick Dellis, VP of Revenue at Mercury, challenges the norm of commission plans, advocating for intrinsic motivation. They discuss flaws of traditional plans, importance of measuring impact, and implementing performance improvement goals. They explore resistance to change and shifting focus towards business outcomes over monthly payouts.

Kyle Duffy, a venture capitalist at Gradient Ventures specializing in early-stage AI and machine learning investments, shares insights into navigating the startup landscape. He discusses the critical shift from customer acquisition to retention and the 'land and expand' sales model. Duffy stresses the importance of customer success and mastering pricing strategies, particularly in the AI sector. He also highlights the challenges of integrating AI in traditional industries and the need for collaboration in the sales technology ecosystem.

VP of Sales at Crunchbase, Ang McManamon, discusses navigating tricky sales cycles and managing expectations, culture, product pivots, and value prop with customers. Insights on revenue growth, team expansion, setting realistic targets, diagnosing sales issues, boosting team performance, and risks of overselling in SaaS deals are also covered.

The podcast discusses the importance of marketing and sales alignment, evaluating potential team members, back channelling for honest feedback, and the significance of go-to-market alignment for team dynamics. The guests share insights on navigating leadership roles, evaluating marketing leaders, SDR team management, and scaling strategies for high-growth startups.

Community-led growth involves multiple communities, including core user communities, spheres of influence (like executives or department heads), and the intersection of these communities. And when you run it alongside a PLG motion, it can be truly powerful.Host Mark Roberge is joined by Andrew Ettinger (CRO, Appen) to discuss applying a community-led growth model at your org. In this episode learn more about: The Three C's strategy Empowering developers and technical leads New roles in community-led growth Starting as a services business before becoming a product business 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.

No matter what stage your company is in, you need to build a best in class sales team. And no one knows how to do that better than today's guest.Host Mark Roberge is joined by John McMahon (Board Member, Snowflake & MongoDB) to get super tactical on how to build a billion dollar rev org. They discuss: Plan & scale revenue based on productivity models Why zero attrition is a bad sign How to plan your manager to rep ratio through absorption rates The ratio to promote internal v. hire external Understanding your differentiators for future Proof of Value How to find champions that will beat your competitor's champion 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.

Today we have the architect behind the go-to-market strategy. We're going to laugh, we're going to cry. We're gonna talk about the most important go-to-market strategic moves that made HubSpot what it is today.Host Mark Roberge is joined by Brian Halligan, (Co-Founder, HubSpot) to discuss the roles of a founder and first sales person in taking a company from startup to scale up . In this episode learn more about: Why, for a founder or first seller, it's not about acquiring customers -- it's about feedback. Hiring athletes and sometimes inexperienced sales people The value of implementing a partner channel How to price your price (and how NOT to price your product) for sustainable defensibility 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.

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.

Matt Plank, CRO at Rippling, joins Mark Roberge to discuss setting sales quotas, demand generation, balance between inbound and outbound, 5x quota on reps' OTE, and the role of SDRs in the sales process.