Collin Cadmus Podcast

Hello and welcome back to the Collin Cadmus Podcast. Today I’m joined by Howard Lerman. Howard went to Duke University where he founded his first company with two of his classmates, JustATip.com, which they sold for $150,000 in 2001 while still in college. After school Howard founded Yext in 2006. By 2016 the company had $89 million in revenue and in 2017 it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2022 Howard stepped away as CEO of Yext in order to focus on his newest project, Roam, where he serves today as the Founder and CEO. This is the first time I’m speaking with Howard, but I’ve known of him since my very first sales job in 2012 at SinglePlatform since we sold competitively against Yext. Our companies even competed in Dodgeball and Basketball tournaments in NYC, so the competition was fierce but all in good fun. I’m excited to finally get acquainted. In this episode, we react to a series of Howard's LinkedIn posts.--TOPICS:00:00:00 Intro 00:01:20 Best cultures are cults 00:10:30 Top salespeople 00:12:22 What you want VS Reality 00:16:19 Politics at work 00:22:38 Success and risk 00:30:07 Threat of OpenAI 00:31:20 Sales AI 00:38:12 Remote Work 00:41:15 Customer led growth 00:51:29 What is Roam?--QUESTIONS: (1-6 are from Howard’s Linkedin posts)1. The best cultures are actually a cult, and that is the foundation upon which greatness begins. 2. I’d take a top seller at a medium company over a medium seller at a top company any day. 3. There will always be an annoying gap between what you want the world to be and how it actually is. Knowing when to stand your ground or when to be flexible is one of the most important growth skills you can learn. 4. The most successful people I know didn’t work the hardest. They took the most risk. 5. Founders, I would be very, very, careful about launching an AI startup right now. Unless you have something extremely special and you know exactly what you’re doing. The overwhelming odds are you will be buzz-sawed by OpenAI. 6. Too many companies make the mistake of forcing unnaturally fast growth right now at the expense of compound growth later on. 7. What is Roam?--LINKS:Roam: https://ro.am/ Howard on X: https://x.com/howard Collin on X: https://x.com/collincadmus Modern Outbound System: https://www.collincadmus.com/the-modern-outbound-system Sales Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/sales-coaching Founder Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/founder-coaching Collin Cadmus Podcast: https://www.collincadmus.com/podcasts/collin-cadmus-podcast Revenue Growth Blog: https://www.collincadmus.com/blog--Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Hello and welcome back to the Collin Cadmus Podcast. Today I’m joined by Jacco van der Kooij. Jacco is originally from the Netherlands. He started his career in 1994 at Philips Electronics as a Project Manager and then transitioned into sales. Since then he’s led sales for over 10 different companies, prior to starting his current company, Winning By Design, where they help B2B SaaS Companies design, build, and scale their sales efforts. Jacco’s voice in sales is respected globally as an author, keynote speaker, and all across social media. I’ve been following his content for as long as I’ve been in sales (if you’re not, you should be too). I could easily talk to him for weeks without running out of topics or questions, but today we’re going to focus on one specific topic that Jacco believes to be the number one issue facing SaaS companies today; and that’s the declining efficiency of go-to-market performance. In the last 3 episodes we talked a lot about this subject, so it’s close to my heart. To keep things simple I’ve divided the episode into 4 questions, and I’m excited to dive in.--TOPICS:00:00:00 Intro 00:01:56 What’s Growth-at-all-Costs / GaaC? 00:05:06 What’s broken with GaaC? 00:21:57 What needs to change? 00:41:32 Will GaaC return?--QUESTIONS:1. What is the growth-at-all-costs (or GaaC) model? 2. What (if anything) is broken with the GaaC model and why is now the time for change? 3. What needs to change? 4. Will there be a return of GaaC when money is cheap again?--LINKS:Winning By Design: https://winningbydesign.com/ Revenue Architecture Hardcover: https://a.co/d/2gUFzXx Modern Outbound System: https://www.collincadmus.com/the-modern-outbound-system Sales Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/sales-coaching Founder Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/founder-coaching Collin Cadmus Podcast: https://www.collincadmus.com/podcasts/collin-cadmus-podcast Revenue Growth Blog: https://www.collincadmus.com/blog--Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Hello and welcome back to the Collin Cadmus Podcast. Today I’m joined by Kevin Dorsey. Kevin went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and started his sales career where he quickly rose from entry-level selling to high-ranking leadership roles at SnackNation, ServiceTitan, PatientPop, and Bench Accounting. He’s built sales teams from 0 to 150 reps and scaled revenue north of $100M ARR. Kevin believes in focusing on the person in salesperson and he shares his sales wisdom across social media, speaking engagements, podcasts, and most recently through the creation of his new online course the Sales Leadership Accelerator. Kevin serves as an advisor to top startups around the world, he’s the host of the Live Better Sell Better Podcast, and he’s become a prominent voice in the B2B sales community. It’s been a while since we last collaborated, so I’m excited to catch up and dive into 5 very important topics.--TOPICS:00:00:00 Intro 00:02:31 Average quota attainment 00:17:58 Average tenure of VP Sales 00:31:30 Growth at all costs / VC model 00:45:32 The impact of AI in sales 01:04:28 Sales Leadership Accelerator--QUESTIONS:1. The average quota attainment in B2B SaaS is under 40%. Why do you think it’s so low and what needs to change? 2. The average tenure for a VP Sales in B2B SaaS is under 18 months. Why do you think it’s so low and what needs to change? 3. What are your thoughts on the "growth at all costs" mindset / VC model? 4. What are your thoughts on AI and how it’s impacting sales today and going forward? 5. What is the Sales Leadership Accelerator?--LINKS:Sales Leadership Accelerator: https://www.salesleadershipaccelerator.com/ Live Better Sell Better Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-candid-conversation-with-collin-cadmus/id1518419694?i=1000528139008 Modern Outbound System: https://www.collincadmus.com/the-modern-outbound-system Sales Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/sales-coaching Founder Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/founder-coaching Collin Cadmus Podcast: https://www.collincadmus.com/podcasts/collin-cadmus-podcast Revenue Growth Blog: https://www.collincadmus.com/blog--Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

It's safe to say the average salesperson in 2023 is significantly better than the average salesperson of 10 years ago, yet the average quota attainment continues to decline. This is the result of an inflationary economic system that drove competitive recruitment efforts toward the promise of higher OTEs, which inevitably led to higher quotas, which eventually far outpaced any salesperson's ability to keep up. This means the "valuation narrative game" ultimately resulted in over-stressing talented salespeople to the point of exhaustion and an illusion of failure which was often actually stellar performance. In this episode I dive into how the quota system became what it is today (broken) and what needs to be done to fix it. There's work to do on both sides; salespeople knowing how to vet employers and employers knowing how to incentivize salespeople for optimized results. Strategy is best left for folks managing the front-lines, not the folks balancing the spreadsheets. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Welcome back to the pod! In this first episode I take a short break from my usual personality of bubbly positivity to begin this new season on a serious note and set the pace for what's to come. The world has changed, the economy has changed, Silicon Valley has changed, and B2B SaaS has changed forever. Decades of mistakes have led to where we're at but valuable lessons are here to be learned. I'm voicing these sentiments because they need to be said, need not to be forgotten, and need to be the foundation upon which we learn and rebuild the B2B SaaS industry into something bigger, better, and more honorable than ever before. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Antoinette is a survivor, author, and speaker.  On August 19, 2013, Antoinette was working as a bookkeeper at an elementary school in Atlanta, severely depressed because her husband of 33 years had recently left. She, now, as a single mom, was faced with the daunting challenges of raising a son with multiple disabilities and a daughter in law school. Never did she think that she would become a hero saving roughly 1,000 lives, a best-selling author, an international celebrity, an expert on community safety, the Founder and CEO of a non-profit, Kids on the Move for Success, or a guest of Michelle Obama at the State of the Union Address. The next day her life changed forever. Antoinette, an accidental hostage negotiator, used her experiences with challenging life issues to successfully convince an armed gunman to give her his AK-47.  This is the only school shooter situation in the US that ended without death or injury to students, faculty, parents or the shooter himself.  Experienced hostage negotiators, law enforcement, and community leaders have praised her intuitive, yet textbook, hostage negotiation skills that she used on August 20, 2013 to save roughly 1,000 lives. When I came across Antoinette’s story and saw that she speaks about it, I knew this would be the perfect way to conclude the first season of this podcast. Negotiation spans much farther into our lives than just sales, and there’s no better example of that than what Antoinette experienced that day. Antoinette’s story is so incredible, in 2018 it got the recognition it deserved when Seven-time Grammy Award winner, Toni Braxton, starred as Antoinette, in the movie “Faith Under Fire” for Lifetime TV. This is her story. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Anna is one of the most successful east coast SaaS marketers of the last decade. She’s from MA, went to UMass Amherst, started her career as an Account Manager and Client Service Supervisor, but then she went to work for a company that would change the trajectory of her career forever, ZoomInfo.  Anna started at ZoomInfo in 2012 as a Marketing Communications Manager and climbed the ladder for 8 years all the way up to VP of  Marketing. She led ZoomInfo’s marketing through an enormous growth phase and successful IPO in June 2020. And then in November, Anna found her new home as Chief Marketing Officer at Spiff.  She’s one of the few people I know who has worked for 13+ years across only 2 companies. She makes it look easy, but we know it isn’t. This is her story. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

He’s been selling something to someone his entire life. He’s been teaching and coaching salespeople for almost 20 years. He’s the Founder and President of A Sales Guy Inc. and the Author of GAP Selling, but you know him best as Keenan. The man who needs only one name. This is his story. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Jason graduated from Harvard University and Berkeley Law, he started his career as a Corporate Counsel, and then transitioned into various technology leadership roles, eventually leading him to co-founding EchoSign which was later acquired by Adobe. Jason then founded SaaStr, a social community of over 500,000 SaaS founders & executives and over 3M content views each month. If you haven’t discovered it already, checkout SaaStr.com, it’s loaded with valuable content and resources for everyone in SaaS. Jason also co-authored the book From Impossible to Inevitable with Aaron Ross. This is his story. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Brendon graduated from Saint Mary’s College of California, started his career in Recruiting, and then transitioned into sales where he eventually landed himself at LinkedIn in 2005 as employee #15, and LinkedIn’s first ever Head of Sales. Brendon’s next move was one that would change his life forever. He went to work for Jason Lemkin as the VP Sales at Echosign, which was eventually acquired by Adobe for an estimated $400 million. After Echosign Brendon went on to be the VP Sales at Talkdesk, now valued at over $3 billion. Then started his own consulting firm, Cassidy Ventures, where he helped found Gong, and most recently co-founded HiFive (formerly CoSell) where he works as the Co-CEO (hf.app). He’s a frequent speaker at SaaStr and other large sales events. This is his story. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing. Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.