The Sales Playbook Every Founder Needs
The Sales Playbook Every Founder Needs
EP 76 of The Logan Bartlett Show: Untold stories from tech's inner circle
This week's episode is with John McMahon. He has served on the board of MongoDB and Snowflake and is best known as a five-time CRO who has built the sales processes that power enterprise sales in Silicon Valley.
We talked through a ton of practical topics around sales, including the biggest sales mistakes that early-stage startups make, how to hire a sales team to supercharge your company, and more.
Click here to view the episode transcript | Watch on Youtube | Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
✉️ Episode Memo
John’s “most common startup sales mistakes”
#1: Failure to plan far enough ahead
Countless companies fail to double their sales quota each year because they don’t plan for future sales team needs. You can't hire enough good sales reps and ramp them on pace without several months of lead time. For success:
set sales objectives early
stay disciplined with your recruiting process, pipeline generation process, and candidate interviewing process using measurable steps and KPIs
#2: Sprinkling the infield
Most startups sprinkle the infield, meaning they place a sales rep in every major city to accelerate growth without first deeply understanding their ideal customer profile. You need to:
understand the pains your current differentiators solve and analyze where the best use cases are typically located
place sales reps only in areas that have the greatest number of companies with the best use cases, and choreograph your messaging to resonate with those target customers
#3: When hiring, focus on character
Knowledge and skills can be learned, but character cannot. Look for people with these 4 key characteristics: coachability, adaptability, curiosity, and integrity. To uncover these traits, one of John’s favorite interview questions is “tell me about the toughest situation you've ever been in your entire life, and how did you overcome it?”
Continue with several follow up questions to understand their motivations and fears, and analyze this past behavior to predict future behavior. At some point, John likes to throw in a few objections and observes how the interviewee handles them, as dealing with rejection is such an integral skill for sales.
#4: Be selfless
The most common mistake Sales Managers make when they get promoted is they make the role about themselves. If you are willing to be selfless, and you understand the fastest route to success is by making your team successful, you can become a great sales leader.
⭐ Highlight: Don’t make this common startup sales mistake
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