Sam Blond is Chief Sales Officer @ Brex, the startup that provides corporate cards for startups. To date they have raised over $57m in funding from the likes of Y Combinator, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Yuri Milner, Elad Gil and many more incredible names. Prior to Brex, Sam Was Chief Revenue Officer at Rainforest QA. Before Rainforest, Sam saw firsthand the hypergrowth scaling of Zenefits as VP of Sales where he saw the company grow from 18 employees and $1m in ARR to over 1,800 employees and over $70m in ARR. Sam got his start in the SaaS industry with Jason Lemkin @ Echosign as Director of Sales.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
How Sam made his way into the world of sales and came to join Jason Lemkin with his first role in sales at Echosign? Why does Sam believe that more sales reps does not always equal more revenue? What are the benchmarks that suggest founders really need to add to their sales team? Does Sam agree Founders should be selling up to $1m in ARR? How does Sam assess who is the best person to hire for the role? What have been Sam’s lessons on what it fundamentally takes to attract the best talent? In the early days how does Sam think about both role allocation and whether to hire the young jack of all trades vs the more senior executive? Why does Sam believe that founders need to spend more time on top of funnel? Why does Sam believe that not all opportunities are created equal? How does Sam think about the right structure and time it should take to pass from lead to MQL to SAL to opportunity to deal? Where does this most commonly breakdown? Why does Sam believe the key to success in SaaS sales teams is “urgency”? Literally, how can reps instil a sense of urgency in their current pipeline? Why does Sam disagree with the conventional wisdom and say discounting is a great tool? How does Sam determine the right level of discount to give? How does Sam assess pilots as an alternative approach to getting leads over the line?Sam’s 60 Second SaaStr
What does Sam know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? Quality or quantity of logos in the early days? Sales rep productivity, what does Sam believe is good?If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Sam Blond
SaaStr 737: How to Build Go-to-Market Efficiency in SMB Sales with Owner.com CRO Kyle Norton
SaaStr 736: What I Learned Selling My Company for $130M with Harry Glaser Founder of Periscope Data and ModelBit
SaaStr 735: How to Navigate the Shift to Generative AI with PagerDuty’s CEO Jennifer Tejada
SaaStr 734: The Latest in Series A Rounds, AI Growth Rates and More with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 733: Advice Every SaaS Founder Needs to Know in 2024 with Sam Blond and Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 732: What It’s Like Running a Profitable $400M Public SaaS Company with Vimeo CEO Adam Gross and SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 731: 10 Things Founders Should Know About Getting Acquired with Brett Goldstein, Former M&A at Google
SaaStr 730: How to Price and Package AI SaaS Products with Sandhya Hegde, General Partner at Unusual Ventures
SaaStr 729: 6 Questions Founders Should Ask Themselves to Drive Value from Generative AI with Base10 Partners
SaaStr 728: How to Double Your Magic Number and Increase Your Go-to-Market Efficiency with Sapphire Ventures
SaaStr 727: High-Velocity Techniques to Maximize Sales with Gusto’s CRO and Head of Go-to-Market
SaaStr 726: How to Build Out Your SDR Function in 2024 with Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 725: Mastering High-Volume, Low-CAC Marketing: Strategies from Gorgias, Vercel, and Hypergrowth Partners
SaaStr 724: CRO Confidential: Bringing Product-Led and Sales-Led Growth Together For Go-To-Market Success with Giancarlo Lionetti, CRO of Zapier. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 723: Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, and Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder of SaaStr: Answer Your Top 10 2024 Customer Success Questions
SaaStr 722: 2024 State of SaaS: Trends and Predictions with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 721: How Revenue Leaders at Box, Calendly, and Lattice Scaled From $0 to $100M+ and Beyond
SaaStr 720: CRO Confidential: What It Really Takes to Be Successful in Enterprise SaaS Sales with Christian Smith, CRO of Splunk. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 719: What's New at WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automatic and Co-Founder of WordPress. Hosted by Jason Lemkin, Founder and CEO at SaaStr
SaaStr 718: Predictions for Venture, IPOs and the State of SaaS in 2024 with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings, Founder and Host of the 20 Minute VC
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