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
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SaaStr 678: Raising Capital in 2023: What You Really Need To Know with Creandum Partner Peter Specht
SaaStr 677: MongoDB at $1.5 BILLION in Revenue: An Epic Growth Story
SaaStr 676: CRO Confidential: How to Grow Revenue Faster in the Second Half of 2023. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 675: Why You're Unfundable in 2023: The Cold, Hard Truths About SaaS Part 2 with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 674: The Cold, Hard Truths About SaaS In 2023: Part 1 AMA with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 673: How To Boost Your Net Retention Revenue (NRR) to Over 140% with Insider's CEO and CMO
SaaStr 672: Go to Market Strategies That Led To Divvy's $2.5B Exit with Divvy’s Former CRO, Sterling Snow
SaaStr 671: From Uncertainty to +$400M: How Braze Found Opportunity in Headwinds with Braze's Co-Founder & CEO Bill Magnuson
SaaStr 670: CRO Confidential: Why The First Rule You Know About Building Software is Wrong. Rippling CEO Parker Conrad's Theory of the Compound Startup. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
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SaaStr 668: Top 10 Mistakes Getting to $100M ARR with LaunchDarkly Co-founder and Executive Chair Edith Harbaugh
SaaStr 667: The 2023 Mid-Year State of the Markets: Why Efficient Growth is Key with SaaStr CEO & Founder Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 666: Scaling a SaaS Startup to $1B+ ARR: Insights from UiPath's CEO and Founder Daniel Dines
SaaStr 665: CRO Confidential: Principles that Drove Wiz’s $0 to $100M Journey with Wiz CRO Colin Jones
SaaStr 664: What You Need to Change at $10M to Scale to $100M with Sameer Dholakia, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners
SaaStr 663: 9 Things I Wish I Would Have Told My 2013 Self: Lessons Learned from 9 Years with Heap's Former CTO, Dan Robinson
SaaStr 662: Things You Think as a First-Time Founder That Just Ain’t So With Lattice Co-Founder & CEO Jack Altman and Saastr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 661: VC AMA with SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Black Mangroves MD Arnaud Bonzom at SaaStr APAC 2023
SaaStr 660: CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers With CoSell.io Co-Founder & Co-CEO Brendon Cassidy
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