Mark is a seasoned revenue leader with a knack for driving growth and creating innovative sales strategies. Mark has successfully scaled numerous revenue teams over the last 10 years including Zoominfo, Cognisim and Mavenoid.
I have known Mark for over 7 years now and his track record speaks for itself. We interviewed Mark not only because of his expertise and track record but because his approach is perfectly aligned with our mission at Revenue Nomad: to help b2b companies and their people grow
Hiring a VP of Sales or CRO is not an easy thing to do. Sales leaders are often some of the best sellers out there, and by the time they are tenured enough to fill an executive role, they certainly have mastered selling themselves! A few recommendations come to mind:
1. Bring along a sales leader
Hopefully the leader can bring a board member or even another sales leader from a different company to assist in the interview process and ensure their first sales leader is the real deal. You will need someone who can cut through the fluff and get into the meat-and-potatoes of the sales role - ideally this is from someone who has done it before (recently, not 15 years ago).
2. Be very specific about what you need
This is often quite difficult for owner/founders who have not seen a wide variety of sales leaders, or engineering leaders who may not be as familiar with GTM functions, but it is incredibly important to first think about what you need from the sales leader, then start the hiring process. A front-line sales VP that likes rolling up their sleeves on deals is quite a different leader than an operationally minded CRO who focuses more on putting in systems and building machines. Pair the profile of the leader you need to the needs you’ve identified at your company. Too often CEOs are late stage interview with multiple VPs, all of which have completely different skillset - this should not be the case.
Don’t hire too early
This is maybe the mo st common mistake I see companies make - companies often look to hire their first VP Sales/CRO way too early. Yes, the sales leader can support in building out the ba sics, but so can a good sales manager. It will take time for the sales leader to understand the business, while an existing sales manager already deeply understands the nuance. It’s an expensive endeavor bringing on a sales leader, don’t rush into it.
The first 30 days are almost always a gathering phase - pulling together data to prove or disprove assumptions that were made during due diligence.
Assessment of the business typically includes both tactical as well as strategic elements that could include:
Prioritization is simply driven by an assessment of which gaps are deemed to be most critical by the incumbent team (assuming that isn’t glaringly off based to the sales leader)
Many people talk a lot about “building for scale”, especially at heavily funded organizations. They spend a lot of time building out dashboards and finding a myriad of ways to measure the performance of the organization. Although this is important, it is not the most important in the “early stages”.
First and foremost, it is critical that the sales leader has the basics down-pat before they think about “scale”. Ensuring that the ICP is correct, sales comprehends the problems that they are solving for customers, and customers successfully complete the company’s sales motion and are promoters on the post-sales side are a few of the core elements that must be addressed before pouring gasoline on the fire. Of course, these can be measured through KPIs (NDR, win-rate, etc.) as well as an inspection of pipeline velocity, but too during the early stages, there is likely not enough of a sample size to be statistically representative - get out the microscope and dive into each deal to make sure the basics are solid.
Of course all the typical KPIs you might expect, but one metric in particular that I have found incredibly useful is what % of ICP is in your pipeline as well as your customer base.
What this allows you to do is stay focused on the business that is going to yield long term success and profitability to the organization. Similar to win-rate and ACV, this metric can serve as a north start for the sales organization, but dissimilarly it can be much more valuable in that it provides marketing a measurement of quality that is often missing in modern tech organizations. Bring on the right business.
The most common challenges are different from the most difficult challenges. The most common are almost always change management related. Very often the organization is expecting big changes within the first 90 days from the sales leader, and the leader often wants to move quickly on addressing the issues, but getting the sales organization to change their behavior is always the most common challenge. The best way to address this is to Show, Don’t Tell. Lead from the front, not the back - gain the respect of the team, then they will follow you anywhere.
Be transparent and set expectations.
If you choose to operate in a silo, the broader organization and most importantly the executive team will not understand the challenges facing the revenue function. By first being transparent (ideally with data), everyone can understand the issues faced and the timeline it will take to overcome those challenges. Secondly, set expectations with the organization so that they understand when realistically it would be possible to achieve the growth goals.
Great question. Don’t make any assumptions, and get tactical.
Never assume the team knows what they’re doing - and always dive into the experience to ensure it is being done to your standard. If you think pipeline reviews are going well across the team but haven’t actually attended a review of one of your managers, don’t wait - get in there and listen to exactly how they are running it. If you think the SDRs talk track is strong as they are booking meetings, don’t wait until a problem comes up - be proactive and join them to understand exactly what is working and what isn’t. The more you walk through what’s actually being done by individual contributors, the more complete comprehension you have of your organization and the more you can challenge/uplevel your management layers in their role.