WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:04.330 --> 00:00:07.080 Hi folks, welcome to the Science of Scaling podcast. 00:00:07.130 --> 00:00:08.770 I'm your host, Mark Roberge. 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:14.680 On this podcast, we explore and demystify the best practices of 00:00:14.680 --> 00:00:18.909 scaling a sales team from zero to hundreds of millions of dollars. 00:00:19.409 --> 00:00:23.810 And we do that by speaking with the folks who've been there and done that. 00:00:24.330 --> 00:00:28.730 The founders, the sales leaders from the best organizations out there. 00:00:28.795 --> 00:00:34.925 Today I'm excited to speak with Jonathan Angeloff, the co founder at Aircall. 00:00:35.865 --> 00:00:40.964 Not only is Jonathan the co founder, he retains his title as chief sales officer. 00:00:41.235 --> 00:00:44.484 This is a co founder who values sales. 00:00:45.144 --> 00:00:49.955 From day one, he has been a scholar and studier of sales. 00:00:50.545 --> 00:00:52.945 He has executed the founder selling stage. 00:00:53.135 --> 00:00:55.665 He has executed the transition to the first sales team. 00:00:55.665 --> 00:00:55.715 www. 00:00:55.715 --> 00:00:55.725 aircall. 00:00:55.725 --> 00:00:59.464 com He's executed the transition to sales leader and empowering a system. 00:01:00.135 --> 00:01:03.745 He has driven that process and he stays very close to the front line, 00:01:03.944 --> 00:01:06.675 even though they've scaled to well over a hundred million dollars. 00:01:07.004 --> 00:01:11.004 I can't think of a better person to unpack this relationship between the 00:01:11.004 --> 00:01:15.345 founder and the sales team as you navigate these different phases of growth. 00:01:16.034 --> 00:01:17.294 All right, let's dig in with Jonathan. 00:01:20.164 --> 00:01:21.594 You want to take us back to like, 00:01:23.150 --> 00:01:24.030 Yeah, of course. 00:01:24.130 --> 00:01:27.890 What we do basically is that we are a cloud based Uh, business phone 00:01:27.890 --> 00:01:33.000 system and a call center software, uh, design for SMBs that integrates. 00:01:33.020 --> 00:01:38.830 So Airco integrates with all the tools that sales or customer support departments 00:01:38.830 --> 00:01:44.319 are using like CRMs or helpdesk or anything that a person that is doing sales 00:01:44.339 --> 00:01:46.449 or customer service in general is using. 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:52.600 And so back in 2014, We started with that basic idea of, Hey, let's revolutionize 00:01:52.619 --> 00:01:54.220 the way phone systems are working. 00:01:54.520 --> 00:01:59.550 So let's make it very simple to set up pure cloud on your computer. 00:02:00.020 --> 00:02:03.599 No hard phone, no desk phone, no hardware at all. 00:02:03.959 --> 00:02:05.500 It's a software. 00:02:05.829 --> 00:02:09.169 It is on your computer and your Mac and receiving the calls from it. 00:02:09.569 --> 00:02:12.640 And then we added, of course, uh, mobile apps and so on. 00:02:12.975 --> 00:02:16.845 Back in the days, believe me, when we had to explain to people that to 00:02:16.845 --> 00:02:20.234 make phone calls, you will not have a desk phone on your, on your desk. 00:02:20.265 --> 00:02:21.675 That was a complicated thing. 00:02:21.945 --> 00:02:26.315 And for years we even asked ourself, are we going toward the right direction? 00:02:26.765 --> 00:02:29.915 And that's how basically the story started back in 2014 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:31.114 with that crazy idea. 00:02:31.385 --> 00:02:35.285 So that's 2014, you, you have the concept, you're building the product. 00:02:35.554 --> 00:02:39.484 And what we wanted to do today was like really explore the relationship 00:02:39.484 --> 00:02:42.845 between the founder and the sales team and the process of selling. 00:02:43.365 --> 00:02:46.905 As we go through this amazing journey that you've, you've taken them through. 00:02:47.105 --> 00:02:50.455 So back then you're like a co founder, a small team. 00:02:50.785 --> 00:02:51.815 Where are you all today? 00:02:52.295 --> 00:02:52.655 Okay. 00:02:52.905 --> 00:02:54.205 So to make it very simple. 00:02:54.205 --> 00:02:57.515 So today we are about 800 people across the world. 00:02:57.625 --> 00:02:59.175 We announced last year. 00:02:59.420 --> 00:03:02.900 Uh, that we reached the a hundred million dollar ARR mark. 00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:05.730 So we are way above a hundred million currently, and we're 00:03:05.730 --> 00:03:07.020 still growing pretty fast. 00:03:07.090 --> 00:03:09.540 All this happened, yeah, in less than 10 years now. 00:03:09.650 --> 00:03:17.159 And we've raised to date about 220 million cash at the billion dollar plus valuation. 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:21.220 Back in 2021 was our, the last time we raised money, basically. 00:03:21.850 --> 00:03:25.970 Of course, when you building a product, the first thing is to be able to sell it. 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:28.180 Very often as a founder. 00:03:28.475 --> 00:03:32.035 You're not necessarily a seller, or you don't necessarily want to sell. 00:03:32.285 --> 00:03:35.995 You're like a product guy, you're imagining things, you can be an engineer. 00:03:36.375 --> 00:03:40.595 On my side and, uh, with only my co founder selling was always our thing. 00:03:40.605 --> 00:03:43.625 It was always, Hey, whatever we built, we want to sell it. 00:03:43.855 --> 00:03:47.285 And so very early with the product development, we started to sell it. 00:03:47.555 --> 00:03:48.314 And I was worried. 00:03:48.314 --> 00:03:53.104 I remember my co founder say, okay, let's go public now and let's start selling it. 00:03:53.690 --> 00:03:57.540 And I'm like, come on, we're just selling like a call forward that has no 00:03:57.540 --> 00:03:59.930 value, but we always still had to do it. 00:04:00.310 --> 00:04:02.340 And we could sell it for 5 a month. 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:06.099 And people were happy to have like a, a desk phone number on 00:04:06.100 --> 00:04:09.790 their website and being able to receive calls from that number. 00:04:09.979 --> 00:04:13.829 Because of course you can imagine our first customers were, uh, very tiny 00:04:13.829 --> 00:04:15.870 companies, people selling on e commerce. 00:04:16.375 --> 00:04:19.495 Whatever the paintings that they were doing in the backyard, but 00:04:19.495 --> 00:04:20.545 that was our first customers. 00:04:20.565 --> 00:04:25.615 And we started that very early in the days, the first 120 K of AR. 00:04:25.615 --> 00:04:29.415 So about 10 K MR, I did it on my own doing cold calling. 00:04:30.140 --> 00:04:31.030 And, uh, email, 00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:34.820 I'm curious as more of a founder generalist, how do you dig into 00:04:34.820 --> 00:04:37.310 sales and learn those, those tactics? 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:40.049 If I'm being completely honest, 00:04:40.070 --> 00:04:45.420 I had zero sales experience by the time, like mutually zero sales experience in 00:04:45.440 --> 00:04:50.119 the SAS industry, honestly, uh, reading books helps a little bit, but not so much. 00:04:50.445 --> 00:04:51.955 What helps you, it's practicing. 00:04:52.395 --> 00:04:56.435 I've been always a kid of the, of the word, which means 00:04:56.435 --> 00:04:57.905 basically I learn by doing. 00:04:58.065 --> 00:04:59.674 And very early, I said, okay, it's simple. 00:04:59.815 --> 00:05:04.314 I need to have email address, phone numbers, anything, and 00:05:04.314 --> 00:05:07.575 to be able to call the people that are my potential customers. 00:05:07.705 --> 00:05:08.644 So how did I did it? 00:05:08.765 --> 00:05:12.705 I built like a little macro by the time I was doing it with an Excel file. 00:05:13.164 --> 00:05:16.215 And so I said, okay, let's take the names of all those companies. 00:05:16.615 --> 00:05:19.825 Let's take their website and let's crop the number on their website. 00:05:19.825 --> 00:05:24.205 Let's find the founders of those companies and let's just reach out. 00:05:24.984 --> 00:05:25.965 And so very simple. 00:05:25.965 --> 00:05:30.395 I extracted all those things, extracted the numbers I got on the website, 00:05:30.404 --> 00:05:35.195 extracted the emails I could get by the time, you know, those tools to get, uh, 00:05:35.205 --> 00:05:37.695 the emails were just starting to exist. 00:05:37.995 --> 00:05:42.255 There was a big preparation before starting to sell anything and often 00:05:42.255 --> 00:05:43.705 people wants to start selling fast. 00:05:43.735 --> 00:05:44.085 Let's go. 00:05:44.085 --> 00:05:45.575 Hey, I'm just going to say, Oh no. 00:05:46.155 --> 00:05:49.585 There is a big phase of preparation before doing sales. 00:05:49.765 --> 00:05:51.505 Otherwise you just go crazy. 00:05:51.505 --> 00:05:54.785 And you know, to be able to sell, I need to be able to 00:05:54.794 --> 00:05:56.215 reach out to the right person. 00:05:56.645 --> 00:05:59.965 And basically once I had this big database, I had about 1, 00:06:00.235 --> 00:06:05.354 500 companies, 3, 000 different contacts, thousands of emails. 00:06:05.504 --> 00:06:06.984 And I said, okay, now we're 00:06:06.984 --> 00:06:07.444 ready. 00:06:08.274 --> 00:06:10.434 I want to just quickly interject and say. 00:06:10.870 --> 00:06:16.250 You know, look at what Jonathan's doing to uncover the need for his product 00:06:16.320 --> 00:06:18.310 using publicly available information. 00:06:18.650 --> 00:06:23.170 I think today we all understand the importance of research before we 00:06:23.170 --> 00:06:27.679 embark on approaching a prospect, but we typically research both 00:06:27.710 --> 00:06:31.350 first level data, which might be like, what have they done with us? 00:06:31.370 --> 00:06:32.570 Have they opened emails? 00:06:32.580 --> 00:06:33.890 Have they done searches? 00:06:33.900 --> 00:06:35.880 Have they, you know, downloaded any eBooks? 00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:37.440 Have they done anything on social? 00:06:37.810 --> 00:06:40.280 That might give us a suggestion of what they're interested in. 00:06:40.450 --> 00:06:44.340 And we also look at third party data, like we might use Zoom Info, or we 00:06:44.340 --> 00:06:46.090 might use their LinkedIn profile. 00:06:46.440 --> 00:06:53.420 But what Jonathan's looking at here is really deep level information on whether 00:06:53.420 --> 00:06:55.480 they actually have a need for his product. 00:06:56.389 --> 00:06:59.009 He's looking at, do they have a phone number available? 00:06:59.009 --> 00:07:02.289 Do they have a variety of phone numbers depending on where you're coming from? 00:07:02.679 --> 00:07:06.249 These are all really personal suggestions as to whether or not 00:07:07.119 --> 00:07:08.719 they have a deep need for him. 00:07:09.050 --> 00:07:12.770 And that's just a, it's not always available, it's not always publicly 00:07:12.770 --> 00:07:16.610 available of whether or not your customer is experiencing the pain of your product. 00:07:16.940 --> 00:07:21.210 But look deeply, even little things like if you right click on a website 00:07:21.210 --> 00:07:24.939 you can view the source and sometimes you can tell what tech they're using. 00:07:25.140 --> 00:07:29.990 Little things like that to understand whether they have that need. 00:07:30.815 --> 00:07:34.595 And then be able to personalize the outreach based on that need. 00:07:35.535 --> 00:07:36.685 All right, let's get back to Jonathan. 00:07:38.044 --> 00:07:38.224 I 00:07:38.245 --> 00:07:40.765 set up a first CRM, very simple. 00:07:40.935 --> 00:07:45.484 And I started just getting very intense into cold calling and emailing. 00:07:45.964 --> 00:07:51.344 And that's how in three months we went from zero to 10 K of MR. 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:56.469 Uh, working on three different time zones, the European time zones, U S of course, 00:07:56.550 --> 00:08:01.269 and of course I was extracting things a bit in Asia, Australia, especially 00:08:01.310 --> 00:08:03.369 that has a big startup community. 00:08:03.769 --> 00:08:06.139 And that was, uh, an easy start, let's say. 00:08:06.340 --> 00:08:06.629 Oh yeah. 00:08:06.629 --> 00:08:08.150 So literally working around the clock. 00:08:08.150 --> 00:08:09.369 I want to, um, I want to. 00:08:09.760 --> 00:08:12.850 I want to take advantage of the fact that you are doing this, but also you are 00:08:12.850 --> 00:08:14.950 selling this value prop to some degree. 00:08:15.710 --> 00:08:20.420 So you kind of, there's a nice little synergy there and there's always 00:08:20.420 --> 00:08:25.739 this debate between personalization and scale, like volume scale 00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:27.220 in this particular exercise. 00:08:27.679 --> 00:08:31.410 And that's even complicated in a founder situation where this is just 00:08:31.420 --> 00:08:34.710 one tenth still of the overall job that you have to do with everything 00:08:34.710 --> 00:08:36.289 pulling you in every direction. 00:08:36.289 --> 00:08:36.500 So. 00:08:36.909 --> 00:08:40.069 How do you, how do you kind of work through that, the, the difference 00:08:40.069 --> 00:08:44.000 between, I can just say the same voicemail and email and get 500 00:08:44.020 --> 00:08:49.110 notes out a day, versus I could do a ton of research on this person. 00:08:49.550 --> 00:08:52.920 And send a beautiful personalized note, but I might only be able 00:08:52.920 --> 00:08:54.970 to get out 10 a day as a founder. 00:08:54.970 --> 00:08:56.720 How did you come to terms with that? 00:08:57.010 --> 00:09:02.759 So learn and fail the first actually batch, I completely wasted it because I, 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:08.640 I sent like, honestly, maybe 3000 emails and be like, okay, I have the emails. 00:09:08.649 --> 00:09:10.599 I have people names, right? 00:09:10.610 --> 00:09:11.500 Let's send an email. 00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:16.610 Personalized with a high first name and that's it basically. 00:09:17.160 --> 00:09:23.370 Uh, and that went south, you know, it was crap, had no answers at all, almost. 00:09:23.890 --> 00:09:27.379 Uh, the few answer I got basically is, uh, I'm away or, 00:09:27.379 --> 00:09:29.600 uh, or don't contact me again. 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:31.219 Or, uh, I was put in spam. 00:09:31.219 --> 00:09:36.000 I remember Gmail, uh, sending me an alert, say, Hey, you, you're a spammer. 00:09:36.415 --> 00:09:40.765 I learned the hardware, I was like, okay, so that was really bad what I just did. 00:09:40.765 --> 00:09:44.845 And so kind of, I kind of wasted a lot of work and research. 00:09:45.335 --> 00:09:47.784 So now let's do it again, but properly. 00:09:48.405 --> 00:09:49.355 Personalization. 00:09:49.805 --> 00:09:52.525 Uh, so I'm a big fan of personalization. 00:09:52.525 --> 00:09:57.445 And today, even at Erco, we have, uh, uh, over 150 salespeople. 00:09:57.745 --> 00:10:02.095 The one thing I say every day to the salespeople is like, personalize 00:10:02.115 --> 00:10:05.565 your interaction, personalize your email, personalize your phone calls. 00:10:06.125 --> 00:10:08.724 You're not talking to robots, you're not a robot either. 00:10:09.215 --> 00:10:13.235 Let's use our brains, our human brains, and to make sure 00:10:13.235 --> 00:10:15.195 that we work right with it. 00:10:15.510 --> 00:10:18.540 And basically the personalization was by the time, very simple. 00:10:18.540 --> 00:10:22.310 It was trying to figure out what the company is doing, trying to 00:10:22.310 --> 00:10:25.270 understand what could be their pains. 00:10:25.639 --> 00:10:30.520 And I remember, uh, one of the e commerce company I was contacting that was selling, 00:10:30.780 --> 00:10:36.469 uh, luxury, uh, things all over internet, like, uh, closing bags and so on. 00:10:36.999 --> 00:10:39.050 And I figured out they had just a French number. 00:10:39.374 --> 00:10:41.754 But they were selling in several different countries because they 00:10:41.764 --> 00:10:43.474 had several different websites. 00:10:44.225 --> 00:10:49.624 And I remember contacting the CEO very candid and saying, Hey, I noticed on your 00:10:49.624 --> 00:10:54.555 website that you have one number, uh, in one country, but I'm, I'm figuring 00:10:54.555 --> 00:10:59.655 out that you have several websites with different URLs in different languages. 00:10:59.964 --> 00:11:04.064 And so you're expecting your customer to call you in an international calls. 00:11:04.339 --> 00:11:05.410 You should talk to us. 00:11:05.449 --> 00:11:08.449 IRCO is able, able to provide you numbers all over the world. 00:11:08.619 --> 00:11:13.739 And I tried always to, you know, use this little research I did to show to the 00:11:13.739 --> 00:11:17.010 person that I actually looked for them. 00:11:17.290 --> 00:11:18.249 I actually, you know. 00:11:18.630 --> 00:11:23.620 I'm coming more as a, as a helper, as a consultant to help them rather 00:11:23.820 --> 00:11:25.360 than, Hey, I have a product to sell. 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:28.900 You know, I don't know if you need it, but what I know is that I need to send it. 00:11:30.350 --> 00:11:32.929 And this is building on the prior point, right? 00:11:32.929 --> 00:11:38.440 Not only does he uncover that they have this need based on 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:39.989 information on their website. 00:11:40.590 --> 00:11:43.000 But they're coming in as a consultant. 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:45.910 I want to even push that even further. 00:11:47.040 --> 00:11:51.249 You take one cold outreach, especially even as a founder where 00:11:51.250 --> 00:11:52.550 it's like, Hey, how are you doing? 00:11:52.550 --> 00:11:53.740 This is my product. 00:11:53.740 --> 00:11:55.120 I'd love to show you a demo. 00:11:56.310 --> 00:12:00.549 And you take another cold outreach that says, Hey, how's it going? 00:12:00.580 --> 00:12:04.709 I looked at your website and I saw this issue. 00:12:05.930 --> 00:12:06.839 In his case, he's saying. 00:12:07.230 --> 00:12:12.190 I saw that you have only one number, but you sell to many different continents, 00:12:12.910 --> 00:12:15.540 and I would like to help you fix that. 00:12:15.569 --> 00:12:17.240 It's literally like a five minute thing. 00:12:18.010 --> 00:12:19.340 I'm not going to sell you anything. 00:12:20.070 --> 00:12:21.929 I just want to explain to you how to fix that. 00:12:23.449 --> 00:12:28.529 Now that's an extreme version, but you're coming in as a helpful consultant, 00:12:28.880 --> 00:12:30.949 not as a seller trying to get a demo. 00:12:32.719 --> 00:12:35.970 And so just think about that as you're, as you're brainstorming 00:12:35.980 --> 00:12:37.380 on your approach to the market. 00:12:37.910 --> 00:12:39.349 I love what Jonathan's doing here. 00:12:39.770 --> 00:12:40.680 All right, let's get back to him. 00:12:42.300 --> 00:12:43.060 But today 00:12:43.129 --> 00:12:45.910 that's what I'm saying always to the salespeople. 00:12:46.160 --> 00:12:50.629 Let's make sure when you're contacting someone in the company, that person is 00:12:50.630 --> 00:12:53.150 for sure the right person to contact. 00:12:53.599 --> 00:12:56.849 I'm not expecting them to do thousands of calls a week. 00:12:57.030 --> 00:12:57.619 I don't care. 00:12:57.839 --> 00:13:02.979 I prefer them to do 30, 40 calls a day, but extremely precise. 00:13:03.309 --> 00:13:04.060 That's the head of. 00:13:04.479 --> 00:13:10.259 Sales of company X, Y, Z, that's the head of customer service of X, Y, Z, that's the 00:13:10.259 --> 00:13:15.469 CIO of that company, et cetera, to make sure, okay, they have the right person 00:13:15.520 --> 00:13:20.319 they will speak with and they have the right speech because very often we take 00:13:20.319 --> 00:13:24.089 a lot of time at calling and once we are in front of the person, we don't know 00:13:24.089 --> 00:13:28.160 what to, and it might sound stupid, but today it's important to have a script. 00:13:28.280 --> 00:13:30.189 I'm not saying the script needs to be read. 00:13:31.165 --> 00:13:34.755 Uh, dot by dots, but it needs, you need to have a structure in 00:13:34.965 --> 00:13:36.075 what you're going to tell them. 00:13:36.335 --> 00:13:41.734 And by the time very early, I had a structure of what I'm going to say, how 00:13:41.735 --> 00:13:48.094 I'm going to react to X, Y, Z questions to make sure I am structured and, you 00:13:48.094 --> 00:13:52.494 know, I gave that very early, that little playbook I built for myself very early to 00:13:52.494 --> 00:13:56.895 the first employees, the first salespeople that joined us that were interns and 00:13:56.895 --> 00:14:01.334 that, uh, we had to sell together for the next six months of their internship. 00:14:02.070 --> 00:14:11.160 Where we went from, uh, 10, 000 MRR from, uh, to over 30, 000 MRR in four months. 00:14:11.829 --> 00:14:17.270 And then to about 60 KMR after six months, which was a great achievement. 00:14:17.720 --> 00:14:24.580 Uh, reaching that, uh, scale with just interns or, uh, very early, uh, employees. 00:14:25.030 --> 00:14:25.280 Yeah. 00:14:25.280 --> 00:14:26.290 And I want to unpack that. 00:14:26.290 --> 00:14:27.260 That's amazing. 00:14:27.795 --> 00:14:31.135 Cause that, that's one of the things we want to understand is the founder 00:14:31.155 --> 00:14:32.855 journeying relationship to sales. 00:14:32.855 --> 00:14:36.705 So clearly you did a great job on the founder selling, and there's a lot 00:14:36.705 --> 00:14:39.225 of best practices to unpack there. 00:14:39.615 --> 00:14:43.935 And then you're at a certain scale where like, okay, I need to add people to this. 00:14:44.185 --> 00:14:48.085 I think you had some, I think you were, had to go to the U S for tech 00:14:48.085 --> 00:14:51.635 stars or something, and, um, you realize you couldn't do all this. 00:14:51.635 --> 00:14:54.295 So it's like, can you unpack that decision? 00:14:54.295 --> 00:14:55.084 It's like, okay. 00:14:55.640 --> 00:14:59.600 Oftentimes founders are like, do I bring in a leader to hire a team? 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:04.420 Do I bring in individual full time reps to manage myself? 00:15:04.760 --> 00:15:06.030 Do I bring in interns? 00:15:06.030 --> 00:15:08.970 Like, can you unpack that decision and how you, how you made that? 00:15:09.529 --> 00:15:11.070 So by the time, honestly, we, 00:15:11.430 --> 00:15:12.320 we had no money. 00:15:12.460 --> 00:15:12.790 Okay. 00:15:12.790 --> 00:15:16.699 So we had to take people that were not so costly. 00:15:17.119 --> 00:15:22.370 Otherwise we, we could honestly hiring a VP sales level, uh, and paying him 00:15:22.370 --> 00:15:25.700 above a hundred K by the time was impossible, was clearly impossible. 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:30.959 Um, and so basically what we said to ourselves is let's hire young 00:15:31.010 --> 00:15:37.819 people, but smart, young, sharp, and that are hungry for making it happen, 00:15:38.180 --> 00:15:39.839 hungry for the product and so on. 00:15:40.300 --> 00:15:43.560 And so we started like that with those, uh, first salespeople, 00:15:43.990 --> 00:15:45.810 uh, that I can only think today. 00:15:45.810 --> 00:15:49.260 And that stayed with us between five, seven years, sometimes. 00:15:49.540 --> 00:15:53.460 And most of them that I have in my mind left to build their own startup, uh, 00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:58.900 afterwards being part of the so called Iroko Mafia, uh, which is all the people 00:15:58.900 --> 00:16:02.719 that left Iroko, uh, to build their own company, uh, build their own journey. 00:16:03.060 --> 00:16:05.939 And those people were just hungry, fresh 00:16:06.059 --> 00:16:07.400 out of school people. 00:16:08.099 --> 00:16:12.729 This is an important point from Jonathan that he came about probably 00:16:12.739 --> 00:16:15.810 because of the forced constraints of bootstrapping his business. 00:16:16.870 --> 00:16:20.980 He didn't have capital to hire professional sellers and a 00:16:20.980 --> 00:16:25.470 professional leader, and he defaulted to what he says, quote unquote, 00:16:25.490 --> 00:16:27.480 young, smart, hungry people. 00:16:28.330 --> 00:16:32.349 But I think this highlights a general best practice that's important. 00:16:33.370 --> 00:16:40.209 As we look out there to acquire talent and hire talent, we are 00:16:40.219 --> 00:16:42.879 often selfish in what we want. 00:16:43.749 --> 00:16:44.979 We want someone. 00:16:45.295 --> 00:16:48.635 That is taking a company from a million to 50 million. 00:16:49.135 --> 00:16:53.255 We want someone that has sold a million dollars of software any 00:16:53.255 --> 00:16:58.124 year, but it's so important to ask ourselves, what do they want? 00:16:58.735 --> 00:17:02.135 Let's look at the world through their lens and their career. 00:17:02.614 --> 00:17:05.424 And in this case, what can air call do for them? 00:17:06.215 --> 00:17:09.695 And I think that's one beautiful thing that Jonathan stumbled across. 00:17:10.375 --> 00:17:14.395 Is he didn't go hire the person where this is going to be their eighth 00:17:14.734 --> 00:17:18.234 software sales job and it's like they're going to just go and check the boxes. 00:17:18.375 --> 00:17:24.235 He hired people who had something to prove that if they could succeed in the 00:17:24.235 --> 00:17:28.994 role that Jonathan outlined for them at Aircall, it would make their career. 00:17:30.065 --> 00:17:34.500 And so as we go out and look at the tariff that we're acquiring, Let's not 00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:38.660 be selfish in the lens that we want, but let's make sure we equally look 00:17:38.660 --> 00:17:43.300 at the lens of how we can help them in their career and magic will happen. 00:17:43.570 --> 00:17:45.080 And that's what happened for air call. 00:17:45.140 --> 00:17:46.470 And that's what happened for Jonathan. 00:17:47.649 --> 00:17:48.880 Their ambition was big. 00:17:49.120 --> 00:17:53.889 You could feel in them that they were kind of entrepreneurs in their mind. 00:17:54.175 --> 00:17:55.655 And they wanted a first experience. 00:17:55.685 --> 00:17:59.795 They wanted to learn how the startup journey starts. 00:18:00.025 --> 00:18:01.535 And I was with them. 00:18:01.795 --> 00:18:07.785 I kept selling and doing demo until something like 50 KMR. 00:18:08.275 --> 00:18:12.145 I was making sure I showed the example and I lead by example. 00:18:12.414 --> 00:18:17.015 And our first pitch was this was our product is 30 bucks a user. 00:18:17.205 --> 00:18:17.545 Okay. 00:18:17.755 --> 00:18:18.175 30 bucks. 00:18:18.885 --> 00:18:24.804 That specific salesperson, if he's able to do, instead of doing 40 calls a day with a 00:18:24.804 --> 00:18:27.905 normal dialer, he's doing 50 calls a day. 00:18:28.024 --> 00:18:30.084 So that's 20 percent more calls. 00:18:31.274 --> 00:18:34.325 And out of these 20 percent more calls, you keep the same win rate. 00:18:35.175 --> 00:18:38.454 If you have whatever, a 2 percent win rate means basically every 00:18:38.454 --> 00:18:40.144 two days you get one new customer. 00:18:40.564 --> 00:18:41.764 And if you get 1. 00:18:41.804 --> 00:18:45.675 2 new customers, so out of 500 calls, basically, instead of, 00:18:45.754 --> 00:18:48.904 uh, having two customers, you get actually three and a half. 00:18:49.264 --> 00:18:54.465 So for almost, you just made a gain of 5k, 10k a month. 00:18:54.855 --> 00:18:58.165 So you just met a big win out of it and it's good. 00:18:58.165 --> 00:19:01.905 So always think about your catchphrase, do more calls, make money. 00:19:01.925 --> 00:19:02.834 You're sure you make money. 00:19:02.844 --> 00:19:04.064 Your money is paid back. 00:19:04.094 --> 00:19:04.594 No worries. 00:19:04.615 --> 00:19:05.185 It's great. 00:19:05.195 --> 00:19:05.485 So. 00:19:06.065 --> 00:19:09.345 Yeah, I love how you've oriented the value prop and so many 00:19:09.345 --> 00:19:10.775 people overcomplicate that. 00:19:14.585 --> 00:19:18.464 Talking Too Loud, hosted by Chris Savage, is brought to you by the 00:19:18.464 --> 00:19:23.125 HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. 00:19:24.015 --> 00:19:29.135 On this podcast, Chris Savage, Wistia CEO and loudest talker, takes you 00:19:29.135 --> 00:19:33.115 inside the minds of entrepreneurs as they share the hilarious, 00:19:33.225 --> 00:19:37.805 informative, and most challenging aspects of building more human brands. 00:19:38.625 --> 00:19:42.135 You can hear episodes like Building a Reusable Notebook Empire with 00:19:42.135 --> 00:19:47.365 entrepreneur Joe LeMay or The AI Video Revolution with Wistia's own 00:19:47.375 --> 00:19:49.174 head of production, Chris Levine. 00:19:49.764 --> 00:19:52.894 Listen to Talking 2 Loud wherever you get your podcasts. 00:19:57.175 --> 00:20:00.135 You were doing founder selling and then you hire these interns and you were right 00:20:00.135 --> 00:20:04.675 there in, in the trenches with them, doing more with them, leading from the front. 00:20:05.605 --> 00:20:08.455 And then, do you just keep adding them? 00:20:08.455 --> 00:20:13.935 At some point, it had to be like, you professionalize this and sales wasn't as 00:20:13.935 --> 00:20:18.804 big a part of your job as, see, now when I say sales, I mean selling customers, you 00:20:18.804 --> 00:20:20.899 got to a scale where it was like, Okay. 00:20:21.199 --> 00:20:25.489 Your relationship with sales as a function changed maybe to more of a leader. 00:20:25.489 --> 00:20:30.160 Can you tell us like when that happened and how you, how you structured that? 00:20:30.979 --> 00:20:32.689 It happened during our seed round. 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:35.420 Uh, so we raised, uh, 2.7 million. 00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:40.490 So basically when we reached 60 k of Mr, I remember we reached 60 K 00:20:40.495 --> 00:20:44.060 of MR on the 31st of December, 2015. 00:20:44.270 --> 00:20:49.070 When I say 60 km RI really mean 60.00 KR. 00:20:49.070 --> 00:20:51.500 That's, that was the target end of the year. 00:20:51.805 --> 00:20:59.605 And one of our first employee, uh, had to put the last 15 bucks of MRR And so he 00:20:59.605 --> 00:21:03.105 closed it on the 31st of September at 8pm. 00:21:03.485 --> 00:21:07.664 Uh, he was calling a guy that was in the plane saying, Hey, please upgrade. 00:21:07.805 --> 00:21:10.215 The 31st, the guy was like, I'm going to my family. 00:21:10.215 --> 00:21:10.664 He closed it. 00:21:11.205 --> 00:21:14.165 Please just put your credit card and we're done. 00:21:14.655 --> 00:21:15.465 And the guy did it. 00:21:15.544 --> 00:21:16.314 It was amazing. 00:21:16.894 --> 00:21:21.594 And at that point I knew it was time for me to step back from a pure, you know, 00:21:21.794 --> 00:21:26.514 selling role and making sure that the team was doing it and I would lead them. 00:21:26.814 --> 00:21:33.285 And so over the years, basically I was this VP, sales, CSO, COO, whatever. 00:21:33.285 --> 00:21:35.875 So I was for a long time, the CEO of the company. 00:21:36.750 --> 00:21:42.510 So leading sales, uh, customer support, customer, uh, operations, 00:21:42.540 --> 00:21:46.310 customer success in general, all the functions that are, were business. 00:21:46.760 --> 00:21:49.400 Uh, and my co-founder was leading all the functions that 00:21:49.400 --> 00:21:51.200 were engineering even today. 00:21:51.500 --> 00:21:56.720 Uh, I'm the CSOI created department leaders that were more like country 00:21:57.020 --> 00:22:01.955 managers, uh, one managing uk, one managing us one, et cetera, et cetera. 00:22:02.820 --> 00:22:06.929 And that worked for a while until I figured out that now we need to have 00:22:06.929 --> 00:22:10.040 actual, uh, leaders of entire regions. 00:22:10.050 --> 00:22:15.570 So first region was North America, then it was, uh, EMEA and then it was APAC. 00:22:16.360 --> 00:22:20.989 I always kept this foot inside the, the sales organization. 00:22:21.330 --> 00:22:25.900 And so when I hear a lot of people saying, Hey, I, I, this person 00:22:25.910 --> 00:22:27.820 has no, not much sales background. 00:22:28.530 --> 00:22:29.010 Yeah. 00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:33.510 So what, you know, I mean, So what you can learn everything. 00:22:33.510 --> 00:22:36.600 I'm not saying you can be the VP sales of a hundred people 00:22:36.600 --> 00:22:40.010 organization without background, but in the early days of a startup. 00:22:40.514 --> 00:22:41.514 Anything is possible. 00:22:41.544 --> 00:22:46.014 It's about learning curve and being able to build your organization. 00:22:46.294 --> 00:22:48.965 Because often people love to have playbooks, playbooks. 00:22:48.965 --> 00:22:51.344 That's very, you know, that's something I hear a lot. 00:22:51.805 --> 00:22:52.785 You come with the playbook. 00:22:52.824 --> 00:22:53.284 Yeah. 00:22:53.284 --> 00:22:53.724 Yeah. 00:22:53.815 --> 00:22:55.354 Every company is different. 00:22:55.595 --> 00:22:59.225 So if the playbook was that simple, you could take any company to a billion dollar 00:22:59.225 --> 00:23:00.649 company, you know, it would be easy. 00:23:01.090 --> 00:23:02.260 Uh, every company is different. 00:23:02.290 --> 00:23:03.380 Every product is different. 00:23:03.700 --> 00:23:05.470 Uh, every demo is different. 00:23:05.630 --> 00:23:06.820 Product demo is different. 00:23:07.730 --> 00:23:11.000 I want to unpack two of those points, which are important. 00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:14.040 It didn't matter for Jonathan if people came to the table 00:23:14.040 --> 00:23:15.280 with a sales background or not. 00:23:16.989 --> 00:23:17.809 That's interesting. 00:23:18.189 --> 00:23:20.869 I don't know if I want to go out and say like, hey, go hire people 00:23:20.870 --> 00:23:25.759 with no sales experience, but it's just interesting that, hey, there's 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:27.109 not a lot of degrees in sales. 00:23:27.999 --> 00:23:31.530 There's not a lot of people that come out of college With like three or four 00:23:31.530 --> 00:23:33.430 years of sales discipline training. 00:23:33.460 --> 00:23:37.600 This is a important skill that's learned in the field. 00:23:38.539 --> 00:23:43.669 And I can think of at least half a dozen people that I hired that are absolute 00:23:43.729 --> 00:23:50.930 stars today, like running billion dollar quotas across continents, like partners at 00:23:50.930 --> 00:23:54.400 first tier venture capital firms because of the success that these in sales. 00:23:55.070 --> 00:23:57.600 And before I hired them, they had no sales experience. 00:23:58.830 --> 00:24:04.330 So I'm not saying like do this all the time, but don't rule out people 00:24:04.330 --> 00:24:08.720 who are driven, people who are smart, people who are fast learners 00:24:09.269 --> 00:24:10.789 that want to be on your sales org. 00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:12.620 Because they could be the best. 00:24:13.610 --> 00:24:17.200 And the other thing that Jonathan's saying is, be careful people 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:18.890 who come with their playbook. 00:24:20.110 --> 00:24:21.500 Because the playbook's different. 00:24:21.979 --> 00:24:24.770 He's leaning to an important point of the science of scaling. 00:24:25.330 --> 00:24:28.919 Which is, as we look at the attributes of the sales system, as we look at 00:24:28.919 --> 00:24:32.870 the attributes of the go to market system, from who we hire, to how 00:24:32.870 --> 00:24:36.500 we sell, to who we target, to how we comp our reps, to how we coach 00:24:36.500 --> 00:24:38.790 them, to the playbook that we used. 00:24:39.490 --> 00:24:41.480 There's no universal right answer. 00:24:42.010 --> 00:24:45.390 It has to be optimized within the context that we sell. 00:24:46.600 --> 00:24:51.580 And Jonathan felt that when people came in with a playbook and it didn't work, it 00:24:51.580 --> 00:24:53.350 had to be a playbook optimized for them. 00:24:54.590 --> 00:24:58.459 And so it's important to have a kind of sense of the direction 00:24:58.459 --> 00:25:03.090 and what we need to achieve and try to figure out your own way. 00:25:03.540 --> 00:25:07.660 Uh, and our own way was always like, uh, making sure that 00:25:08.210 --> 00:25:09.900 we, we sell the value prop. 00:25:10.395 --> 00:25:12.145 What we do is we don't sell a product. 00:25:12.325 --> 00:25:13.235 We sell a value prop. 00:25:13.345 --> 00:25:14.105 That's very important. 00:25:14.435 --> 00:25:15.415 I'm not selling your product. 00:25:15.715 --> 00:25:17.594 I'm selling you the value prop. 00:25:17.625 --> 00:25:23.104 I'm giving you an opportunity to make your company more profitable and better and 00:25:23.145 --> 00:25:25.254 enhance the employee experience and so on. 00:25:25.755 --> 00:25:25.995 That's 00:25:25.995 --> 00:25:26.255 great. 00:25:26.255 --> 00:25:31.165 And I, I love the vision around, you know, not in the playbooks and the 00:25:31.165 --> 00:25:33.034 context around that, that's so critical. 00:25:33.405 --> 00:25:36.895 I do want to go back to that moment where, cause I'm picturing you in 00:25:36.895 --> 00:25:41.424 the trenches with these interns, uh, then you had five raps and you had 00:25:41.425 --> 00:25:43.725 the two CSs and then you hit the 60k. 00:25:44.125 --> 00:25:48.254 Like, okay, now we got a scale and you had someone in charge of the U. 00:25:48.255 --> 00:25:48.615 S. 00:25:48.615 --> 00:25:50.325 and Europe, etc. 00:25:50.695 --> 00:25:51.605 What did you do? 00:25:51.635 --> 00:25:55.014 Because at that time I'm picturing you in the trenches continuing to sell 00:25:55.355 --> 00:25:56.859 and like you're kind of training them. 00:25:57.350 --> 00:26:00.680 And then like, now all of a sudden you have this larger team you're hiring. 00:26:01.140 --> 00:26:03.100 So, but you're still in charge of sales. 00:26:03.740 --> 00:26:06.360 So what are you doing on a day to day, week to week basis? 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:07.039 I was 00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:10.140 checking always the data, the demos, the win rates. 00:26:10.410 --> 00:26:11.219 Uh, that was one. 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:17.560 Then two, uh, was, is to, uh, to go back to a different course. 00:26:17.570 --> 00:26:19.460 So you gather the team once a week. 00:26:19.460 --> 00:26:20.500 I was doing it once a week. 00:26:21.060 --> 00:26:25.440 We sit in a meeting room and we pick up 10 different calls. 00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:26.040 Okay. 00:26:26.170 --> 00:26:26.940 10 different. 00:26:27.344 --> 00:26:29.085 Uh, cold calls, that's where more is done. 00:26:29.770 --> 00:26:31.060 Three minute minimum course. 00:26:31.110 --> 00:26:33.470 And, uh, we're going to listen to them all together. 00:26:33.470 --> 00:26:35.720 Now we are the five of us, uh, sitting. 00:26:35.930 --> 00:26:39.050 And it was very hard because you know, the people hear their 00:26:39.060 --> 00:26:42.679 voice, hear what they say, they get, they get very uncomfortable. 00:26:42.700 --> 00:26:43.290 That hurts. 00:26:44.010 --> 00:26:45.619 And I'm not even talking at that point. 00:26:45.629 --> 00:26:47.370 I'm like, okay, so we just listen. 00:26:48.049 --> 00:26:49.280 Tell me, what did you hear? 00:26:50.390 --> 00:26:51.269 What would you improve? 00:26:51.629 --> 00:26:52.369 What was great? 00:26:52.369 --> 00:26:53.139 What was not great? 00:26:53.140 --> 00:26:53.750 And believe me. 00:26:54.294 --> 00:26:57.315 You're a salesperson, you're a first time salesperson. 00:26:57.774 --> 00:27:00.034 You're here yourself in front of your five colleagues. 00:27:00.354 --> 00:27:01.635 Who is the founder of the company? 00:27:02.155 --> 00:27:04.355 Oh my God, everyone was becoming red. 00:27:04.915 --> 00:27:08.074 And even myself, sometimes I was like, Oh my God, what are they talking about? 00:27:08.135 --> 00:27:08.785 That's horrible. 00:27:10.044 --> 00:27:13.755 By listening to themselves and by giving them the opportunity to 00:27:13.765 --> 00:27:18.070 judge themselves, After the call, weeks after the call sometimes, 00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:20.680 that helps them grow so much. 00:27:22.020 --> 00:27:23.710 I call this the film review. 00:27:24.260 --> 00:27:27.820 It's probably the biggest driver of performance optimization that 00:27:27.820 --> 00:27:30.020 I've used as a leader at scale. 00:27:30.470 --> 00:27:32.059 Jonathan's using it a little different way. 00:27:32.059 --> 00:27:33.790 I've always used it on discovery calls. 00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:38.730 He's using it on cold calls and he's able to use his technology to get 00:27:38.730 --> 00:27:42.910 right down to a handful of calls every week that have over three minutes. 00:27:43.740 --> 00:27:44.410 This is great. 00:27:44.580 --> 00:27:46.580 He sits there, he gets the team in the room. 00:27:46.580 --> 00:27:51.350 He's And he puts people on the hot seat and what he does is he has that person 00:27:51.350 --> 00:27:53.889 on the hot seat self assess first. 00:27:53.900 --> 00:27:54.820 That's critical. 00:27:55.590 --> 00:27:58.020 It's not like, Hey, we, we heard this call from Bruce. 00:27:58.419 --> 00:28:00.899 Now let's all throw up on Bruce and how much he sucks. 00:28:01.870 --> 00:28:04.969 No, it's like we listened to it and I say, Bruce, Hey, you heard that. 00:28:05.169 --> 00:28:05.749 What'd you think? 00:28:05.749 --> 00:28:10.199 And we give Bruce an opportunity to self assess and he probably 00:28:11.169 --> 00:28:12.480 nails a lot of the points. 00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:13.120 He listens to it. 00:28:13.120 --> 00:28:16.010 I don't think there's, there's no seller out there that's going 00:28:16.010 --> 00:28:16.949 to listen to recording back. 00:28:16.949 --> 00:28:17.630 That was perfect. 00:28:18.280 --> 00:28:19.279 You can always improve. 00:28:19.280 --> 00:28:19.320 Yeah. 00:28:19.595 --> 00:28:23.655 And then what I like to do, which Jonathan probably does as well, is I have some 00:28:23.655 --> 00:28:27.105 people give positive feedback and some people give needs for improvement. 00:28:27.115 --> 00:28:31.314 So we've got this like diverse set of learnings that we're, 00:28:31.704 --> 00:28:36.645 we're coming about as a group and, and going through these calls. 00:28:36.924 --> 00:28:40.855 I think the other thing that I'd like to highlight here is as we scale as a founder 00:28:40.935 --> 00:28:45.905 or even a sales leader in the scale that Jonathan is talking about, there's 00:28:45.905 --> 00:28:48.935 a theme around scalable visibility. 00:28:50.005 --> 00:28:52.305 How can you get the visibility? 00:28:52.790 --> 00:28:56.969 To the right levels of the org in a scalable way, because you don't 00:28:56.969 --> 00:28:58.860 have 120 hours a week to work. 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.979 And this weekly cadence that he has, whatever, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 00:29:06.020 --> 00:29:10.120 he's staying close to the front line in that little time every week. 00:29:10.789 --> 00:29:14.560 A beautiful example of scalable visibility by the leader. 00:29:15.410 --> 00:29:16.520 Alright, let's get back to Jonathan. 00:29:17.979 --> 00:29:21.910 And I always remember that, uh, one of my first employees, Uh, then feel with 00:29:21.910 --> 00:29:26.300 us today that told me I've never learned so much than during this first session, 00:29:26.370 --> 00:29:28.270 because I was like, okay, oh my God. 00:29:28.570 --> 00:29:29.330 So I'm just saying. 00:29:30.430 --> 00:29:32.870 I'm not listening to the person, I'm talking way too 00:29:32.870 --> 00:29:33.800 much, et cetera, et cetera. 00:29:34.370 --> 00:29:37.830 And so this was every week, and it helped the company grow and it 00:29:37.830 --> 00:29:39.470 showed them that I'm close to them. 00:29:39.640 --> 00:29:45.480 And when, once you, you enter it, you're able to create that trust and 00:29:45.490 --> 00:29:47.209 that transparency into your team. 00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:48.410 Nothing can stop you. 00:29:48.929 --> 00:29:51.670 Really, nothing can stop you because the team trusts you. 00:29:51.910 --> 00:29:54.220 The team is being transparent with you. 00:29:54.615 --> 00:29:58.255 And they're being transparent with themselves, and they grow. 00:29:58.385 --> 00:29:59.515 They just grow crazy. 00:29:59.745 --> 00:30:06.090 And those first employees become Managers, directors, VPs, uh, of entire regions, 00:30:06.350 --> 00:30:11.220 and that's helped them grow and being loyal to the company and having your 00:30:11.220 --> 00:30:15.000 first employee being loyal, that's priceless, really, that's priceless. 00:30:15.330 --> 00:30:19.170 So my advice is simple is make sure they grow with the company. 00:30:19.370 --> 00:30:21.960 And of course they might not all grow to VP levels. 00:30:22.195 --> 00:30:26.325 Uh, why joining you when they're 22, but if you're able to get that 00:30:26.355 --> 00:30:28.985 from them, that's a killing team. 00:30:29.595 --> 00:30:29.895 Yeah. 00:30:30.295 --> 00:30:33.995 What is it like today as the founder managing the sales team? 00:30:34.415 --> 00:30:36.215 Is it the same or is it different? 00:30:36.215 --> 00:30:40.755 Because I mean, now you have 150 reps, you have regional 00:30:40.825 --> 00:30:42.825 content, continental managers. 00:30:43.125 --> 00:30:43.595 You know what I mean? 00:30:43.595 --> 00:30:44.945 Like, how is it different now? 00:30:45.025 --> 00:30:47.535 The job itself didn't change. 00:30:47.565 --> 00:30:49.135 What changes is the scale. 00:30:49.465 --> 00:30:55.195 And, uh, the precision of the forecast, what today is the hardest thing at 00:30:55.195 --> 00:30:57.095 scale is being able to forecast. 00:30:57.305 --> 00:31:01.155 So at the beginning of the quarter, you say you're going to add 10 million AR. 00:31:01.975 --> 00:31:04.755 How do I make sure I'm able to reach this 10 million AR? 00:31:05.155 --> 00:31:10.645 How much I will do week one, week two, week three, week 10 until end 00:31:10.645 --> 00:31:15.465 of the quarter to actually reach the 10 million new AR, sorry, you expect 00:31:15.485 --> 00:31:19.325 the sales to bring, because at some point, uh, by the time very early 00:31:19.325 --> 00:31:20.565 in the days, what we are looking is. 00:31:20.625 --> 00:31:26.445 AR, MR as a whole, you know, uh, net retention included in all that. 00:31:27.195 --> 00:31:29.365 Now, what we are looking at is new sales. 00:31:29.505 --> 00:31:32.345 We want to see how much new business we are adding. 00:31:32.915 --> 00:31:34.305 That's the number we look at. 00:31:34.565 --> 00:31:37.365 And forecasting that number is extremely tough. 00:31:37.655 --> 00:31:40.385 We built three different forecasting tools. 00:31:40.725 --> 00:31:46.895 A bottom up, a machine learning one, and a data, let's say, a data driven one that 00:31:47.045 --> 00:31:53.465 is purely based on our win rate and on the past to be able to forecast all that. 00:31:53.965 --> 00:31:57.585 The, the one that ends up being the most precise for me still is the bottoms up. 00:31:58.455 --> 00:32:03.345 You start from the sales, uh, rep that gives their forecast to their 00:32:03.355 --> 00:32:08.465 manager, the manager then reforecast it, uh, and gives it to the director. 00:32:08.475 --> 00:32:12.735 The director does its forecast and gives it to the VP until it comes to me. 00:32:13.075 --> 00:32:14.635 And it's pretty precise, honestly. 00:32:14.885 --> 00:32:15.885 And I'm happy to see that. 00:32:16.525 --> 00:32:22.265 Every quarter over the past 10 years, we almost achieved our target 95 00:32:22.285 --> 00:32:23.605 percent of the time. 00:32:24.445 --> 00:32:26.195 I don't see a lot of companies doing this. 00:32:26.215 --> 00:32:30.965 And I'm glad Jonathan pointed out is he's not only reliant on 00:32:30.965 --> 00:32:32.685 the bottoms up forecasting model. 00:32:33.305 --> 00:32:35.565 You can run multiple models. 00:32:36.665 --> 00:32:38.035 That's what people don't understand. 00:32:38.485 --> 00:32:39.905 Forecast accuracy. 00:32:40.465 --> 00:32:44.485 It's kind of the first thing I ask a company once they're above 10 million. 00:32:46.085 --> 00:32:47.985 What was your forecast and how close is it? 00:32:48.430 --> 00:32:51.330 And now let's diagnose why the variance occurred. 00:32:51.950 --> 00:32:55.810 That's where I can start in, in understanding where the 00:32:55.810 --> 00:32:57.230 issues are in a sales org. 00:32:57.810 --> 00:33:01.290 And so if I can make my forecast accuracy really tight, I'm 00:33:01.290 --> 00:33:02.710 probably going to be successful. 00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:04.630 So why rely on one model? 00:33:05.430 --> 00:33:09.720 Do the bottoms up reps, tells the manager, tells the director, tells the VP who tells 00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:12.070 the CEO, but then do the demand gen based. 00:33:12.300 --> 00:33:14.610 Here's how much demand we created last quarter. 00:33:14.610 --> 00:33:16.760 And this is how it typically plays out in this quarter. 00:33:17.550 --> 00:33:19.310 And then do the opportunity driven one. 00:33:20.210 --> 00:33:24.730 When a deal hits stage 5, it typically closes at a rate of 54%. 00:33:25.910 --> 00:33:28.680 So we can have multiple models, especially in this day and age, 00:33:28.690 --> 00:33:33.270 where the actual human effort to generate a model quarter over quarter 00:33:33.270 --> 00:33:34.690 or month over month is minimal. 00:33:34.700 --> 00:33:35.970 The system does it for us. 00:33:36.750 --> 00:33:39.420 And that allows us to have a much more accurate forecast. 00:33:40.100 --> 00:33:41.580 Alright, let's finish up here with Jonathan. 00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:43.980 And that's something we 00:33:43.980 --> 00:33:45.590 always vote for. 00:33:45.870 --> 00:33:48.850 All together is we need to achieve target. 00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:50.240 It's the company objective. 00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:50.890 So we fight 00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:51.620 all together. 00:33:51.980 --> 00:33:52.710 It's wonderful. 00:33:53.090 --> 00:33:55.510 Well, Jonathan, what a wonderful story. 00:33:55.975 --> 00:34:01.245 And it's so refreshing to see a founder that not only appreciates the 00:34:01.245 --> 00:34:04.795 value of sales, and you've dedicated so much of your career to learning 00:34:04.795 --> 00:34:09.505 the craft, but also that stayed so close to the front line through 00:34:09.505 --> 00:34:11.525 such a high volume scale journey. 00:34:11.525 --> 00:34:13.185 So thank you, Jonathan, for coming. 00:34:13.460 --> 00:34:14.880 And dropping knowledge with us today. 00:34:15.150 --> 00:34:16.520 It was my pleasure, Mark. 00:34:23.990 --> 00:34:26.840 Today's episode is written and produced by Matthew Brown. 00:34:27.210 --> 00:34:29.910 Our show is edited by pizza shark productions. 00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:33.650 Big thanks to HubSpot for startups and to the HubSpot podcast 00:34:33.690 --> 00:34:35.420 network for keeping the audio on. 00:34:35.610 --> 00:34:37.270 Hey, also we're a new show. 00:34:37.340 --> 00:34:40.760 So if you like what you hear, or if you hate what you hear, leave us a 00:34:40.760 --> 00:34:44.020 rating and review over on your favorite podcast player, I love the feedback. 00:34:44.450 --> 00:34:46.100 Also, check out Stage 2 Capital. 00:34:46.270 --> 00:34:52.549 We're the first VC firm running back by over 500 CROs, CMOs, CCOs. 00:34:52.550 --> 00:34:55.800 So if you're an entrepreneur looking to scale your business, check out stage2. 00:34:55.830 --> 00:34:56.210 capital. 00:34:56.600 --> 00:34:57.870 All right, that's it for today. 00:34:58.060 --> 00:34:58.850 I'm Mark Roberge. 00:34:58.860 --> 00:34:59.470 See you next week.