The Science of Scaling

Latest Episodes:

Moving From Big Company to Startup Sales Roles w/ Jeff Perry (CRO, Carta) Jun 06, 2024

Show notes

We're in the Q2 board meeting, and we have a huge decision ahead: Who is our next sales leader? We're sifting through the candidates and one person says, ah, they're two big company. What does that mean to big company?

Jeff Perry (CRO, Carta) knew he had to check his ego at the door if he was going to find success coming from a sales org like Oracle to lead a then 50 person team at Carta.

Here's what it takes:

Sales ops as a trusted internal partner for sales leaders
Segmentation for optimal org design
A mix of inbound and prospecting
Enabling expert frontline salespeople & checking your own ego

Stay ahead of the sales trends and exceed your 2024 sales targets with this: https://clickhubspot.com/qin

The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Learn more about HubSpot for Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown

The Power of Community Led Growth to Drive Demand w/ Paul St. John (Ex-GitHub) May 30, 2024

Show notes

Probably the most common and important early stage go-to-market question I get from founders and first sales leaders is this: What are creative new ways to create demand for my sales team?

It's a forever question, and it's so hard. Usually it's about understanding what's coming next. Best practices that haven't been exploited yet.

I have a hypothesis — it's community-led growth, CLG.

My friend Paul St. John, the first sales leader at GitHub, arguably the pioneer on CLG, joins me to demystify how he built a revenue machine and all the unique attributes of doing that on top of a very successful CLG company.

Free Resource:

[Free Report] Learn from 1,000+ startup founders on how AI is scaling their sales strategy https://clickhubspot.com/ias

The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Learn more about HubSpot for Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown

It’s Time to Ditch Your Commission Plan w/ Nick Dellis (VP of Revenue, Mercury) May 23, 2024

Show notes

I'm rewriting some of my Science of Scaling framework after this conversation. It knocked me off my chair, if we're being honest here.

It's about the commission plan.

When I asked Nick Dellis (VP of Revenue, Mercury) about his team's commission plan, he said, "We don't have one."

And Nick makes a strong case for why it might be high time for your company to ditch its commission plan too.

Resource:

[Free Download] Learn how sales teams are using AI and automation with our 2024 Report https://clickhubspot.com/sai

The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Learn more about HubSpot for Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown

How to Perfect Land and Expand w/ Kyle Duffy (VC, Gradient Ventures) May 16, 2024

Show notes

Today we're doing something a little different. We've heard from sales leaders, but what about the other side of the scaling equation: Venture Capital.

Kyle Duffy joins us from Gradient Ventures, part of Google parent Alphabet, specializing in early stage investing in AI and machine learning. Exciting stuff, to say the least.

Kyle unpacks early stages of go-to-market development — what are the biggest opportunities he sees, and what are the ones early stage founders fail to exploit?

[Free Download] Discover how sales leaders leverage AI to optimize their GTM strategy to drive better results https://clickhubspot.com/gtm

The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Learn more about HubSpot for Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown

How to Navigate Sales Cycles w/ Ang McManamon (VP of Sales, Crunchbase) May 09, 2024

Show notes

We've gone from arguably the biggest bull market in the history of tech in 2020-2021 to arguably tech's biggest down cycles in 2022-2023.

It's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

What does that mean for a sales leader? What does that mean for the pressures you're getting from your CEO, from the leadership team, from the board? How do you manage expectations, culture, product pivots, and value prop with your customer?

Take a breath. Exhale. Ang McManamon (Vp of Sales, Crunchbase) gets candid about navigating tricky sales cycles — so you'll be best equipped for the inevitable next one.

Use this to start closing more deals https://clickhubspot.com/atg

The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Learn more about HubSpot for Startups // Produced by Matthew Brown

How to Diligence Marketing and Sales Leadership Roles w/ Sydney Sloan & Adam Aarons (CMO & CRO, Drata) Nov 01, 2023

Show notes

Sales leaders often diligence the CEO, but they quickly realize they should've done the same for the CMO. Same for the other way around. It's a topic not even Mark has yet to fully codify.

Host Mark Roberge is joined by Sydney Sloan (CMO, Drata) and Adam Aarons (CRO, Drata) to discuss how the two navigated their way into a unicorn-worthy partnership. They'll talk about:

The importance of marketing and sales alignment
How to evaluate potential team members when joining a company
Back channelling for honest feedback
Why go-to-market alignment is so important for team dynamics