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It's safe to say the average salesperson in 2023 is significantly better than the average salesperson of 10 years ago, yet the average quota attainment continues to decline.
This is the result of an inflationary economic system that drove competitive recruitment efforts toward the promise of higher OTEs, which inevitably led to higher quotas, which eventually far outpaced any salesperson's ability to keep up.
This means the "valuation narrative game" ultimately resulted in over-stressing talented salespeople to the point of exhaustion and an illusion of failure which was often actually stellar performance. In this episode I dive into how the quota system became what it is today (broken) and what needs to be done to fix it.
There's work to do on both sides; salespeople knowing how to vet employers and employers knowing how to incentivize salespeople for optimized results. Strategy is best left for folks managing the front-lines, not the folks balancing the spreadsheets.
Whether you agree or disagree, I appreciate hearing your perspective so please don't hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments and begin a dialogue on YouTube.
Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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Welcome back to the pod! In this first episode I take a short break from my usual personality of bubbly positivity to begin this new season on a serious note and set the pace for what's to come.
The world has changed, the economy has changed, Silicon Valley has changed, and B2B SaaS has changed forever. Decades of mistakes have led to where we're at but valuable lessons are here to be learned.
I'm voicing these sentiments because they need to be said, need not to be forgotten, and need to be the foundation upon which we learn and rebuild the B2B SaaS industry into something bigger, better, and more honorable than ever before.
Whether you agree or disagree, I appreciate hearing your perspective so please don't hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments and begin a dialogue.
Don't forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel. Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for watching.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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Antoinette is a survivor, author, and speaker. On August 19, 2013, Antoinette was working as a bookkeeper at an elementary school in Atlanta, severely depressed because her husband of 33 years had recently left. She, now, as a single mom, was faced with the daunting challenges of raising a son with multiple disabilities and a daughter in law school.
Never did she think that she would become a hero saving roughly 1,000 lives, a best-selling author, an international celebrity, an expert on community safety, the Founder and CEO of a non-profit, Kids on the Move for Success, or a guest of Michelle Obama at the State of the Union Address.
The next day her life changed forever. Antoinette, an accidental hostage negotiator, used her experiences with challenging life issues to successfully convince an armed gunman to give her his AK-47. This is the only school shooter situation in the US that ended without death or injury to students, faculty, parents or the shooter himself. Experienced hostage negotiators, law enforcement, and community leaders have praised her intuitive, yet textbook, hostage negotiation skills that she used on August 20, 2013 to save roughly 1,000 lives.
When I came across Antoinette’s story and saw that she speaks about it, I knew this would be the perfect way to conclude the first season of this podcast. Negotiation spans much farther into our lives than just sales, and there’s no better example of that than what Antoinette experienced that day.
Antoinette’s story is so incredible, in 2018 it got the recognition it deserved when Seven-time Grammy Award winner, Toni Braxton, starred as Antoinette, in the movie “Faith Under Fire” for Lifetime TV. This is her story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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Anna is one of the most successful east coast SaaS marketers of the last decade. She’s from MA, went to UMass Amherst, started her career as an Account Manager and Client Service Supervisor, but then she went to work for a company that would change the trajectory of her career forever, ZoomInfo.
Anna started at ZoomInfo in 2012 as a Marketing Communications Manager and climbed the ladder for 8 years all the way up to VP of Marketing. She led ZoomInfo’s marketing through an enormous growth phase and successful IPO in June 2020. And then in November, Anna found her new home as Chief Marketing Officer at Spiff.
She’s one of the few people I know who has worked for 13+ years across only 2 companies. She makes it look easy, but we know it isn’t. This is her story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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He’s been selling something to someone his entire life. He’s been teaching and coaching salespeople for almost 20 years. He’s the Founder and President of A Sales Guy Inc. and the Author of GAP Selling, but you know him best as Keenan. The man who needs only one name. This is his story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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Jason graduated from Harvard University and Berkeley Law, he started his career as a Corporate Counsel, and then transitioned into various technology leadership roles, eventually leading him to co-founding EchoSign which was later acquired by Adobe.
Jason then founded SaaStr, a social community of over 500,000 SaaS founders & executives and over 3M content views each month. If you haven’t discovered it already, checkout SaaStr.com, it’s loaded with valuable content and resources for everyone in SaaS. Jason also co-authored the book From Impossible to Inevitable with Aaron Ross. This is his story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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Brendon graduated from Saint Mary’s College of California, started his career in Recruiting, and then transitioned into sales where he eventually landed himself at LinkedIn in 2005 as employee #15, and LinkedIn’s first ever Head of Sales.
Brendon’s next move was one that would change his life forever. He went to work for Jason Lemkin as the VP Sales at Echosign, which was eventually acquired by Adobe for an estimated $400 million. After Echosign Brendon went on to be the VP Sales at Talkdesk, now valued at over $3 billion.
Then started his own consulting firm, Cassidy Ventures, where he helped found Gong, and most recently co-founded HiFive (formerly CoSell) where he works as the Co-CEO (hf.app). He’s a frequent speaker at SaaStr and other large sales events. This is his story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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Trish is the Founder and CEO of the Bridge Group which she founded in 1998, and prior to that she spent her entire career in sales. Starting out in telemarketing, which is essentially an SDR today. Trish grew into becoming the Founder and CEO of one of the most well respected consultancies in the business and she's also the author of the Amazon best seller, The Sales Development Playbook. This is her story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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Aaron Ross went to Palo Alto high school and Stanford University. He started his career in mergers and acquisitions, had a 2 year stint in product marketing, then became cofounder of eLease which shut down and liquidated after 2 years. He then joined Salesforce.com (now commonly known as Salesforce) where he spent what I would call “the 4 years that changed his life”.
Aaron became a tremendous success at Salesforce, developing their outbound sales approach which he calls “cold calling 2.0”. This sourced over $100M in recurring revenue for Salesforce, where Aaron went on to lead corporate development and acquisitions.
Aaron spent a total of 4 years at Salesforce and drove the company through the exponential growth that has turned them into the SaaS behemoth that they are today, with shares trading at over $250 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Aaron went on to write his book Predictable Revenue which has sold 200,000 copies and founded his company Predictable Revenue which has grown to 60 employees and $4m in revenue. So he’s not just a teacher he’s also an operator. The sequel to Predictable Revenue was From Impossible To Inevitable, called the ‘growth bible of silicon valley’. He also has 9 kids. This is his story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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She started her career as a sales intern, went on to become an account executive, spent some years recruiting, and eventually went out on her own and built Betts Recruiting, which is now is the leading recruitment firm for revenue generating, marketing and people operations roles. She has over 80 employees and revenue in the millions. This is her story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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One day he was modeling CK underwear to pay the bills, the next he dropped out of college to build the sales team at SeamlessWeb in NYC (Now Seamless Grubhub), then founded SinglePlatform (acquired for $100M), then founded GoodUncle (acquired again). He was the first startup CEO I had the privilege of working for at SinglePlatform, and I would not have had the sales career I've had if it weren't for that experience. His story is one of the best and most inspiring I've ever heard. So inspiring that we had him tell it to every new hire class at SinglePlatform. This is his story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
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From Account Executive at Oracle to creating satire sales comedy on social media. Somehow finding time to create a TV show and grab his masters from Stanford. His name is Ross Pomerantz, but you know him better as Corporate Bro. This is his story.
Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
