Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…If you talk to a great transactional VP of sales that's hiring tons of reps that do it, they'll make them do... If they're still doing this, they'll make you sell the pen fast in the process. They don't have time. They're doing 20 interviews a week, 30 interviews a week, you've got to sell me this pen. But if you're a founder and I'm talking about you've already talked to a bunch of candidates, you're down to one or two, make them, tell them, "Look, this isn't a trick. I'm not that great at telling my product myself, but I got to know that you're going to be happy and successful here. So do a demo for me." And if they won't do it, they're not a salesperson. And too many people went into sales, not... The other weird thing about B2B sales in good times is actually, a lot of these folks are not really what you might think as salespeople. They can't do outbound, they can't pick up the phone. All they know how to do is to manage leads that come in and say, "I want to buy today." And you need those people, too. Okay? And I'm not saying you don't need those people, too, but that's not always what we think of as sales. Another black box for me, and I think a lot of people with sales, is comp and quota, had actually set up their comp for early hires, and then how to actually decide on a quota. What advice do you have for figuring that out early on? What percentage is commission, what percentage is salary? All that- Yeah, everyone gets this wrong. We worry... Look, at scale, when you're extremely mature, extremely mature, and very profitable, you really got to tweak this stuff very carefully, and we could talk about that if it's relevant. But, in the beginning, we get this all wrong. What matters is, can a sales rep close more than they take home? In the very beginning, that's all that matters. It's just you selling, right? The first three months of a new rep, you're lucky if they can close as much as their take-home pay is, their OT. And so, in the really early days, my early, early day comp plan is, look, your first three months, you keep a hundred percent of what you close. Of course, that's not profitable for the business, but you've got to invest in them, right? You keep a hundred percent of what you close. And if you have enough going on in your business, usually, that's enough to put supper on the stove.…

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