Jason Lemkin: observation

Transcript context

…... essentially describes exactly your approach of help people understand the market, help them understand the entire landscape, and then talk about your problem. So anyway, we'll link to that episode. Has a lot of good advice there. In terms of this interview, selling-me-a-pen approach, to give people something very concrete to do. How do you actually set this up? Is it like, "Sell me your product," and then they put together a pitch for your team and they pitch you on a product? I'll tell you, until the boom, until everyone in late 2020 got so desperate to hire anyone with a pulse, almost everyone in sales had to come and they had, during an interview process, they actually had to do the pitch. They would come and you used to do it in person with this screen. You can do it on Zoom now, it really doesn't matter, but do it for real. Do it for real, and everyone would see. And everyone in recruiting change, people stopped doing reference checks, they stopped doing these tests, and they would just hire warm bodies. Late 2020, I can tell you a funny story in a second, and it was okay until it wasn't. And our hiring processes have not reverted back to pre-March, 2020, and I think it's failing founders left and right. I can't tell you, I would say 95% of the hiring I see out there, people don't do reference checks anymore, Lenny. And we can talk about when they work and when they don't, but no one does them. No one does them. You're going to invest so much... Forget about the salary, it doesn't really matter. So much time, your time, your leads, everything's so precious, to bring Jason into your company and you're going to go through all this recruiting process and you're not even going to do any reference checks? People don't even do reference checks. And they don't, they stopped doing, "Do me this demo," because they were so worried the rep would go to Gusto or would go to Deal, or would go to remote. There was no time. I got to get... This SDR has 50 offers. Lenny, we got to hire this SDR with three weeks of experience. We've got to decide today. And that's the way, and hiring does not come back. If those hires bounce, not only is it bad for you, but it's a disservice to the... It's worse for the hire. I mean, that poor CloudFlare woman that blew up with the thing, there's so many issues there we could dig into, but it's all Cloudflare fault for hiring her. Okay, let's forget about that she didn't close a single deal. Okay, so objectively, in sales, should you retain your job in sales if you can't close a single deal? I don't want to get into some of the triggering things, but remember, if you hire someone and they fail, it's all your fault. She didn't know what she was getting herself into. No candidates can do enough diligence ever. There's not enough time. There isn't enough time. And this is true all the way to the top. And so, as an investor, a board member, it's funny, when I do interviews, I do this thing, I try to be the last interview sometimes, and the founders don't want me to do it. They want me to sell. I don't want to be the last one. And what I want to do is when, Lenny, you've decided to join Ellen at her startup, right? At the end, I said, "Look, Lenny, I've talked to Ellen, she loves you. You have the job. You've got the job. What I don't want you to do, Lenny is bouncing three months after. n at her startup, right? At the end, I said, "Look, Lenny, I've talked to Ellen, she loves you. You have the job. You've got the job. What I don't want you to do, Lenny is bouncing three months after. So let's slow down, let's talk about the questions you have on your mind, and let's have a safe space where we can make sure you're going to be happy and successful there." Right? And sometimes even the founders get mad at me for doing this, because sometimes, the candidate bails. But I'm like, "I know you're mad at me today, but it is your fault. A hundred percent your fault if any of your hires fail. Don't blame them. And I'm guilty of this. I get upset when people start and they don't give it their all or they don't do it. I mean, what if you hired someone for your podcast and they decided, "You know what? I don't want to do the podcast this week. I'm tired. I'll do it..." You're so mad at them, but you should've seen it during the hiring process. Right? So, tying it back, that's why you've got to do this, "Sell me this pen." You've got to, before you hire the salesperson, have them sell your product real. Do the demo. And if they need more time, give them more time. Let them watch another demo. Don't have them feel like it's a trap or spook them. Treat them the way you would like to be treated. But if you skip this step, I mean, what's the point? You're not helping them.…

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