In a way, the B2B software ecosystem has evolved from "the best sales team won" in the 80s/90s to the "best product team won" in the 2000s to "starting with great product and adding great sales" in the 2010s. I wonder where the AI era will take us. Learn more in this episode of

Congratulations! You’ve just been hired as the CRO of a unicorn. Unfortunately, many CROs have witnessed their companies lose that status over time, often due to macro conditions beyond our control. This happened to Carina Brockl, the former CRO at Aurora Solar and Stage 2

A trend I am observing in selling AI-native products is a reversal of the “Bring Your Own App” philosophy in the Office of the CIO. This is particularly true among buyers in the tech sector. What seems to be happening is that the CIO is challenging the organization on whether

A common error when transitioning from the Discovery to the Presentation stage of the sales process is the content of the first slide. Many founders and early sellers often start by bragging about their company. We have over 1,000 customers. We have 500 employees. We have

I’m blessed to speak with C-level executives from numerous successful companies on a weekly basis. Through these conversations, I've noticed some interesting patterns. One consistent observation is the size of the team at which leaders typically stop personally interviewing every

Learn more about the details behind this process in this episode of #TheScienceOfScaling podcast with Chris Merritt, Founding CRO at Cloudflare: https://t.co/uRj9Yy7H2U #SalesLeadership #StartupTips #SaaS #B2BSales #CRO #GoToMarket #RevenueGrowth #ScalingStartups

Sellers need to understand not only the unique organizational priorities but also the individual priorities of each member in the decision-making unit. The framework below defines common players in the decision-making unit and elaborates on some general tendencies regarding

Startups often move upstream and/or transition from selling a single use case to a more platform-oriented sale. When that happens, teams often underappreciate the correlating complexity of the decision-making process spread across multiple constituencies. (1/3)

Early sales hires, especially during the pursuit of product-market fit, need to know how to summarize market feedback and communicate it to product and engineering teams. Here’s an interview exercise I conduct with a first sales hire candidate. Between the first and second

Check out the episode to learn more about how he built the GTM foundation for this historic company: https://t.co/jxGHM9KOkR #SalesLeadership #StartupTips #SaaS #B2BSales #CRO #GoToMarket #RevenueGrowth #ScalingStartups #TechLeadership #QuotaSetting

3. In his initial conversations with customers, Greg focused on understanding their goals, demonstrating how to achieve those goals with the product, and allowing customers a week or so to experience its value before discussing pricing and other commercial terms. This approach is

2. When considering your next career move, it's essential to evaluate the industry category as equal to, or even more important than, the company itself. If you choose the right category but the wrong company, you may still find yourself with opportunities from the eventual

1. Greg got his big break when Eric Yuan, the founder of Zoom, asked a former WebEx executive for recommendations on who to hire as his first salesperson. Greg was suggested because, as a young account executive at WebEx, he proactively pitched the idea of expanding WebEx into

In this episode of #TheScienceOfScaling, I sit down with Greg Holmes, Founding CRO at Zoom and Stage 2 Capital LP, to discuss how he established the go-to-market (GTM) foundation for one of the most well-known tech companies in the world. Here are a few key takeaways: (1/5)

How to push the scope of you early customer interviews to a contract and pre-payment in order to de-risk "false positive" signals before investing engineering time. Learn more in this episode of #TheScienceOfScaling with Mike Gamson, the Founding CRO at LinkedIn

@ryanmilligan90 @Stage2Capital @QuotaPath See the details of Ryan’s approach in this article: https://t.co/aVydTmY1sK #AI #GenAI #SalesLeadership #StartupTips #SaaS #B2BSales #GoToMarket #RevenueGrowth #ScalingStartups #TechLeadership

@ryanmilligan90 @Stage2Capital @QuotaPath The most impactful utilization of AI was not on the execution but on the ideation and strategy formation. 1.Building the workflow itself: “AI has helped us actually build a number of these flows,” Ryan said. “Show me how I get this data here, here, and here.” 2. Campaign

@ryanmilligan90 @Stage2Capital @QuotaPath Much of the output was generated from simply well-executed, detailed process automation. 1. Use AI to refine the ICP based on recent customer segment retention and pipeline performance 2. Use AI to find the best next 100 accounts to target based on the current account list and

Imagine being able to build a sales pipeline without needing to hire a sales development representative (SDR). That's precisely what @ryanmilligan90 achieved with his team at @Stage2Capital portfolio company, @QuotaPath. At QuotaPath, Milligan devised a strategy to execute

How to test whether PLG will work for your startup in a day versus a month. Learn more in this episode of #TheScienceOfScaling with Mike Gamson, the Founding CRO at LinkedIn https://t.co/majPNrj1mu