🚀 Notes

What does a great VP of Sales have to do

1. Recruit: Recruiting great reps and making them successful is the #1 most important thing a VP Sales will do. Sales is a lead-driven but headcount-closed business.
2. Supporting his sales team: Working and closing key deals with them. Spotting issues before they blow up. Seeing opportunities ahead of the horizon.
3. Collaborate and scale: Get feature gaps filled. Support development of compete battle cards, pitch decks, tele-scripts, etc.
4. Develop sales strategy
5. Sell themselves: A small part of their job

What to look for in a VP of Sales

1. Experience building a team: Should have hired at least 2-3 reps that are performing well
2. Experience selling at your product’s price point: Sales of $3,000 a year products are very different from $300,000 or even $30,000 a year products.

What is less important

1. Domain expertise: It can be built quickly

Red flags

1. Too much focus on process: Yes, that is important. But they should have a deep focus on tactical steps.
2. If they don’t have any strong sales rep to bring along.

Top questions to ask

1. Team building:
   1. How big a team do you think we need right now, given what you know?
   2. Tell me about the teams you’ve directly managed, and how you built them.
   3. Who do you know right now that would join you on our sales team?
2. Deal experience:
   1. What deal sizes have you sold to, on average and range?
   2. What will my revenues look like 120 days after I hire you?
3. Collaboration:
   1. How should sales and client success/management work together?
   2. Do you work with sales engineers and sales support? If so, what role do they need to play at this stage when capital is finite?
   3. How should sales and marketing work together at our phase?