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Most founders get sales rep productivity wrong - and it kills their growth.
If you’re thinking about hiring your first sellers - or wondering why the ones you hired are struggling to hit their numbers - this one is for you!
In this week’s focal podcast, I unpack in detail how to build a repeatable sales playbook that actually works with Russ Thau who drops the sales productivity formula he used to scale multiple companies past $50M in revenue, including taking Box, Intercom, Envoy, SuccessFactor, Airtable, and Launch Darkly.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
02:09 - Why time is the one thing you can't fabricate in sales
03:43 - How many calls can someone realistically take per day?
03:53 - The control experiment: Why founders should do calls first
06:22 - First calls vs. follow-ups: How to benchmark properly
07:46 - Why reps need 30 minutes prep time per call
09:39 - The critical 5-minute buffer between calls
09:49 - How call complexity changes everything (Intercom vs. SuccessFactors)
11:55 - Why follow-ups must happen within hours, not days
12:07 - The context switch problem with outbound prospecting
14:24 - How long founders need to keep selling alongside reps
14:56 - Why hire two AEs at once, not just one
17:22 - The 90-day signal that reveals rep quality
19:04 - When to hire your first sales leader (3-4 AEs)
21:26 - The biggest mistake: Forgetting reps are human beings
22:31 - Why 10% conversion rate is your absolute minimum
24:46 - The velocity math: 100 calls to close 10 deals
26:02 - How conversion rates reveal your true ideal customer
28:20 - The $10-30K deal size "no man's land"
33:00 - Why companies set $36K minimum deal sizes (the math revealed)
37:19 - How to escape no man's land and sell bigger deals
43:07 - Enterprise vs. velocity rep skills: What's the difference?
45:04 - Understanding "the real deal" and your sales methodology
48:55 - Why sales productivity is simpler than you think
If you’re thinking about hiring your first sellers - or wondering why the ones you hired are struggling to hit their numbers - this one is for you!
In this week’s focal podcast, I unpack in detail how to build a repeatable sales playbook that actually works with Russ Thau who drops the sales productivity formula he used to scale multiple companies past $50M in revenue, including taking Box, Intercom, Envoy, SuccessFactor, Airtable, and Launch Darkly.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
02:09 - Why time is the one thing you can't fabricate in sales
03:43 - How many calls can someone realistically take per day?
03:53 - The control experiment: Why founders should do calls first
06:22 - First calls vs. follow-ups: How to benchmark properly
07:46 - Why reps need 30 minutes prep time per call
09:39 - The critical 5-minute buffer between calls
09:49 - How call complexity changes everything (Intercom vs. SuccessFactors)
11:55 - Why follow-ups must happen within hours, not days
12:07 - The context switch problem with outbound prospecting
14:24 - How long founders need to keep selling alongside reps
14:56 - Why hire two AEs at once, not just one
17:22 - The 90-day signal that reveals rep quality
19:04 - When to hire your first sales leader (3-4 AEs)
21:26 - The biggest mistake: Forgetting reps are human beings
22:31 - Why 10% conversion rate is your absolute minimum
24:46 - The velocity math: 100 calls to close 10 deals
26:02 - How conversion rates reveal your true ideal customer
28:20 - The $10-30K deal size "no man's land"
33:00 - Why companies set $36K minimum deal sizes (the math revealed)
37:19 - How to escape no man's land and sell bigger deals
43:07 - Enterprise vs. velocity rep skills: What's the difference?
45:04 - Understanding "the real deal" and your sales methodology
48:55 - Why sales productivity is simpler than you think
Creators and Guests
Host
Pascal Unger
Co-founder / Managing Partner at focal.vc We lead pre-seeds in North America with up to $1M: We exclusively back AI native software startups at the very start. Thereafter, we help them get off the ground better and faster, supported by a network > 200 GTM executives. That's our singular, unwavering focus.
What is focal podcast?
Pivotal early lessons of today's best startups.
Welcome to the focal podcast where we go deep with some of today's best founders and operators on ONE crucial lessons from their early days.
This podcast is not the usual "highlight reel" startup podcast that goes one inch deep across 20+ topics. Rather, we ask the questions you’d ask if you were sitting across from them. No fluff, just the real, actionable insights you’d get if these founders were mentoring you 1on1.
We cover topics including:
- What worked and why.
- Costly mistakes and how they fixed them.
- Frameworks that truly made a difference.
- Tactics to move faster.
- What they wish they’d known sooner.
- And much more!
"Only a fool learns from their own mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others."