Time to fire the VP Sales? (With Raul Porojan)

Is it time to fire the VP Sales? How do you know? How do you do it? Did s/he even get setup for success?

This and much more we discuss with Raul Porojan

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (03:50) - Firing the VP of Sales: Initial Thoughts
• (04:49) - Challenges in Sales Leadership
• (05:58) - Setting and Achieving Sales Quotas
• (11:24) - Evaluating Sales Leadership Performance
• (21:09) - When to Fire a Sales Leader
• (24:41) - Final Considerations and Team Dynamics
• (25:45) - Identifying the Real Problem
• (26:35) - Deciding to Let Go of the VP
• (27:00) - Handling the Transition
• (28:06) - Founder Involvement in Sales
• (29:22) - Bridging the Leadership Gap
• (30:34) - Dealing with Team Dynamics
• (33:25) - Internal Promotions
• (39:02) - Avoiding Common Hiring Mistakes
• (40:34) - Making the Right Hiring Decision

This episode is brought to you by by Fullcast, the only AI-powered platform that streamlines your entire sales lifecycle — from plan to pay. With modules like territory and quota management, routing, and capacity planning, Fullcast adapts to your unique needs — whether you need one solution or an all-in-one platform.

Ready to see the difference? Visit Fullcast.com and mention the Revenue Formula Podcast to unlock an exclusive premium gift, just for listeners!

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Creators and Guests

Host

Mikkel Plaehn

Marketing leader & b2b saas nerd

Host

Raul Porojan

Voice of Reason in Revenue / Former Director Sales & CS at Project A

Host

Toni Hohlbein

2x exited CRO | 1x Founder | Podcast Host

What is The Revenue Formula?

This podcast is about scaling tech startups.

Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.

With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.

If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.

[00:00:00] Toni: Should you fire your VP of sales?
[00:00:02] And is it even the right time?
[00:00:05] Raul: Okay, you've made that decision. Do stop and ask yourself, were they even set up for success at all? And that does include, what is happening in marketing,
[00:00:16] and what is happening in sales ops or revenue operations. Do we have any demand gen at all? And you can't just look at a VP's function in isolation. if you've had three, four VPs burn through in two years, Maybe it's not necessarily the VP's fault. Maybe there were a couple bad apples in there, but maybe there's something bigger at hand, at stake here, right?
[00:00:35] Toni: That's Raoul Porojan. He has had his fair share of turbulences. With him, we talk about when and how to fire the VP of sales and how to find the right one.
[00:00:48] Raul: I thought that it was always good to have someone as a replacement immediately. But I've been surprised how well it works to bridge that gap for a couple months, six months or 12
[00:00:56] months. Not necessarily because the founder is going to do a better job immediately, but if it's a bad VP, they typically are not doing much of a worse job, but they're starting to really see what they actually need for a VP. And it's a good indicator for making the next hire much better. And sometimes that next hire is already within the organization, but has been undiscovered before because the founder wasn't close enough.
[00:01:17] Toni: Before we jump into the show, today's episode is brought to you by Fullcast. The only AI powered platform that streamlines your entire sales cycle from plan to pay.
[00:01:29] Customers report up 80 percent cost savings, 20 percent growth in pipeline, and 30 percent boost in RevOps efficiency.
[00:01:37] With modules like Territory and Quota Management, Routing and Capacity Planning, Fullcast adapts to your unique needs whether you need one solution or an all in one platform
[00:01:49] Visit fullcast. com, book a demo, and mention the revenue formula podcast. To unlock an exclusive premium gift just for listeners
[00:01:59] And now enjoy the show.
[00:02:01] Mikkel: Like I said, don't make, number one, don't make this about marketing. I mean, you two are sales dudes by heart. Raoul, you ran, didn't you run like SDRs and some stuff at the Project A or am I totally off here? Yeah, yeah,
[00:02:14] Raul: kind of like that, yeah.
[00:02:15] Mikkel: Yeah, sale, Toni was also managing sales.
[00:02:18] I mean, he also had other teams underneath him, but he didn't really care for them. I can tell you
[00:02:22] from
[00:02:23] Toni: No, I had, I had my favorite children and then I had marketing, you
[00:02:26] Mikkel: And then there was just like those annoying obligations he also had to take care of called marketing ops that kind of thing. Right. So,
[00:02:34] Toni: where where are my leads Mikkel?
[00:02:35] Where
[00:02:36] Mikkel: No, exactly.
[00:02:36] I feel like this is one of those episodes where. Surely there's some kind of ambush waiting. So I need to have very little talk time in this episode. I'm going to get screwed very, very badly. I also just got to say, by the way, thanks for hopping in. I was like Toni and I have been on like, like a recording rampage to be prepared for when Toni is off for three weeks, also New Year's.
[00:02:59] The holiday season, it, we just needed to prepare being off basically and unable to record. And I was like, we did the, the last recording with Matthew Vohm from RevOps Co op. I had taken the car and drove home and rain and darkness. I was like, Oh, thank God. Now we have everything we need. We can just.
[00:03:18] We can just chill. And then next day, basically everything just explodes. It's like, Oh my God, we forgot something. We need to like, we are unprofessional. What the hell is going on here? And I have two Germans with me here. So this is like, probably just doesn't really gel really well with with you.
[00:03:34] Everything has to be in order and like planned out in minute details. Why am I wrong
[00:03:39] Raul: I'm a German immigrant, so, so unfortunately that's not entirely true for me.
[00:03:44] I try, I try to be German, but I'm, I'm not really capable of doing it.
[00:03:48] Mikkel: Try and be German. Yeah.
[00:03:50] Toni: And, and I think what we wanted to talk to you about today, maybe jumping right in there Firing your VP of VP of sales. Oh, maybe, maybe the VP of marketing. Let's see. Let's see about that. I think in the end we will, I think we will get to the conclusion at the end of the podcast. Like, you know what, actually the VP of sales should stay. It's really the VP of marketing that you need to worry about, but let's get there first. I didn't want to take, you know, kind of conclusions away from the whole show here. But Roel, I mean, you've, you, you've quite some experience with that. I have some experience with that. I think we're going to have like a good conversation about this.
[00:04:22] And I think for everyone thinking about you know, this problem. You know, the reason why we're bringing this up is you're probably not alone. There are plenty of people out there having this conversation probably right now, maybe about you, if you're the VP of sales. And the reason we know is it's still one of the top high turnover roles out there that you can have in the leadership team, right?
[00:04:44] I think maybe followed by the CRO, who's sometimes, you know, it's very similar to the VP of sales.
[00:04:49] But role also kind of in your experience, do you think the, the VP of sales position is, is the one in the hot seat most of the time?
[00:04:55] Raul: Yeah. I mean, I would say the VP and the CRO, right? So in, in a lot of companies, these two are interchangeable. And I also have seen some examples, some very extreme ones where companies went through four or five of these people within
[00:05:10] a three year period, which is insane considering that it takes a couple months or like typically it takes a couple months or half a year to hire someone like that.
[00:05:18] So if you just take the hiring time in there, you're looking at average tenure of just a couple months. Or maybe half a year. And what also I've seen sometimes is that people just go from, Okay, we need a CRO. They hire a CRO. They're like, Wow, that didn't work out. Let's get rid of them. And there's these two, three arguments why we need a VP instead. And then let's hire a VP. And then they're like, Ah, that didn't work out. And the board said we actually need a C level.
[00:05:41] And then they hired that. They get rid of that person, and then the next person, they're like, okay, let's see what comes across. And that's a person that obviously pushes to have a higher seniority, and then they go in as a CRO again.
[00:05:51] And so I think that a lot of times it also comes from maybe not positioning the right level of executive, I guess.
[00:05:58] Mikkel: Do you, do you think now, you know, lately we've seen a lot of stats still about quota completion being really low sales cycles extending. Do you think this is like adding more fuel to the fire? Are you seeing more VP sales basically being gutted right now in this kind of difficult environment sales is in?
[00:06:17] Raul: I don't know that it's become more than in the, I would say, period from 2020 to 2023, but I think it's continued. And it's funny that you say the quota attainment thing, because obviously that is a big argument for keeping or firing a VP. The funny question is, like, who's setting that quota,
[00:06:36] and is there maybe something off with that, right?
[00:06:38] And maybe we can jump into that immediately, because I do think that that's one of the major arguments here. Is where does that quota come from? And I think that there's probably a lot of lag in understanding how quotas to be set nowadays. Because it probably shouldn't be done like you did it in 2018
[00:06:55] Toni: yeah. And I think this, this topic, and I think let's kind of, let's, let's open this topic and explore this a little bit. This really, you know, touches this one key and crucial area. I think that we really want to, you know, discuss it today. It's like, how do you even know that you should be firing the VP of sales?
[00:07:11] I'm kind of,
[00:07:11] how do you even, even get to that position and, or that kind of conviction and to your point, right? If, if one of your measures is. AE Quota Completion, you kind of also have to ask yourself, well, who set the quota and what's the quota set in the, in the correct way, right? And I think you know, one, one way obviously to go about it if, if we do talk about this is, you know, instead of, instead of thinking, hey, every AE should be doing a million dollars in ARR because, well, they cost me so much and I want to have a, you know. Specific ratio between what they cost me and what they're bringing. And this is the way I set quota. That's probably the outdated way of doing it, bro. What, what have you seen? What, what are, what are the good teams out there kind of doing these days in order to make sure to, you know, set the right amount that, you know, at least one, and then also the team of, of on the sales side should be, should be hitting.
[00:08:01] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:08:02] Raul: Yeah.
[00:08:03] I think there's so, and adding to that is also who's setting the quota when? So, one mistake that I see happening a lot is that Let's say I want to, I want to hire you, Toni, as my VP, and I hire you with a set quota already, you coming in and having to accept that. And it's not like during the interview process, you're going to challenge me super much on that, because you do want the role, probably. If you're really good about it, you do challenge a little bit, you try to understand a little bit, but I'm probably fluent enough to get you convinced at that level, in the interview level. Now you join the company and you have this set quota, and you're like, well, damn, like, There is very little in place for me to actually achieve that, or I
[00:08:40] don't really know how to go about that yet. And all of a sudden your confidence wanes, and after 2 3 months you're already quite into shit. So I think this happens quite a lot, and what also happens a lot is that I maybe have made that mistake in the past, and then I hire you, and I'm like, Okay, Toni, within the first month, I want you to set the quota. That's not much better, just a little bit better, because you still lack a lot of information and maybe you're able to understand a little bit after a while, but you still typically don't come into a setup that understands conversion rates well and understands, I would say, maybe the predictable revenue, even though that's maybe a bit outdated, quite well, so that's a little bit of a problem there, but when it comes to how to set the quota, I would say that What I believe in is, I try to make it as solid as possible, and I'm combining a couple of different levels.
[00:09:27] And so what you were talking about, which is, Oh hey, we need this level of production from an AE to be profitable, or let's not say profitable, but to kind of like, make the maths work, That I would call the top down, Right, so we have kind of a business plan, we have kind of a runway, and we know how much we can afford and what we need to grow to achieve this kind of Series B or whatever, or Series C. And then we go and say, oh, to achieve that we need a million quota per AE that's going to cost us 200 OTE, for example. And that's the top down view, but that's typically not enough. I would almost always try to add a bottom up view as well, which bottom up is a little bit of a different approach, which is, okay, let's look at how the funnel is being created right now.
[00:10:06] Let's look at the revenue formula, not the podcast, but the formula itself. And let's try to project into the future what input factors we would actually need for that, right? It's more of a revenue engine, revenue factory approach. And try to figure out, is that even feasible? I've even sat down even in my early days, like 10 years ago, where revenue formula wasn't even a thing yet, and I was thinking, okay, how can we make this more solid, more graspable? I was sitting with salespeople for a week, different salespeople, and stopping time on calls, for example, and, and just recording and noting what's happening, and what are they actually creating as input factors, and that was really helpful. I'm not suggesting you do that because that was quite a bit obsessive maybe on my side, but just going bottom up as well is really, really helpful. And then the third aspect I try to add as much as possible, even though I'm not a big fan of relying too much on that, is still a little bit of, I know I hate the word, but benchmarking, right? What's going on out there outside and what is attainable right now? What are maybe competitors doing? Not as kind of a limiting belief set because maybe you can outperform them, but just to have the kind of a, what is the area we're working in right now?
[00:11:11] So,
[00:11:12] Toni: And obviously kind of the whole quota attainment piece and there might be a buffer in there that might not be for the VPO sales, but you know, if, if the AEs are not hitting target, that usually also means the VP sales isn't hitting target, right?
[00:11:24] Kind of, obviously this is a main thing, but you know, people are looking at but aside from that, right, because I think I've fired folks that have maybe actually been hitting target.
[00:11:33] And there are quite a couple of other reasons, actually. When, when you think kind of back to some of the examples that you had in your career, what were other reasons why you, why you actually ended up making that decision to let someone, to let someone go in that position?
[00:11:46] Raul: I think a lot of times it also comes down to what is the VP actually there for. And in some people's view, the VP sales is actually just leading the AEs and maybe the SDRs are within the marketing team. In other people's view, in other companies, the they have all the sales unit in there, including the SDRs, maybe even including sales ops, although that's typically a bit more out there. I've even seen Dimanjan also be part of a VP sales team. I'm not sure that that's the right call, but. Suddenly it becomes much more difficult to gauge only by quota attainment, right? And just in general, I think that just putting too much on that role and too much hope on that role is one of the biggest mistakes, especially a little bit more early stage.
[00:12:28] I would say on the road to maybe 10 million AR, but even at that, even at that stage. Because what happens a lot is this is typically where you go from founder sales to founder lead and then to Maybe VP or Director, let's say. And maybe things have been going really well so far, but now you extrapolate how much is achievable and how much is doable and graspable for one VP alone.
[00:12:49] And you do that from a founder's view. So typically for the first VP hire, or maybe the second one, the expectations are, in my experience, way too high. And I have one concrete example within the last couple of months where I have a C Level that, you know, He would call himself not a salesperson, but he's actually really good at that, and he is not maybe one by trade or one by learning, but he is just naturally good at it.
[00:13:15] He has a kind of a founder's drive. He uses a lot of founder magic to be very strategic about big accounts, and he's achieved a lot. Just as someone who's not a salesperson by trade. Now he goes in there and he says, Well, I'm going to hire a VP sales and they're going to have done, they'll have done this for 10 years.
[00:13:30] They should be five times better than me. And then a VP comes in and they're actually only half as good. Right? So, kind of, where do you set the bar? And I had a lot of work to do with that founder to kind of make him understand. Actually, I think that VP is actually doing quite well for the beginning. And let's Try to set some numbers and try to set some expectations that are actually achievable if you're not a founder. And I think this is oftentimes one of the, the, the problems, if you go from a, from a view, from a founder.
[00:13:57] Toni: think kind of, you know, I think this makes absolute sense, by the way. I think one of the other examples I had was. At some point, sometimes the team is actually rejecting the leader, right? Kind of that, that can be, and it doesn't need to necessarily be a new leader coming in. It can also just be that maybe things are growing over that person's head, or you can see that they're struggling, not kept in keeping up.
[00:14:21] And maybe the organization around them is scaling more than they are scaling and so forth. There, there might be many reasons why someone is failing, but basically you know, one specific example I have in mind right now in my own career was more and more folks from the team, and it didn't seem like a coordinated, you know, cabal or something like that.
[00:14:37] It, it seemed genuine. Where coming to me, expressing some concerns about, you know, whether or not that is the right guy. And whether, you know, I'm really kind of convinced and, you know, and, and, and, you know, betting on that, on that guy. Right. So I think as, as any leader, and especially as a VP of sales, once you're starting to lose the confidence on your team, it's kind of time for you to go.
[00:14:57] Right. And and, and even maybe this goes almost into the second topic that we have here on this. This makes it almost an easy situation to, to rip someone else and replace. Right. Compared to. Hey, they're not hitting target. They seem to be doing everything right. They have the respect of the team. And trying to rip someone out of that situation is a whole different ballgame, by the way. But, but those are things that I've seen where, where sometimes the leader just doesn't work out, right? If, if there's anything else now, top of my head is, is really this. And there's some truth to it. And some of that is BS, but you know, you, you might need to have a leader from zero to 10 million, from 10 to 50, from 50 to a hundred.
[00:15:37] And, and those folks need to kind of change a little bit over time. Right. And people are talking about the, the, the dashboard VP sales, the you know, spreadsheet VP of sales. And I think there's a little bit to it. But I've seen it less, less, less often. And it's less tangible to me also to kind of, to make that call.
[00:15:54] It's like, Oh, I actually checked the clock. Now it's time for you to go kind of, we, we, we reached this new AR milestone and now you need to go out. Right. But those are the things that kind of, I usually see .
[00:16:04] Mikkel: So one question I have, maybe before we hop into the next step is I've seen VP sales folks who will actually create, they will open opportunities and close deals while managing a sales team. Is that, you know, is that also kind of something you will judge a VP sales on? And, and is there a time even when you need to let go of that expectation?
[00:16:25] Just curious as well to figure out that dimension as well.
[00:16:28] Raul: I think this ties actually into the spreadsheet and dashboard VP discussion.
[00:16:34] Maybe contrary belief. I actually don't believe in that too much. I think there's some merit to it, but I think good people are typically, or great people are typically able to be great across different stages and to add value and maybe, What happens a lot of times is that a little bit more specialization is needed, or a little bit more of a factor to different accounts or different markets, and then you hire that, or you, you complete the skill set of a team.
[00:16:59] But I've rarely seen someone who was actually exceptional on the way to 5 or 10 million ARR, and then all of a sudden was rubbish after that. This is not how it happens typically, right? And that's also with the, Toni, you were going to jump in.
[00:17:14] Toni: No, I was like um, my, my, my thinking was actually yes, there are those kind of steps and stuff but to Mikkel's question on terms of, Hey, is it a good or bad sign of the VP sales is, you know, opening and closing some deals. I think. It shouldn't be an expectation. They shouldn't be having their own quote on their own hat.
[00:17:32] You can do this in like a team lead situation where you kind of create a new team and you have like only three AEs and a leader, and there may be kind of do something like this. But I think it can be a great signal you know, especially as a new VP coming in. If you, if you are taking it up on yourself to actually, you know, go to the extent to learn the process, to be able to close win something that, that shows me as a leader, okay, you know what, this guy is actually into the details you know, he's, he's running just himself or herself. And that makes me actually feel a little bit better about like, okay, it's not one of those VP of sales that is just, You know, too bored, too long in the industry to jump again into another product, into another sales pros. And actually, you know, actually I don't care about that stuff. Right. So I've, I've, you know, seen those folks as well, kind of, they, they only want to do the leadership part, but if they only do the leadership part, and that's kind of my point here very likely they will struggle to, you know, tweak the details that are sometimes necessary in order to lift the sales performance.
[00:18:35] Transcribed Which is kind of happening on a different level. So if someone is actually kind of jumping in, closing some deals, at least I have a little bit of a better stomach feeling about it because yes, that, that I can expect and it kind of feel better about this person being able to, you know, attach himself on the more granular level and then, you know, build, build a better structure on how to sell to whom to sell and so forth.
[00:18:58] Right? So, so I see it as a positive signal, but I wouldn't see it as a necessity.
[00:19:02] Raul: And I was actually going to go into that as well. I agree with that 100 percent to add to that. Another reason it's really helpful to so one of the things I always said to the founders I work with is a VP or even a CE level in my opinion, a CRO They should be able to close deals. They don't necessarily have to, but they have to be able to at
[00:19:23] any moment jump in and help the team or just help the company succeed.
[00:19:28] And part of the reason is obviously because it can be very messy and sometimes people get sick and you need to jump in. And who's going to need to jump in? Obviously the person steering the ship, so
[00:19:37] that's cool. But then also it's one of the factors that I think correlates a lot with gaining respect in the team, especially when you come in as a new person, but also just being a source of advice and a source of help
[00:19:49] and a resource for the team.
[00:19:50] And I've seen leaders who are Actually really capable leaders and able to make people great when the people know that they, they, they, they could help them out and have their backs at any moment, the best people I've seen. And I've always tried to do that as well as I always wanted my team to, they know that I don't do sales every day, but they also know that I could do it every day, at least as good as them, or maybe better if I, if I actually had to help them or if I had to jump in.
[00:20:17] And the best people I've seen were like that, so they had the respect of the team. You were someone who they know they've sold before, or they actually have showed that, or they went on a call with them, they're like, okay, I can actually learn from this person. And all of a sudden, your advice is gonna run into open open doors, and, and people are gonna respect you, and it's gonna make it a lot easier to survive the first six months just facing the team, right?
[00:20:39] Mikkel: I think it's also like I've, I've experienced this, like if, if a leader rolls up the sleeves and truly delivers on top of their responsibility, you know what you, I started at least admiring that person a little bit and feel like damn, I, I'm not sure I could do that. And I think that's just the dynamic as well.
[00:20:57] And I was wondering, obviously the counterpoint to this whole piece, since we're talking about firing is. That person shouldn't obviously dilute their focus on something else, right? And that, that's why I thought it was an interesting question to kind of ask here.
[00:21:09] And, and I think the whole point of knowing is probably more important than how to let go of that person, which is the next, the next piece to come in with, have we kind of exhausted now the uh, is it time to talk a bit about, you know, actually firing that VP of sales?
[00:21:24] Raul: So when do you know that that's not the case, right? And I think some of it is extrapolating the opposite of what we were talking about, right? So we were talking about gaining respect of the team and gaining traction quite fast. I also really like what you said, Toni, which is understanding the level of detail, like where what's really happening in deals and what are really the talking points, what are really the pressure points within the funnel and what our customers really like. The less understanding of that a VP has, either by doing sales themselves or just by participating in demos or whatever they're doing. There's different ways. But the less I see of that, the more that's an indicator of that might not work out because they're maybe too detached from reality.
[00:22:05] I also wholeheartedly agree with the I kind of am over it VP kind of situation, which you were starting to describe, Toni, which is, man, I've done this three, four times, I just want to manage and kind of like, Do my
[00:22:17] leadership thing and whatever that means.
[00:22:19] And to be honest we have to admit that in the world, we're in, I always say that like 90 percent of CROs think that they're a top 50, sorry 50 percent of CROs think that they're a top 10 leader or a top
[00:22:32] 10 manager, 50 percent of CROs and VP sales think that they're a top 10 sales ops person, for example, right?
[00:22:38] So the level of kind of Dunning Kruger effect within that role is really high. And so what I really like is to put people to the test and see, do they really understand what's, what's happening there? Do they really, can they really just make people better? So one of the things I really like to look at is, has the team become any better with that person at all?
[00:22:57] Not necessarily their quota. To me, that's not the most important thing, unless it's like one do or die deal, which is quite important. But if there's five, 10, 20 salespeople, can I see any movement within them? Because if not, it means that either the person we had before was better. Or no leadership at all is better.
[00:23:14] Like
[00:23:14] maybe we should just have a team leader or something.
[00:23:16] Mikkel: What does, you know, the team getting better mean in this scenario? Just to be, I think it's good to be clear on that.
[00:23:22] Raul: So I think there's a hard factors and the soft factors and hard factors are obviously quota, which we've talked, we're talked about. So let's assume you had a six months of no VP or one year of no VP, whatever. Or maybe you had a shit VP before, or someone that didn't work out at all before. Well, you should be seeing in the quota attainment, but also in the underlying factors, which is the revenue formula, conversion rate, sales cycle, number of deals, deal value, you should see some movement upwards. Now, caveat to that, if you can't manage that, or if you don't have insight into that, which I think most people don't really have, That's a side topic, then maybe you should also work on that. But there should be some movement in there. And then there's the soft vectors, which you were talking about before, Toni, which is, like, are people kind of more motivated?
[00:24:06] Like, what are you receiving back as a feedback? One of
[00:24:08] the things that I would absolutely do if I was a founder, I hired Toni as my VP, is I would be talking to Mikkel. Hey, Mikkel, what do you think of him? Like, you're the AE, you've been with us for a while, you've seen three VPs pass through. How's it going?
[00:24:19] Now, That doesn't mean if you put your thumbs down, I'm immediately going to fire him, but I do think these are very important soft vectors.
[00:24:26] And the more no's and the more thumbs down I get from the team, that's probably not a good sign. Or at least, I'll try to understand why. Where do they come from?
[00:24:33] Toni: And, and I also think you know, let's, let's let's maybe kind of get to this point of like, okay.
[00:24:41] I probably, I probably need to, I probably need to fire that person. Right.
[00:24:45] So I had this a couple of times in, in my career where, where I realized, Oh no, I need to do this thing now. And, and, you know, one of my learnings, by the way, is like, once you, once you start sensing it, that it's, that's the start of the end.
[00:24:58] Like it's very difficult to get out of this again. You can't put the VP on a pip. It's like, forget about it. It's, it's, it's, I don't believe it's going to work like this. Right. But let's just say you get to the point where this is what you want to do. And it's a quite sensitive situation, right? So Raul, what's your, what's your experience?
[00:25:15] How do you best, how do you best execute this?
[00:25:17] Raul: I would like to add one more thing, because we didn't get to that yet. Okay, you've made that decision. Do stop and ask yourself, were they even set up for success at all? And that does include, without bashing that, Mikkel, I'm looking at you, but that does include what is happening in marketing,
[00:25:36] and what is happening in sales ops or revenue operations. Do we have any demand gen at all? And you can't just look at a VP's function in isolation.
[00:25:45] And surprisingly, if, well, actually not surprisingly, but if you've had three, four VPs burn through in two years, Maybe it's not necessarily the VP's fault. Maybe there were a couple bad apples in there, but maybe there's something bigger at hand, at stake here, right? And so what happens is that the learning should maybe be get rid of the VP. I'm not disputing that. But you maybe have to do something with this machine in the first place. And that doesn't mean hire the VP marketing, but maybe set up revenue operations the right
[00:26:13] way, right? Maybe do rework the CRM. Maybe do rework the process. Rethink your channels. Maybe something is off with the ICP or your go to market in the first place. And just looking at the VP in isolation is not going to fix it. I do think this is the biggest mistake, actually, a lot of founders make, is just slotting new VPs in and out with the same old machine, repeating the same old mistakes, and they're just set up for failure.
[00:26:35] Let's assume that that machine was in place, and you're like, okay, we need to get rid of the VP, right? But I do think that this is one of the biggest questions you need to ask yourself in the first place.
[00:26:43] Toni: So then let's get rid of the VP now, now that we have established like, Hey, it's his or her fault, machine or no machine, you know, you get to the point where like, okay, you know, this guy needs to go, like, how do you do it in the best way?
[00:26:56] Raul: open that up for me. What do you, what do you mean? How do you do that?
[00:26:59] Toni: So, there are some, there are some things to consider. Should you be already looking for a replacement, like,
[00:27:07] in, in, in parallel, right? Should you, or should you rather come out and, you know, make that, make that decision and, and free up the team? Maybe jump in yourself for a little bit again. You know, especially if you're the founder CEO that has been doing some of the selling kind of that feels like an easy thing sometimes to do, just jump back into the VP sales role again. Is there maybe someone else in the team you can elevate, right? There's so many different, so many different routes around this. That, that people just need to consider because it's like, it's such a delicate thing because you're messing, you're messing with something really important for the organization.
[00:27:40] It can set you, it can set you back six to 12 months if you, if you mess this thing up, right? Imagine you're kind of pulling out the leader. That maybe was not performing, but was loved by some of the folks. And then this team is getting demoralized. You're like, you know what, these guys are making wrong decisions all the time.
[00:27:57] I'm also going to throw on the towel, right? There, there, there's so many delicate things that I think people need to think about when they're making a decision like this.
[00:28:05] Raul: Okay. Yeah, you're right.
[00:28:06] And so opening this up to two different topics right now, I've actually come around on this topic because I have been myself surprised at how well this has worked, that you do need to make sure that there is no vacuum and that you're, you're minimize the chance of being set back six to 12 months, as you were talking about, either because you're hiring someone new as a replacement immediately, or maybe because there's not going to be anybody. And one thing that I've seen work so well is, if possible, jump in as a founder already
[00:28:38] while the VP is still there. So, when I start sensing, and you're the scapegoat now, Toni, but when I start sensing that Toni might not be the right fit, but I'm still questioning myself. Immediately, my instinct should be, hey, I need to get closer to sales, right?
[00:28:51] Maybe, hey, Toni without, I don't know what relationship we'll have in that moment, but like, hey I just want to be a bit closer to sales. Can I sit in during the weekly meetings? Like, let's I want to come with you on a couple of demo calls or whatever, like just understand a bit more. That's going to help me with my decision, but it's also going to help me just be closer to the team and make it so I have more leeway in getting you out fast if I need to.
[00:29:11] Let's say that the feedback with you is going to be really bad and I don't have the sense that you're going to stick with us for another month or two and be a motivated employee, then I can immediately jump in and take that over.
[00:29:22] And initially, maybe a couple, five, six years ago, I didn't really believe in that.
[00:29:25] I thought that it was always good to have someone as a replacement immediately. But I've been surprised how well it works to bridge that gap for a couple months, six months or 12
[00:29:34] months. Not necessarily because the founder is going to do a better job immediately, but if it's a bad VP, they typically are not doing much of a worse job, but they're starting to really see what they actually need for a VP. And it's a good indicator for making the next hire much better. And sometimes that next hire is already within the organization, but has been undiscovered before because the founder wasn't close enough. And the problem that you have as a founder is that the VP is not always going to tell you, Hey, I actually have this person in my team.
[00:30:01] They're ahead and they're much better than me. They should be doing my job. You should promote them and take my job away. That's not going to happen. And I've been surprised how often that has worked. And just, just keep the ship to at least a minimum level. Founders are able to do a lot of things really well, even if they're not like 20 years experience VPs and, and steer the ship quite well.
[00:30:20] Toni: And this is actually also my experience by now is you want to, I'm not sure about this sitting in part, by the way, because this is already there for self fulfilling prophecy, you know, to a degree, you're already kind of taking some of the responsibility.
[00:30:34] Of the authority away from the guy but my experience is pull the plug, you know, rip, rip the bannet off do it make it make it public obviously kind of be as respectful as possible to the person but my experience is that, you know, these AEs, they're, they're not, they're not stupid, they're, they're, they're smelling when there's blood in the water, when there's going to be blood in the, they're, they're gonna smell that.
[00:30:56] And and it's actually better to come to a conclusion instead of, you know, having this dance around thing happening. And I also learned it's better for a team to not have a shitty leader than to have a shitty leader. It's actually, it's actually much better to do it without than, than with actually. And then there's a couple of different ways of how you can bridge something like this. It could be that the day to day is being done by. And I've done this by the way, it was a, it was a sales ops guy in the U S that also was a seller before, and he did some of the, the management stuff. And I came in to do some of the leadership stuff and so forth, and that bridged us two, three months for us to actually have a good time finding the right next VP and then installing that person, right?
[00:31:40] And in my experience, that's the best way to go about it. And then you will always have some of the AEs will be like, Hey, you know, it was actually not his fault. It was actually Mikkel's fault. Mikkel didn't deliver enough opportunities. You know, there's no inbound, no demand, you know, why you're blaming this guy.
[00:31:56] And I think in those, those situations, seek out the honest conversation with that AE and say like, yeah, I think you're right. But here's one, two, and three things that I also think weren't right about the about this specific candidate. And yes, we can't keep blaming every part of the engine, but everyone individually also needs to be delivering.
[00:32:15] Right. And, you know, taking these conversations upfront will also help you, you know, manage morale, especially if it feels like an unfair thing that you've been doing there.
[00:32:24] Raul: Yeah.
[00:32:25] of the founders I've seen, and that was also really admirable and had a very big effect on the team, is they actually went back six months later, or maybe four or five, and the team was not very happy about the firing of the vp. And, but they were still staying there for different reasons. And he was saying to the team, look, I, I'm hearing you now. I'm starting to understand that maybe it was actually wrong to let that person go. Unfortunately, we can't get them back, so it was a mistake from our side. I would like to include you a bit more on, on the next hiring, right? And we're already hiring, so maybe you and you come in with a, with a, with an interview, and let's make sure that doesn't happen again. And that's also a way to mitigate the Getting off someone beloved who was actually a right fit, but you made the wrong decision, right?
[00:33:07] But unfortunately not everyone's able to do that, especially founders a lot They're not either close enough to the team or they don't have the personality or the the gusto to kind of go into a team Say hey, look I fucked up I should not have fired. Toni was actually great. I was just too stupid to know.
[00:33:21] I can't go back, but let's make sure it doesn't happen again, right?
[00:33:24] Toni: Yeah.
[00:33:25] Raul: I have one situation, though, that I do think is quite tangy, though, and I don't know how to go about that necessarily, so maybe you have an input, is when the VP brought with them their 3, 4, 5 salespeople, and they're now suddenly there still. And what I've seen almost always is that ends in a catastrophe because typically those people are good AEs and you have, you run to the risk of like the three, three, four of the five best salespeople leaving with the VP. And unfortunately, oftentimes that went the wrong way.
[00:33:56] Toni: Yeah, because it will, I mean, you, I think you actually judge, should judge also VPS sales and new VPS sales. Whether they elevate the the baseline of the talent you know, after they come in and then usually happens by them bringing one or two of their Of their folks with them many, many times.
[00:34:14] That's what I've seen. And I think that that bond, that loyalty, I think that's very difficult to break. I think if you have someone that just doesn't. Makes a lot of bank in the organization and maybe it also takes the VP of sales a little bit of time to find the next follow on gig and, and offer something similarly, you know, appealing to that AE that, that kind of, that will play a role. But yeah, I, I would not underestimate kind of the loyalty you have there, but also, and, and that's the other thing like loyalty and favorism also always. Create someone on the opposite end that is, that is being starved or that isn't getting the you know, time in the sunlight that, that he or she might deserve, right?
[00:34:52] So what I've seen also many times, like while, while the team looks like that there are two or three strong performers. And suddenly some of them break away. What tends to happen, that some of the remaining team actually step in and suddenly also become strong performers. So there are, there are sometimes ways how, how this can actually balance out. I mean, obviously, hands down, best way to keep your AEs is Pay them better than anyone else can pay them with an also, and that means, and specifically that means you know, have them hit target which they know is not, it's not a common thing. It's a rare thing to have. You as an AE and maybe, you know, large parts of the team hitting target again and again and again. If you can have that workplace for them, I think it will be difficult for any VP to peel them away from that, by the way. All right. So, so that's, that's how I would probably try and try and think about it. I think Mikkel, you wanted to say something.
[00:35:44] Mikkel: just wanted to add and say, I think it's interesting, the conversation you had, because there's always going to be the decision. Do you, do you have a replacement ready? Or are you already far in a secret process that's been run with an recruitment agency and you're saying, Hey, actually, it can be a good thing to not have that, you know, person step in right away and maybe not even have started because what, what I've experienced is you will start seeing people step up to the plate.
[00:36:05] Toni: Yeah.
[00:36:06] Mikkel: And to your point, Raul, I think some of those you might not have noticed, and some of them might not have realized it was an opportunity. So I think that's a pretty cool kind of way to, to go about it. And, and maybe it's a natural segue to the next, because just listening to your experience and conversation here, we're talking obviously about a VP of sales.
[00:36:23] But what about hiring maybe a director? Because you, you might be a little bit earlier. And that person can either grow to become a VP or you can hire over that person. Like how do you, have you thought about any of these, any experience with that to kind of set up the, the team for success by thinking a little bit about the seniority here?
[00:36:40] Raul: Yes. Love it. So to me, that is the preferred answer. If I had the VP step out, I would be immediately looking at the team and be like, okay. Maybe actually one of the entourage that the VP has brought with them is actually much stronger than the VP has let them has let them succeed so far. And I've seen that happen once or twice, that the entourage has then stepped in as that. Or obviously, as you said, maybe some of the others have been suppressed and, and have not grown to where they should be. The problem is, what has also happened sometimes, is that if the VP actually was a really bad fit, and they've been there for a while, the team kind of, like,
[00:37:16] assimilated themselves to, like, not a good level, and so the kind of high potentials if you look at the last six months, The, the, the, where the VP was not good, the team also has kind of lost their way. And so in this kind of situation, it can be really difficult to understand that there is actually one or two high potentials there that could, or, or already actually able to make the jump to director or even VP or from head of whatever your seniority levels is, it's all muddy anyways in startups. And that's another reason for me as the founder to just jump in and be close to the action in these kinds of situations. Because just going by the performance alone, when everyone is shit, is not really a good indicator for anything.
[00:37:59] Toni: So maybe let's move on to the, to the last part of the, the journey here. You figured out the person's not the right one. You figured out how to extract that person from the team. But now it's also about, you know, filling, filling those shoes again. And yes, maybe you find someone in the team that you can elevate.
[00:38:16] Fantastic. Like, especially if this person is also loved by the team and so forth, that's like the elegant solution that all of us are always kind of hoping for when we run into a situation like this. But let's just say best case scenario is not there. Let's just say you have to hire someone from the street, kind of what would be the steps for you to go through to make sure that. This time you're not messing up because I think also many people know it's really expensive and really dangerous and risky to keep switching those folks in and out. Kind of, it's not good. It's not good for everyone basically involved. So how do you get out of this vicious cycle of like, Oh, this didn't work out okay again, and then it didn't work again. Like, how do you, how do you make the right decision or how do you help yourself at least increase your odds of making the right decision next time?
[00:39:01] Raul: I actually do agree that this is a very pivotal point, typically for a startup. And there are some really bad ways you can go about it. That's kind of will lead you into a very dark path. And then there are some good ways to go about, which will, even if the next tire is not going to be perfect yet lead you to a better path.
[00:39:18] And I'll start with the bad one. Cause that's kind of a gut reaction that a lot of people and founders have is a lot of the times. fear, right? So this is, fuck what's happening. This is not good. And they kind of see the whole scenario going out. It's like, oh, it's going to take me six months to find that person. What if they're not the right person? And all of a sudden they freak out. And so what do you do if you freak out? You hire the dude from SAP or you hire the girl from Google, right? And this is
[00:39:44] typically the worst thing you can do, right? By the way, side tangent there. Hopefully, none of the people from Google will be offended there, but that's probably the least person I would hire as a startup, as a director or VP, someone from Google or from SAP or whatever.
[00:40:00] Or from this, I don't know, Snowflake or whatever, right?
[00:40:02] Toni: No, it feels like the safe choice.
[00:40:04] Raul: Yes, go for some safe
[00:40:06] choice.
[00:40:06] Toni: safe choice. Yeah.
[00:40:08] Raul: Because first of all, obviously you want to cover your ass also in front of the board. You can be like, well, look, like even this guy from Snowflake, her from Google didn't work out. This is a bad way to go about it. So this is not the moment to try and cover your ass. And this is not the moment to be overruled by fear. And maybe that's another episode. I actually think that's a great episode. Why the Google guy is not a great hire. But let's forget about that, right? The, the, the good way to go about that is.
[00:40:34] You have to really start to understand what led you to that decision. And that takes typically a bit more analysis than most founders are comfortable with or able to do. It's actually quite a skill to be able to do that. So I think this is where, kind of, the pathways branch off into how good are you at this, actually. And really get a Also feel from the team, like get a lot of feedback on that. If possible, talk to the person that you let go, but sometimes you can't. So it depends on how, how you parted ways there. What I really like also is bringing that into the hirer with you into the hiring with you. So the next person I'm going to talk to, I would like to talk to them also about what didn't work out with the last candidate. Why did it not work out? What mistakes we made? And typically at a kind of executive hiring level, you want to The discussions are very different from a junior hiring level. It's actually a good thing to talk about what didn't work and, and people are much better at knowing what they can bring. Obviously, salespeople are very salesy, so you're always going to have that as
[00:41:28] well, but have an open discussion with them.
[00:41:30] It's like, look, the last person that we had didn't work out. They were actually more of a hands on person. They were not really good at steering the team. What do you think about that? That's a good discussion to have with a new VP candidate. So that's one path. And then the other is. Unfortunately, there are a lot of the default mode again is, okay, the questioning the role itself, right?
[00:41:48] So maybe a VP role is not what we need. Maybe we need a director. Maybe we need a CRO. Maybe we need to combine demand gen and sales, whatever. This is also not always the right case, right? But I do think it's a good step to analyze. Was that person set up for success? And was that even the right position that we needed in the first place? And to get a little bit of feedback here, maybe from the person, if you can, or from the team or from consultants, whatever. So that either you change the role in the first place, or you change your setup. Maybe you need to build up revenue ops in the first place, or maybe you need to build up the management first for that person to succeed, and then change your approach to how you hire that person. If you don't do any of those, you're very likely to repeat the same mistake.
[00:42:30] Toni: And actually kind of when you do the analysis on what went wrong and you maybe come to the conclusion, well, we didn't set the person up for success. Meaning maybe there wasn't enough demand to begin with for that person to actually hit targets. And this can still be, you know, yes, you know, you went down the path, you kind of let the person go, you kind of realized, Hey, that wasn't quite super fair here. I think you will still be in the position, you need to find a leader for that team. Like you, that, that will need to be a thing that needs to be solved. And, and those folks will cost what they cost, by the way, you can't, you can't like, you know, change that that much. But I think what you can do at least next time is to change your expectation set
[00:43:09] and kind of say like, you know what, actually And you don't even need to tell the VP that by the way, but you can, you can change what you expect them to, to achieve and also by when, right. Which then will hopefully set you up to kind of get into this position where you're not starting to doubt the person's capabilities, despite that, you know, him or her being maybe actually good and then going down the path again of like, Oh, you know what, this doesn't work out, but rather understand like maybe the problem was actually somewhere else. I still need someone to lead the team and, you know, we need to, together, we need to work on, on writing the ship and on, on fixing the engine in order for this you know, role to be successful going forward, right? I think it I think it can, this can be a way to do it. I think another piece of advice I have is especially when you went through a bad hire and then you needed to kind of, you know, undo that decision, you also as a hiring manager, even as a CEO are going to be a little bit questioned by the team.
[00:44:07] Like, can he even find the right person? Right. And I think in those situations and I think you mentioned this previously, Raul, yes. Pull in some, some representative of the team into the hiring process. Right. And this can be dicey and you need to be careful with that. And you don't want to have, you know, the, the, the asylum run by the inmates.
[00:44:25] Right. You kind of need to watch out here a little bit. But it does give you some, some trust points. If you can say, Hey, this person was vetted and approved and thumbed up by you know, those three people that the team respects. Right. And, and, this is how you not can only make sure that maybe the transition into the team is going to get better, right?
[00:44:45] Sometimes you have this all organ rejection. Where like the team is just rejecting the new person coming in. You kind of help with that. You help with the trust in the team that you can make the right hiring decisions because these three representatives of the team have already said yes. And likely probably gonna end up making a better decision to begin with.
[00:45:03] Right. So those are things I think, at least from my side that I've used and experienced myself, that, that helped me make a, make a better decision after the fact. Hmm.
[00:45:12] Mikkel: What do you think about this Jason Lemkin? He has this trick he does. I don't know if he does it at the VP levels, though. I'm just curious to hear your take on it, but halfway through the interview, he will look at them and go, Raul, will you actually, will you do the work? Well, are you happy to go in and do the work and then just sit back, back and wait for the answer?
[00:45:32] If they, if they go like, I'm, I mean, I'm going to be the strategic person doing the strategies and then delegate and it's like, Oh, I'm I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to bring you in. What, what's, what's your take on, on on this as part of the interview?
[00:45:47] Raul: I don't know how he does it and what he extracts by that. I typically don't believe very much in these kinds of, you say one thing and then this exact thing needs to happen, or it needs to go like this. I don't think there's a magic bullet question. I really don't think so. I think if hiring, it is really a lot about the The overall person and just one question, man, so much is about, like, especially if you're talking remote, it can just be, oh, they misinterpreted the question, and then
[00:46:14] what, all of a sudden, because they didn't give you that exact answer, you're not going to take them.
[00:46:18] And unfortunately, I do see a lot of people going by these things. I think it makes for good clickbait material, to be honest, and it makes for good LinkedIn material to kind of, like, grow his following, and I like the stuff he writes. But That is what it is to me. That's not how real hiring works in my opinion.
[00:46:32] And so I'll share one thing though. I don't know if it links to that, but one of my mentors, actually my first mentor, one of the things he taught me is especially he always says two things. So number one is the air gets thinner when you get up there. And he's like, okay, what does that mean? The air gets thinner.
[00:46:46] It's like, yeah, as you, as people grow more senior, like the air gets thinner. Okay. Explain that. And what he means by that is, And I, I have seen this as well in evidence. So, people are kind of like distributed by a normal distribution, right? There's kind of people who are not so good, and then there's people who are really good, and then there's a lot in the middle. Okay, he says, okay, let's cut that because what you want is you want people above the median. You want people above the 50%, you want the good ones. But even those are actually again distributed in a normal distribution. And that is according to the situation that they're in, which is a very complicated way.
[00:47:16] He drew that on a board for me eight years ago. A very complicated way of saying good people, even those are good, not in a vacuum, but they're good in different situations. And you have to, hiring means obviously cutting down the bottom 50 percent cause they're probably not going to be good anywhere or 40 or 50, 60%. But then find out if that person who is good, are they going to be good in your situation? Then there are some very, very rare ones, the top 5 percent or so that are going to be great no matter what, because they're really adaptable or they're really good at learning or whatever. They have some kind of meta skills, but the, the vast amount of good people. are not good in a vacuum, they're good depending on the situation. Some guy might be great at Google and SAP, which is part of the reason I probably wouldn't hire them for a startup, but they're not for a startup. And then another person is great when then there is no minimal, when there's minimal setup and they need to be building a lot, but they're really shit when there's like all kinds of things set up and they just need to execute. And this is really the thing to me is like, where exactly within this normal distribution, Do you need someone and what can they do? What can they not do? And that to me is wholesome hiring. It's less about like one magic bullet question.
[00:48:25] Mikkel: Hmm. This was like the first firing episode ever we've done, by the way.
[00:48:31] Toni: I think we talked about firing the VP marketing
[00:48:33] Mikkel: Yeah, but we never did it. We never did it. That's the good news. We started with the sales. The VP sales was the first to go out of almost 200 episodes, by the way. Can you believe that? Isn't that Crazy, crazy, crazy.
[00:48:44] Raul: So you should do one with Mikkel. Mikkel, when do you hire, when do you fire the VP
[00:48:47] marketing?
[00:48:48] Mikkel: I'm not sure I can make it that day, but it sounds interesting. Maybe we can have a guest or something.
[00:48:52] Raul, this was really great. Thanks so much for hobbing on and sharing your, your insights on how to fire the VP sales, when to do it what to look out for that stuff. I think that was really great. A lot of utility in here. So really appreciate you coming on.
[00:49:04] Raul: Thank you guys.
[00:49:04] Mikkel: for,
[00:49:05] Toni: Thank you, Raul. Thanks everyone else for listening. If you like this, hit follow, subscribe, send it to your friends. Really kind of helps
[00:49:12] the show
[00:49:12] grow. It's
[00:49:14] and if you didn't know, it's free also. So, wonderful. Everyone, have a great day, and thank you very much. Bye bye.
[00:49:21] Raul: Thank you.