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It's time to talk about hiring for b2b SaaS. With the change from 'growth at all costs' to efficient growth, hiring is more important than ever.
In the episode, we get into
***
In the episode, we get into
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:41) - Why talk about hiring?
- (06:53) - It's time for the "suite and tie" folks
- (12:51) - Testcases are kinda useless
- (16:51) - What is it you're hiring for?
- (22:08) - Get a local
- (27:40) - Will you do the work?
***
This episode is brought to you by Growblocks. Finding and fixing problems in your GTM shouldn't take weeks. It should happen instantly.
That's why Growblocks built the first RevOps platform that shows you your entire funnel, split by motions, segments and more - so you can find problems, the root-cause and identify solutions fast, all in the same platform.
***
Connect with us
✉️ Newsletter: revenueletter.substack.com
Creators & Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Mikkel Plaehn, 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: Hi, everyone. This is Toni Hohlbein from Growblocks. You are listening to the revenue formula with Mikkel and Toni. In today's episode, we are talking about hiring for the logo, the playbook and other mistakes you simply cannot afford anymore. Enjoy.
[00:00:17] We were
[00:00:22] Mikkel: So close to having an intro, you realize. And then you're like, actually, let's talk about this thing. We're not going to have in the episode. So close. We can always cut this thing out. That's true. That's true. The thing is, I was, you know, the. I don't know if you do this, but my habit is something happens either at work or off work.
[00:00:43] I make a mental note and go like, oh, this is gonna be the intro,
[00:00:47] Toni: and then you And then you
[00:00:48] Mikkel: forget. And then I forget, and then I remember and then I forget. And then I remember, and now I'm
[00:00:52] Toni: have this, I have this thing with LinkedIn, actually. Honestly,
[00:00:56] Mikkel: it's like
[00:00:57] Toni: it's either just before I fall asleep on the middle of the night, I have like a post idea and like I get really Yeah, yeah, It's gonna be fucking great. And then no chance I forgot about this. I'm not gonna turn over, you know, put on, you know, the phone and get all distracted by, you know, some slack I'm gonna see that's gonna kill my sleep. So I know, I mean, this is so good. I'll remember. I'll wake up the next morning.
[00:01:19] The only thing that's there is like, I remember I had a great idea. great idea. Yeah. And now I'm screwed. But I don't know, I had it the other day, like yesterday, we literally talked about a sequence we were going to build. And I also caught up with David afterwards to try and see if I could find the idea somehow, because I had this, I just had the feeling it was an for the invite, for the, for the Yeah, because we're doing a meetup in London, uh, June 19th or something like this, uh, check it out. It's going to be on Toni's LinkedIn, Grobuck's LinkedIn, uh, it's going to be But anyway, I, I had this like,
[00:01:50] Mikkel: this,
[00:01:50] could be such a great outreach to do. Didn't write it down. Completely forgotten. All, you know, so now I need to start over.
[00:01:57] And it's, you know what it reminds me of?
[00:01:58] Toni: That we're both getting old and forgetful?
[00:02:00] Mikkel: So that, but also hiring. Like, when you have a great candidate, what do you do? You hire that person. And I can vividly remember, like, one of the best hires I made. It was basically an intern. And we had a hiring freeze, and I just went to our CEO then and said, You can do whatever you want, but I'm going to hire this person full time because she kicks ass and not hiring her will be the biggest mistake we'll make as a company.
[00:02:30] Hired her, kicked ass, uh, now works at a massive, uh, buy now pay later company, public. So let's leave at that. She was an intern? She was an intern?
[00:02:41] or yeah, yeah, she was an intern. Yeah. So, uh, we're going to talk a bit about hiring, uh, and specifically. Some of the big mistakes and before you kind of, you know, stop this episode and go like Hiring do I really want to listen to an episode about that?
[00:02:55] Usually I get like a cool analysis
[00:02:57] Toni: want to.
[00:02:58] Mikkel: Yes, you want to like we do all these crazy things with super non obvious takeaways on how to scale the sales team and blah blah Why are we going to talk about hiring today?
[00:03:08] Toni: Well, because it's kind of key, right? So I think there's a lot of, if you think about the, the, the situation that has been developing over the last couple of years.
[00:03:18] Lots of layoffs, uh, lots of turnover and the VPs, every VP, but it's not only the VP of sales, VPC is maybe a bit secluded, but VP marketing, CMO, CRO, everyone's getting just fired and hired and fired.
[00:03:30] so it is also pretty important that you kind of pick the right people. and yes, you know, sometimes when you're kind of laying off people or firing people, you might make those decisions based on the wrong, uh, insights,
[00:03:43] And this is what we usually talk about.
[00:03:45] Like, Hey, it's VP sales fault that there's no pipeline, yada, yada. So don't fire him or her. but today we do want to talk about, uh, uh, you know, the, the quality of the folks that are
[00:03:55] getting in and how to
[00:03:55] figure out what actually fits and what maybe doesn't fit for you. Right. So many times when I kind of chat to some, um, friends in the network, it's really
[00:04:04] Hey, we're, we're, you know, looking for a new VP of sales.
[00:04:07] Do you have someone? What should I be looking for? You know, what are kind of good things to, to kind of check for? and I give always kind of some random advice and we kind of today, basically kind of consolidated
[00:04:17] Mikkel: It's also, you know what, it's always going to be better. Next time you get the question, you get to say, have you listened to this episode?
[00:04:22] And they go, no, here's the link, go listen, then let's talk.
[00:04:26] But,
[00:04:26] but I think it's also like, um, there's, there has been this shift and I saw, um, Dave Boyce, uh, had a keynote at some PLG summit over in California not too long ago. And he talked about, uh, Jack. So he's not calling it GAC or growth at all costs.
[00:04:43] It's Jack. That's how he pronounced it. I kind of liked that part. So we came from that point in time where it was growth at all costs. You can just hire someone. If it didn't work out,
[00:04:52] guess what?
[00:04:52] Toni: got it. Okay. it. took me, I was, I was just thinking about Jack forlike a 9 5 minutes.
[00:04:57] Mikkel: Tuned out. People don't
[00:04:59] know
[00:04:59] Toni: And people don't know this, but we actually, Yeah.
[00:05:01] Pause the episode for minutes
[00:05:03] Mikkel: Yeah. And I trimmed that part.
[00:05:05] Toni: out the silence.
[00:05:07] And
[00:05:07] then I
[00:05:07] caught up. Jack, meaning the G
[00:05:10] pronounced as a J.
[00:05:12] I had
[00:05:12] a funny call yesterday, uh, with a gentleman called Jerry.
[00:05:17] But,
[00:05:17] um, you know, spelled G E R R Y. Gerry, if you're listening, sorry. Um, and only afterwards someone told me he's not pronounced Gary, which I was like doing the
[00:05:29] whole
[00:05:29] time.
[00:05:30] Mikkel: time. yeah.
[00:05:30] yeah.
[00:05:31] Toni: instead. Um, anyway, so this wouldn't be helping you to hire
[00:05:35] great folks if you mispronounce their names. Not, not
[00:05:38] Mikkel: Can we get back to the subject?
[00:05:39] Toni: Dave Boyce, Jerry, Jack.
[00:05:41] Mikkel: So when we say Jack, it's not a who, it's a what, right? I just wanted to point out that back then, when we were in the Jack times, you could just hire and fire at will.
[00:05:53] But I think for those companies, well, yeah, sure, blah, but for those companies who always, you know, said, we're going to have a efficient and profitable business. I don't think they were that, had that kind of attitude towards hiring and firing. I think they were way more stringent in the process around this stuff.
[00:06:11] And I think a lot of companies in our industry, at least now are waking up to that part. Um, and I think, yes, layoffs, you know, there was a small peak, I think Q1 this year, but you will need to go and hire folks.
[00:06:23] Toni: I think this has been a problem always. You know, hiring the wrong people, uh, hiring the right people. Um, I think the reason why it's kind of much more pronounced right now is, um, you can't afford to make another hiring mistake. Not kind of on that level, because then you're dead, potentially.
[00:06:37] Um, and because you have gotten rid of so many potentially really great folks, which wasn't their fault,
[00:06:43] You now need to try and find a way to hire equity grade folks back, by the way. right So that's why this whole hiring piece is, is top of mind for many people right now. And that's why we are, that's why we're talking about it.
[00:06:53] Mikkel: Yeah. So one of the, and I think basically the catalyst for us talking about this was the whole, how do you navigate hiring two senior folks and, you know, hiring for the logo?
[00:07:05] That's, that's like the first, first piece,
[00:07:08] Toni: Yeah. And I got the idea about that thing from another wonderful friend I met in Belgium the other week.
[00:07:15] I actually kind of shout out to you, man. Um, but generally speaking, so really kind of, um, And the, and the, the case here really is, um, big company growing a lot. And we're talking big company in startup terms, right? 50 to a hundred million. and, uh, you know, this was the problem that he kind of, um, you know, saw growing a lot, um, and then getting to this point where they felt like, okay, let's, let's get the adult adults in.
[00:07:45] You know, not just the gray haired CFO that has done a couple of gigs before and can be trusted. No, no, no, no. Now we want to have the people in suits and ties, from big corporate,
[00:07:57] IBM, uh, Oracle, Salesforce,
[00:08:02] what have you. It's time
[00:08:04] now
[00:08:04] for the adult adults,
[00:08:06] right? Um, and, um, basically those folks coming in and, um.
[00:08:12] Obviously clashing with what's necessary to be done right then, right then, right? So there's, there's number one, there's some I would say probably skill gap happening coming from uh, Salesforce where they're now like 30 billion. 40 billion in revenue. Right. Going to a hundred million. It's like a joke.
[00:08:32] For them, honestly, a copy. No. It's like, oh wow. That must have been a massive demotion for you in Salesforce to get demoted to only a hundred million
[00:08:41] dollar business.
[00:08:42] Yeah. Um, or division basically in Salesforce. And you know, so this is one thing. Um, but then the other thing is if you are a high level.
[00:08:50] Executive and successfully operating IBM, Oracle and Salesforce, for example. Could be many other businesses as well. So we just, we just chose those three. The, you know, one of the top skills that probably got you to where you are today is probably also how you're navigating the
[00:09:07] org, how you're political and how you're playing all of that game. how you're communicating up and so forth. That's probably, you know, a large reason, not the only
[00:09:16] reason
[00:09:16] that
[00:09:16] kind
[00:09:17] of got you there. Is that though going to be the skill that's going to make that specific business successful?
[00:09:23] I'm not
[00:09:23] so sure. And the one quote that kind of he gave me, which I thought was hilarious, was like, Toni, once everyone is starting to BCC each other, Then you know, you're in trouble, you know,
[00:09:37] so that's
[00:09:37] basically what happened in that organization.
[00:09:39] Right. So that's, that's just a, that's just a big problem. Um,
[00:09:44] to,
[00:09:44] um, you know, if you're looking for those super corporate ones, but then there's also a flip side or kind of a similar situation where you're basically looking for, um, the cool
[00:09:55] logos.
[00:09:56] Mikkel: exactly.
[00:09:57] Toni: So let's just say we're not talking about the dusty old IBMs and
[00:10:02] Salesforce and IBM,
[00:10:03] Mikkel: and IBM. Wow.
[00:10:04] Yeah.
[00:10:05] Toni: I'm sorry, Mark.
[00:10:06] Mikkel: Oh, now he's never going to go join you in the
[00:10:08] Toni: yeah, I know. Um, uh, but still, uh, versus, you know, the. The most recent unicorn in your, in your backyard, um, that you maybe admire and, you know, that has produced a bunch of cool executives that you kind of really look up to. and now you get the chance to hire, you know, someone that has not only been in one of those unicorns, but maybe
[00:10:29] several, And, um, And then basically like, wow, what a get,
[00:10:35] um, you go to the,
[00:10:36] you go
[00:10:37] to your board. You just, you just, you don't,
[00:10:40] no,
[00:10:40] you don't even, you don't even pitch the
[00:10:42] person. It's like, hey, is the LinkedIn profile,
[00:10:44] you know?
[00:10:46] And, And, so and so why is that a problem though, Mikkel?
[00:10:51] Mikkel: well you just don't know if they carried the water there? Like what did they actually do there? And I think I've, on the interview side, caught myself in this pattern of looking at, Oh, they were that SaaS company who went IPO or Series B, C, whatever. Amazing. Love the work they're doing. We got to talk to this person.
[00:11:11] And
[00:11:11] I quickly found out that when I spoke with them about the stuff they'd done, It was very kind of shallow.
[00:11:19] You
[00:11:19] couldn't really get to the, the substance of, well, why did you do this and how, what were the reflections of strategy, blah, blah.
[00:11:25] You couldn't really get to that level because they were just there and it happened. Someone else did the work and they delivered, you know, you know, a percentage point
[00:11:32] of that project and high five, we all did it kind of right. Um, so they're able to get those accolades. on their resume while actually not having benefited from that
[00:11:43] Toni: experience
[00:11:43] Yeah.
[00:11:43] So the, the, the point is, yes, they were there, but where they, A big part for the reason of the success
[00:11:53] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:11:53] yeah, yeah, So when
[00:11:54] Toni: of, that's almost the
[00:11:55] Mikkel: LinkedIn description, two times IPO, five exits, whatever, whatever, it's like, you know, you got to dig a bit deeper to understand
[00:12:04] Toni: Yes. Have you just been around for the ride, basically? Were, were you lucky. So, and I think those are two separate issues, right? On the, on the very big, big corporate executives coming to a cool startup. I think there is a, um, there's a cultural
[00:12:20] fit problem. There's all kinds of problems, right? Um, and you know, what is it really you're hiring for? I think on the, um, you know, cool tech startup exec going to the next big thing, potentially, uh, move. And I think the, the real question there is actually really, um,
[00:12:40] Did they actually figure something out in this other company?
[00:12:43] Um,
[00:12:43] and can they do the same
[00:12:44] for you?
[00:12:45] That's
[00:12:45] actually
[00:12:45] the question that you need to figure out with them. And, um, what we discussed and not sure kind of where the idea came from.
[00:12:51] I'm not sure if you came up with this, but basically kind of, um, you know, what, what people are currently doing in hiring process to, um, have them present like
[00:13:00] cases or test cases with them and stuff like that.
[00:13:04] And we think this is kind of useless. Uh, and instead. They should be presenting the actual case of what they actually did in this organization. Um, and then basically kind of saying, okay, I was, I don't know, the VP of marketing. This was the situation when I entered. those were the choices we had. We decided to do X, we decided to execute it like this.
[00:13:30] We failed. And then we figured out we actually need to do Y instead, and then
[00:13:36] poof, unicorn,
[00:13:37] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:13:38] Toni: right? That
[00:13:39] is, that is, that's actually what you want to see there, right? And, um, if someone comes in and says like, well, you know, we did PLG and then suddenly a thousand, a thousand people signed up. That is probably a, um, a sign that that person actually didn't do the
[00:13:54] thinking, actually didn't do the, okay, this is what we are looking at.
[00:13:58] and you know, this is how we're solving it. And then the continuation of that case is actually, okay, cool case. Thank you very much. Love it. Based on what you already know about my company, the thing that you want to, you know, join now, how would, how would that apply
[00:14:16] to us?
[00:14:18] Mikkel: exactly.
[00:14:19] Toni: Because then the next thing is what you want to kind of check for is. And I've seen this so many times, um, uh, you know, people growing up, let's just say in an organization that has outbound and it worked for them. They went SDR, super successful, became, I don't know, the VP of whatever,
[00:14:39] super
[00:14:39] successful. Join the next company, um, try and roll out the same playbook and it doesn't
[00:14:44] work.
[00:14:45] And then they're stuck and they look around. It's like, I don't know why this works. We're doing the exact same thing that we did before. Well, that's the fucking point, right? Sometimes it just doesn't work like that. If you haven't been part of actually building it and crafting it, you might not know why it actually
[00:14:58] worked.
[00:14:59] And that's that's going to make it extremely difficult for you to adapt it
[00:15:03] to the next thing.
[00:15:04] So that's why in that, in that case study. Yeah. You want to have them lay out, you know, how they built this thing
[00:15:11] and then how
[00:15:12] it's going to be different in the new scenario, which is your your company.
[00:15:16] Mikkel: I think it's also like we, you know, In many cases, you try to construct a, let's say, fair way to assess candidates on the same merits.
[00:15:25] So you want to have maybe some of the same questions and that's why often I think folks, they end up with this case. And I think the problem having been, you know, on the side of actually then building the case and the interview process, you just got to make a million assumptions and then it's worthless.
[00:15:41] And then you end up in a situation where a lot of candidates, everyone can think. Everyone can reason to what would be a logical way to do it. But I think putting down in words how you would do something and actually doing it. is wildly different. And you have to realize that those folks you're interviewing for, they're, and I don't want to sound cold here, but they're kind of commodities and they all have their unique traits.
[00:16:05] And you, your job in the recruiting process is to figure out, well, who has the right composition of traits that you need? And that's where actually flipping the case around to be a case on the candidate rather than the company can be super helpful. And I think to your point, it's totally fair. You gotta then pull it into the realm of what you as a business need to accomplish and have some of those tougher conversations to gauge whether they can actually execute those things here,
[00:16:31] Toni: I wonder many, so a lot, and I have one of this, uh, when I was hiring, um, for, for those kind of roles was like, do they get that what they have done so far is different from what they're going to do now?
[00:16:45] Mikkel: Yeah. Do
[00:16:46] Toni: Do they get
[00:16:47] that?
[00:16:47] Mikkel: get
[00:16:49] Toni: Because, because many
[00:16:50] times they kind of don't, right?
[00:16:51] And,
[00:16:52] and I think this is also a little bit, um, It's also a little bit, depends also, and we're almost kind of moving to the next thing. What is it that you're hiring
[00:17:01] for? Right? Um, because you can, and this is, let's just say the VP of sales role. You can, um, go out and hire the playbook guy or girl, Hey, 10 million.
[00:17:15] This thing works. I need to take it now from 10 reps to, I don't know, 50 reps to get to a hundred million in Axios. Um, and, um, you know, we need to kind of move from, uh, AE, Rockstar, Superstar have shown proven process. To average Joe can do it too,
[00:17:36] right? We need now a playbook guy or girl coming in,
[00:17:39] just, just kind
[00:17:40] of rolling this thing out.
[00:17:42] Um, and skills you want to look for there is like, well, have they, you know, what kind of playbooks are they bringing with them? And, and then the easiest is like, oh, okay. Did you do this motion in our ACV before,
[00:17:56] basically?
[00:17:57] It, you know, all of this. Industry, blah, all of the, you know, don't worry about that.
[00:18:02] Like
[00:18:02] they can, they can learn that. But have you done high velocity outbound in SMB
[00:18:08] before? No. Okay.
[00:18:11] Different,
[00:18:11] Different,
[00:18:11] playbook. Uh, have
[00:18:13] you done, uh, enterprise wine and dine before? No. Okay. Well, you know, it's not gonna fit.
[00:18:20] Right. Um, so you want to have some people that. Have like, you know, some of those rails that they bring with
[00:18:27] them. Sure. They need to adjust them by the way. Sure. They need to adjust them. So it's not kind of a complete blind copy paste, but you want to have some of that, um, playbook, you know, that they can bring a little
[00:18:40] bit and they need
[00:18:41] to adjust when I was hiring at that point. I was like, I think we were 10, 15 million, uh, hired a VP of sales.
[00:18:46] I. I basically kind of spend a lot of time telling him, Hey, you don't need to come in and reinvent the wheel. This thing is kind of working great.
[00:18:56] If you want to, you know, do everything different, then I think we should just have that conversation now. And then, you know, we can, you know, move on. This thing is working.
[00:19:04] It needs to be tweaked. It needs to be tuned. And hey, your, your past experience kind of would fit that. Right. And that profile then kind of goes in, does all of that stuff and then starts caring a lot about the small details.
[00:19:17] Like, Ooh, you know, if it could just shave two days off of
[00:19:20] the meeting book to meeting held thing, we could make so much money, Toni.
[00:19:25] Wouldn't that be great? You know, that kind of conversation at a, you know, 1 million company.
[00:19:31] It's
[00:19:31] like,
[00:19:31] are you retarded? I'm sorry.
[00:19:34] Mikkel: We've saved two days. I mean, come on.
[00:19:36] Toni: So,
[00:19:37] and, and that's, you just need to understand, okay, are you hiring for the
[00:19:40] playbook guy, right? And then the other thing is, well, are you maybe hiring not for the playbook guy? Maybe you're hiring for the zero to one guy,
[00:19:47] right? Kind
[00:19:47] of
[00:19:47] the, Okay, there's nothing here right now.
[00:19:50] Uh,
[00:19:51] you
[00:19:51] need to build it. You need to figure this
[00:19:52] thing out.
[00:19:53] And then the question is not going to be, have you executed those playbooks successfully as those wonderful companies? And yes, we want to be in this mid market ACV, outbound, inbound. Have you done this before? Yes, here's the playbook. That actually doesn't matter. The question is, Have you written the
[00:20:10] playbook? Were
[00:20:11] you the one actually there writing this
[00:20:14] stuff and doing all the wrong and right things to kind of figure out your path to finally find it and then, then execute it? That's a different conversation you need to
[00:20:23] have, right?
[00:20:25] And that's, that's just kind of one of those things, kind of what is it that you actually need them to
[00:20:29] do, um, and then figure out, uh, if they, if they can you know, have proven that they've done this exact thing before and then bring it back down, right?
[00:20:38] Mikkel: you know, I think it also, it also heavily changes your approach as an interviewer. If there's a case where to your point, hey we have a playbook, it's working. Those questions you're going to ask are going to be fundamentally different than, hey, we need to do this thing.
[00:20:54] Um, we know other companies are successful, but we don't have a playbook. We need to start like from scratch. All of a sudden you can talk about, Hey, outbound is kind of. changing. It's way harder to book meetings, yada yada, AI is coming along. What changes are you seeing that fundamentally, you know, changes the old playbook, quote unquote, right?
[00:21:14] So, so I think, you know, you gotta also watch out for that dimension as well, uh, when you reflect a bit over what you're gonna do. Do you think though it's, and maybe this is a complete sidetrack, if it's an entirely new playbook, is it, is it really worth it to go out and hire versus Doing it internally first or what's what's your thought there?
[00:21:36] Toni: it depends a little bit on the magnitude of this, right? I think if you're really thinking like pre product market fit,
[00:21:42] I think it's
[00:21:42] a, I
[00:21:43] think it's a, it's a, it's a founder, forget about it.
[00:21:45] Kind of, that's just what it is. That's what needs to happen. And yes, there can be some, some help from kind of different angles, but that's, that's what needs to be there. Um, I think if you're, for example, doing the, a new market entry.
[00:21:56] US Entry, um, hire someone. Like, sure, um, follow all the, the advice out there where at least one of the founders should relocate to the market and yada, do all of that stuff.
[00:22:08] But get someone local. Um, get someone with a local name.
[00:22:15] Mikkel: that
[00:22:15] Toni: helps ideally one syllable. It's like
[00:22:19] Bob Jack
[00:22:22] Mikkel: You don't want to use the initial
[00:22:23] Toni: You don't want to do like Mikkel, Mikkel, want do like, Mikkel, Mikkel. sketch already right there
[00:22:32] You want to have someone that speaks the language over there
[00:22:34] that kind of
[00:22:35] like, you know Knows what a w 2
[00:22:36] Mikkel: means and
[00:22:37] you
[00:22:37] Toni: know knows all of these things, right?
[00:22:38] And then I mean hilarious mistakes we made like we paid People monthly
[00:22:44] Mikkel: Yeah. Yeah. That's the story.
[00:22:46] Toni: Like
[00:22:46] in the
[00:22:46] U. S. that's a big
[00:22:47] no
[00:22:47] no You pay them
[00:22:48] fortnightly. It's like, uh, and people are basically saying no en masse to us in the interview process. You're like, what are you, you know, what is it?
[00:22:56] It's
[00:22:56] like,
[00:22:57] I want to have my paycheck twice a
[00:22:58] month.
[00:22:58] You know, it's like,
[00:23:00] okay,
[00:23:01] uh, get someone local,
[00:23:03] right. Kind of to
[00:23:04] do that stuff for sure. Um, and, um, and try and, you know, if you're a European company going to the U. S. Try and get someone, uh, a VP or GM kind of type over
[00:23:15] there that has
[00:23:16] dealt with a European company before. Because you know what, we are fucking different.
[00:23:19] Yeah.
[00:23:19] And
[00:23:20] we are weird. And, uh, and you know, Denmark goes, uh, home at 5:00 PM latest, which is 11:00 AM on the other side, and they're like,
[00:23:29] what's going
[00:23:29] on?
[00:23:30] Mikkel: Was there a
[00:23:31] Toni: five drill in
[00:23:31] the
[00:23:32] office?
[00:23:32] But
[00:23:32] yeah. ,,But
[00:23:33] also
[00:23:33] the other way around. Right. Kind of when you go from the US to the uk. Get someone local in the UK that has worked with a US company before and not someone that, you know, has worked for Salesforce
[00:23:46] Mikkel: yeah.
[00:23:47] Toni: But someone that has actually worked for a startup where they're maybe the the first AE or the first leader on the
[00:23:53] Mikkel: ground
[00:23:53] founding AE,
[00:23:54] Toni: To, you know, building
[00:23:55] this thing up from the, from the bottom up, right.
[00:23:57] Kind of, you need to kind of find those profiles.
[00:24:00] And
[00:24:00] I think what has changed now versus 10 years ago is, um, we're starting to be able to call those different stages, separate names, and also even talent is starting to be fluid in
[00:24:09] this and
[00:24:10] they're kind of understand like, Hey, I'm actually really good between this and that stage.
[00:24:14] Um, and I've, you know, this to prove it and so forth, right?
[00:24:16] so this is kind of, um, probably what you, what you want to, you know, look for and hire for. Um, and the other reason why you want to get local folks is, and this is kind of a tale that I think is true, but I'm not a hundred percent sure, uh, especially Europeans, they look at those US folks and in the interview process is like, wow. What they have done already. I mean, they're only 19 years old, but three exits, you know, I've built so many companies that like, you know, wow, he's basically our next unicorn star player. And then they arrive and, uh, and you know, uh, not bad. Right. I think, I think there's a lot of more BSing going on in, in, in the U S interview process.
[00:24:59] And then how people are able to display themselves. So if you have a local leader, you know, you They will be able to see through this way
[00:25:04] better. Um, and I mean, you have the same issue with even hiring that local leader, not getting too, you know, awestruck. It's like, no, that kind of, pretty, you know, I got to say the U S is a bit more sophisticated and all of those go to market things.
[00:25:19] So I think we should learn from them, but you still need to discount what someone is saying about what they have done, uh, when it comes from, from the U you think it's, so you've done hiring on both sides, you lived in New York, right? What about those companies in the States that want to go to Europe though, right? Because it might be then the opposite where it's a bit, maybe underwhelming.
[00:25:39] Mikkel: Because at least speaking for Denmark, there's a couple of cultural things that means people will be maybe too humble in some cases, right? But no US companies moving to Denmark.
[00:25:49] No, no, but it's, come
[00:25:51] Toni: That probably just
[00:25:52] doesn't exist. But it's just to say you're gonna have very different cultural, uh, elements at play and how do you, how do you navigate that when you come from the states into Europe?
[00:25:59] Yeah. So I think, I think it's different for the UK, UK, US is kind of similar. And I think people understand each other. And I think it's also, it's a little bit easier to transplant the US leader into the UK and have them be successful. Not only because of language, but also because of culture. I think where it breaks for many people is if they then want to go to Germany or France.
[00:26:20] I think that's where it breaks. Yeah, It's like Germany is a completely different beast. and France, I don't know, it's, I don't, it's not even on this planet,
[00:26:27] basically.
[00:26:27] So, I think that's, that's really what's difficult, and again, um, you will need to have a local leader, I think, for this thing, to help you out with this.
[00:26:36] and, you know, once you, you know, survey the landscape, you kind of also adjust your expectations. So, I sometimes had SDR calls. with German SDRs and US SDRs back to back. And I actively needed to adjust what I was expecting, uh, expecting between both. It just in the interview process. But you know, anyway, kind of, we actually talking one level up, not the SDRs necessarily.
[00:26:58] Right. But kind of, this is, this is, I think what we, um, what we're seeing kind of a lot on kind of making sure that people are not too awestruck talking to those, to those
[00:27:07] Mikkel: Americans.
[00:27:07] Yeah. But I also kind of reflected over, like, if you, So our audience mainly will be international already, or pretty soon will be, right?
[00:27:16] And I think just the pattern I've noticed when stateside goes to Europe, the entry point is almost always UK, either Ireland or England, right? It's one of those two, and it's just, it's a bloody market for talent. Yes, you get the tax benefits, but also, Germany, France, if Spain and Italy is a thing for you, you know, very different
[00:27:39] Toni: very different
[00:27:40]
[00:27:40] Toni: But then, yes. And then actually kind of just kind of to maybe wrap up the last item here. Um, and this was inspired by, um, uh, what's his name?
[00:27:50] Jason Lemkin.
[00:27:51] Uh, he recently wrote this. Um, so his, his, the way he's doing interviewing, both for his fund and for SaaStr itself and for like for portfolio companies and stuff, um, he has a normal conversation. Like an hour, normal conversation. And then in the, in the middle of it, just flat out, he says, uh, okay.
[00:28:12] Um, but will you do the work? And, um, basically he's asking, you know, because you have all of those impressive people that you can hire with all these impressive CVs, and has been at all those
[00:28:26] CVs and they've been at those companies and maybe they've figured it out. The real question is, well, figuring this stuff out. wasn't easy. I'll just say that. Climbing that ladder, it wasn't easy.
[00:28:41] and at some point in your career, you kind of don't want to go back to the beginning
[00:28:45] necessarily. like back to product market fit. It's like, no, Yeah. It's all kind of, I'm a VP sales. Let's put you back into an AE role. Um, and, um, and for some roles early on, that's kind of what's required. And especially in a more, uh, you know, cost efficient world, We can't just have a 200, 300K, so we're talking U.
[00:29:07] S. salaries, uh, leader, sitting around hiring two, three other leaders for 200K who then do
[00:29:14] something. right? You can't do this anymore. So you need to have, uh, let's just say you're hiring a CFO or hiring a VP of sales. Are they actually going to sit down and do the work, um, that they, that they obviously can do?
[00:29:28] But they can decide whether or not they want to do it. Um, and he's basically just straight out asking, it's like, Hey, do you, are you actually going to do the fucking work? Are you going to do not what's required or something, but are you, are you going to pick up the phone and actually, you know, have some of those customer conversations yourself?
[00:29:43] Are you going to sit down and build the Excel spreadsheet with the budget yourself? Are you going to, you know, are you going to do all of these things yourself? Um, and, um, I think it's also perfectly fine if someone says no, and then, you know, there's just an understanding that that's going to work and that should filter into your, your decision here.
[00:29:59] But really asking this question, I think this is really, it's, it's a really good
[00:30:03] one. Um, and sure people can BS their way out of this, but still, I think it's important. And especially when you're thinking about a VP of sales that has done this, um, four or five times now, maybe six or seven times, do you really. You know, what, what do you think, how excited is that person going to be about learning yet another random product, uh, random ICP, random talk track, doing all of that stuff again. he or she will be more interested in like setting up the team, the structures, being the leader, doing all of that, all of that stuff, which is basically, you know, they can take the, from company to
[00:30:42] company.
[00:30:44] But all of the actual product stuff is kind of sunk cost.
[00:30:49] The second you leave the organization, it's like, Oh, okay. I can delete this from my brain.
[00:30:53] Um, and, um, and kind of getting back into this and kind of figuring all of this out and learning all the talk tracks. This just tedious
[00:31:01] work, right? And how keen are you really to kind of restart the clock on this whole thing?
[00:31:06] Are you, Do you really have it in you to do it one more time? Are you sure about
[00:31:09] that? Um, and I think those are, those are other questions in the same, same realm, so to speak, that I think people should be
[00:31:17] asking.
[00:31:17] Mikkel: asking.
[00:31:17] Yeah. I can save you for a lot of pain, right? If you bring in that person in and you actually kind of go, Hey, Bob, I kind of need you to close this deal because there was no one else.
[00:31:26] And
[00:31:26] he goes
[00:31:26] like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to carry a quota. Like I carry my team's quota and they need to be the ones closing.
[00:31:31] I still, to this day, remember our VP sales. back in the day would occasionally close, you know, a few deals during the quarter. And that was like, that sent a message also kind of just thinking about it. If you change a sales process and you yourself have to run through it, or you talk about discovery is important and you have to do, you do it yourself, right?
[00:31:52] I think there's some signals there you're sending, but also They show that they can learn from that work as well,
[00:31:59] Toni: think it's, so this is just such a different situation, right? Because, um, if you are 10, 20 million and you get a VP from the outside in, you know, it's, it's really difficult to try and have that person, uh, learn all the stuff. It's really difficult to
[00:32:15] actually get there, but you do actually need to require him or her to, to do it, right?
[00:32:20] Because how, how are they going to teach and coach the team? How are they going to make the right decisions on what messaging works, what flow works? All of the, all of the really important things that are super close to the customers, they are, they, they kind of help you to tweak and optimize
[00:32:35] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:32:35] Yeah.
[00:32:36] Toni: and if you don't know what works and what doesn't work, it's, it's really difficult to actually achieve this.
[00:32:41] Mikkel: it. So that were some of the mistakes and at least how to approach, uh, hiring if you're going to do that. If you're going to need to, you VP sales because the old one was fired or whatever you need.
[00:32:52] Um, hopefully this is going to give some pretty strong ideas for how to approach it going forward.
[00:32:57] Toni: Yeah. Don't make the same mistakes and hit the subscribe, like, whatever, follow button, uh, to help the mission here. And thank you everyone for listening.
[00:33:06] Have a good one. Bye
[00:33:06] Bye
[00:33:07] Mikkel: Bye