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The secret sauce to your sales success? It’s what happens before the sale. It’s the planning, the strategy, the leadership. And it’s more than demo automation. It’s the thoughtful work that connects people, processes, and performance. If you want strong revenue, high retention, and shorter sales cycles, the pre-work—centered around the human—still makes the dream work. But you already know that.
The Unexpected Lever is your partner in growing revenue by doing what great sales leaders do best. Combining vision with execution. Brought to you by Vivun, this show highlights the people and peers behind the brands who understand what it takes to build and lead high-performing sales teams. You’re not just preparing for the sale—you’re unlocking potential.
Join us as we share stories of sales leaders who make a difference, their challenges, their wins, and the human connections that drive results, one solution at a time.
Jarod Greene (00:00):
Hey everybody. Welcome to V5 where we spend exactly five minutes getting on our soapbox with some of the hottest takes in all of B2B go-to-market. This is going to be a fun one. I know I say it every time, but I probably, this is going to be a fun one. I got Lindsay Rios, fractional CRO with a very spicy take, and as you know, I don't know what they are before we get going. So Lindsay, why don't you tell the people what's on your mind?
Lindsay Rios (00:24):
Hot take. When you are hiring for an exec leader role, you do not need to hire a person who has done that journey before. I'll just give a more specific example. Let's say you want a VP of Sales and you're at, I don't know, like eight mil in ARR right now, so you're going to get close to that 10 mil. You probably have a path for it already without this person, and now you're going to find the leader to get you to 25, 50 mil. Obviously, of course you're going to be a unicorn and IPO because it doesn't, of course.
Jarod Greene (00:57):
Everybody.
Lindsay Rios (00:57):
And now you want to find that person who has done this at least once, but ideally two times and insanely successfully. You want them to do exactly what they did before for you. You don't need that person. Why don't you just find the person that is the absolute best fit for your company, for all the other more important reasons, like the right fit in terms of, I hate the word culture because it's overused, but the right fit for the types of people that already exist. What is that living, breathing ecosystem you have? Who fits in there? The person who has the ability to change and lift things up, and the person who's demonstrating the skillset, who could be successful in that role. Here's my thing, people who have done this before want to continue doing things they've never done before, so why are they going to do it again for you and have they been so far removed from where you're at too that they're not going to be super interested in coming back down to that 10 to 25 journey? Number one.
(01:56):
Number two, you're going to have to pay that person a lot more money because they've already done this multiple times and now you're just going to spend money you don't need to spend, and number three, you are now missing out on all these other people who are probably going to be the right fit and absolutely can do this, and the only logic you ever hear is, but I need someone who's done this before so that it's not so risky as if that's some formula that's actually true.
Jarod Greene (02:27):
As if starting a company and getting a bunch of money wasn't risky to start with.
Lindsay Rios (02:32):
As if majority of the founders out there have ever done this before, but they get told and there's this myth out there. No, no, you got to get that person who's done this journey before.
Jarod Greene (02:43):
Wow, okay. If I had to measure this take in Scoville units, it's pretty hot. It's pretty up there. This is counterintuitive to what I think everyone's thought, and either you're listening to this as someone who's got the potential to go into that role. We get folks who are kind of on that cusp of, I want to be CRO VP of Sales. I want to go into that role that you just described. Someone who's in that role and says, well, I don't know, Lindsay. I'm pretty marketable. I'm worth my weight goal. Founders who say, no, I actually think I need the experience, but what would you say to, let's just put it in the shoes of the long tenured VP of Sales who says, no, you 100% need me. This is not the take I agree with.
Lindsay Rios (03:23):
If you really want that job, you go for it. Go to bat with the person who hasn't. I had no problem with that. If you actually really want that job, you should do the job. There are some people who are like, I'd really like to do this again because I really love this company. I love everything else about it. It hits my non-negotiables. There's nothing wrong with that, so it's not even that. My take is that the people who have been doing it before apply for it, right? It's just that people who are exceptionally looking for meeting new milestones, people who are in startup world like this, we are always looking to do things we've never done before. We're always looking to break new boundaries, so the chance that you get that person in that fancy person with the title and the experience and maybe the flashy logos they were at before, the assumption that you think that they're going to be able to replicate exactly what they had done before is also very risky, in my opinion.
(04:14):
So the foundation comes from let's not be risky, and yet I find it risky because you get too distracted by the, I've done it before path, and you see all the stars in your eyes when you're like, dang, look what they did. You cannot go and copy the exact formula that happened, the time, the product, the space, the other people around you, et cetera, to say it's going to happen here again. That in my opinion, is risky. So if you find a phenomenal person who fits all the boxes, truly the things that matter qualitatively and quantitatively, and they just haven't done this path before, then get them the support, de-risk it by getting them like their exec coach or something like that who has done something like this before to say, Hey, there are mistakes that happen and let's help you avoid them. But other than that, you got it.
Jarod Greene (05:06):
Yeah. I love this. It is almost the notion of bar tired sports analogy, if we want to. This is drafted on potential. This is finding that diamond in the rough. This is that person who could be a superstar, the best quarterback or right fielder or hockey goalie you've ever worked with, or finding a person who has the potential to be that giving them all the tools and the resources to be successful and forging your own path where you achieve the goals they have achieved in the past with the brand new set of variables.
Lindsay Rios (05:38):
I do recall something around even most of the, I don't know if it was specifically baseball players that are the best hitters or the best pitchers, but it was about basically most of those ones are super late bloomers. They're never in the first picks, all of that. They're always the one, like last ones to be thought of, and yet they become the ones that end up being the best and the most consistent. I think there's something about adversity there, probably, and maybe not the pressure from the get-go, I don't know what, but I just am so sick and I've had this myself. I see it around and I just continually hear the whole, we need to hire the person, and how many times does it fail? It fails so much.
Jarod Greene (06:23):
For sure.
Lindsay Rios (06:23):
Even my very good friend who has been a VP and been at LinkedIn and Salesforce and Intercam and all that thought, she wanted to try to go do the boots on the ground thing and early stage. Guess what? She goes, I'm never doing this again. Now. That was just one experience, but it was like the same thing, so it goes both ways.
Jarod Greene (06:42):
Yeah. Yeah. Again, I love the notion, I think a lot about variables in my own practices and market. There's too many, we're in a market, in a world really, where everything's constantly changing. There's no way to replicate the same exact playbook you had a decade ago, even 10 months ago. It's hard to run the same playbook. So I'm in love with this take. This is awesome.
Lindsay Rios (07:05):
Come at me.
Jarod Greene (07:06):
Let's go. Dying on hills. Let's do it. If folks want to get in touch with you, folks are like, yes, I'd love to talk to her. That's my point of view as well. How do folks find and reach you?
Lindsay Rios (07:15):
If it's your point of view or not your point of view. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm on there acting like a total lunatic all the time.
Jarod Greene (07:21):
We love it. We love it. Lindsay, thank you so much. It's been phenomenal. Appreciate your time.
Lindsay Rios (07:25):
All right.