20Sales: Outbound Sales is Dead Today, Why Demand Generation Will Move Back Under Marketing, "Wisdom" that Everyone Needs to Unlearn About Sales & Why You Should Never Hire Someone You Do Not Know in Your First Five Hires with Brendon Cassidy
Brendon Cassidy is one of the OG of enterprise sales of the last decade, having advised the likes of Gong.io, Pipedrive, Showpad. Previously Brendon was first Head of Sales at LinkedIn and VP of Sales at Talkdesk.
In Today's Episode with Brendon Cassidy We Discuss:
1. From Recruiter to Sales OG and Linkedin's First Head of Sales:
How did recruiting prepare Brendon for a career in sales?
What impact did the dot-com bubble burst have on his early career?
What does Brendon know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career in sales?
2. The Sales Playbook and Hiring The Team:
How does Brendon define the "sales playbook"?
Should the founder be the one to create and execute V1 of the playbook?
Should the first sales hire be a rep or a sales leader?
When is the right time to make that all-important first sales hire?
3. Why Discovery and Outbound Are Broken Today:
Why does Brendon feel discovery is useless in today's sales process?
Why does Brendon believe outbound will move under the marketing function?
How does AI change the world of outbound sales?
Why will no great sales leaders join a company that doesn't have an inbound machine?
4. How to Master Onboarding and Increase Sales Performance:
What is the right way to onboard new sales reps?
How quickly do you know if a sales rep is not good? What are the signs?
What is the right way to measure the effectiveness of sales teams today?
What are the biggest mistakes founders make in onboarding sales teams?
SaaStr 660: CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers With CoSell.io Co-Founder & Co-CEO Brendon Cassidy
In this week's episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond wraps up the founder-led sales series with one of the most accomplished sales leaders in the world, Ben Cassidy.
Cassidy was Blond's VP of Sales at Echosign and, before that, was one of the first sales leaders at LinkedIn. Post-Echosign, he was the first sales leader at Talkdesk, valued at $10+B. Cassidy is now a co-founder at CoSell, a.k.a. the relationship platform designed to organize your intro efforts.
The point of CRO Confidential is to help startups acquire customers, and Cassidy provides a unique perspective on founder-led sales as a current founder and highly talented sales leader.
So what secrets has Cassidy learned over the past decades of building businesses and acquiring customers?
Let's find out.
Watch the video: https://youtu.be/3m5s7tskuB4
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CEO Cassidy Ventures, Brendon Cassidy: LinkedIn, Echosign + Talkdesk: Building Successful Startup Sales Teams
When it comes to building startups from the ground-up, Brendon Cassidy knows it all: Having held some of the first sales leadership roles at LinkedIn, Echosign, and Talkdesk, Brendon helped position each company for success.
Now, Brendon consults startups on go-to-market operations as founder of his own consulting firm, Cassidy Ventures.
On this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Brendon talk about what Brendon learned throughout his impressive career working at successful startups, as well as what Brendon looks for in new sales hires when building a team.
In this episode, we cover:
How Brendon became one of the first 20 employees at LinkedIn during the company's early days — and how he helped LinkedIn monetize its recruiting services. (3:17)
The sales leadership lessons Brendon learned at LinkedIn and his departure from the company in 2008. (10:29)
'I'm betting on me': How Brendon became VP of Sales at Echosign as one of the company's first employees after working at LinkedIn. (15:34)
Startup number three: How Brendon helped build Talkdesk's sales operation as the company's first United States employee after working at Echosign. (20:26)
Why Brendon looked for drive and commitment in new sales hires when building a team at Talkdesk. (23:58)
'Don’t quit; don’t give up; be solution-oriented': Dealing with failure and hardship in business. (26:31)
Hiring a VP of Sales: Brendon's take on stretch VPs and why "a diverse search" is key to the right hire. (38:58)
How Brendon defines grit. (49:00)
Links:
Connect with Brendon CassidyLinkedIn
Email: brendon@cosell.io
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
Hey, Mr. DJ: Super Hi-Fi’s AI Applies Smarts to Sound - Ep. 132
Brendon Cassidy, CTO and chief scientist at Super Hi-Fi, uses AI to give everyone the experience of a radio station tailored to their unique tastes.
Super Hi-Fi, an AI startup and member of the NVIDIA Inception program, develops technology that produces smooth transitions, intersperses content meaningfully and adjusts volume and crossfade. Started three years ago, Super Hi-Fi first partnered with iHeartRadio and is now also used by companies such as Peloton and Sonos.
Results are showing that users like this personalized approach. Cassidy notes that they tested MagicStitch, one of their tools that eliminates the gap between songs, and found that customers listening with MagicStitch turned on spent 10 percent more time streaming music.
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/12/23/super-hifi-ai/