Selling SaaS Without Sales Experience: Pete's Playbook

Show notes

Pete Kazanjy had zero sales experience when he became his startup's first sales rep. As a product marketer, he had to learn selling SaaS without sales experience from scratch. He built TalentBin to acquisition by Monster, then discovered that 60% of selling activity leadership believed was happening simply was not. Pete went from selling SaaS without sales experience to leading startup sales for 600+ reps at Monster Worldwide. His discovery that 40% of expected sales activity was missing inspired Atrium, a tool that monitors KPIs automatically so managers can coach instead of staring at dashboards. He also wrote Founding Sales, the missing manual for first-time sales leaders. In this episode, Pete reveals why founders are better at founder selling than they think, when to hand off sales to a hired leader, and why 100 structured customer development interviews validated the data-driven sales management gap. 🔑 Key Lessons 🤝 Founders should sell before hiring reps: Selling SaaS without sales experience works because founders know the problem space deeply. The tight feedback loop between selling and product iteration is a superpower. 🧠 Measure actual activity, not what leadership assumes: At Monster, Pete discovered 40% of expected startup sales activity was missing. CRM data was empty and leadership was defensive. 🛠️ Instrument your team like a factory: At TalentBin, Pete tracked every KPI for 8 AEs. Nothing surprised the team because every metric was visible and actionable. 📉 Dashboards fail because nobody looks at them: 100 customer interviews revealed that teams build reports then ignore them. Automated monitoring solves selling SaaS without sales experience. 🎯 Package your sales process before hiring a leader: Document stages, decision trees, and email templates. If the handoff fails, the process probably lives only in the founder's head. Chapters Introduction Favorite quote - The Score Takes Care of Itself What Atrium does - data-driven sales management Pete's path from product marketer to sales leader Why Pete took on selling SaaS without sales experience How the idea for Atrium emerged from Monster Discovering 60% actual vs expected selling activity Running 100 customer development interviews Why dashboards fail for sales management Building Atrium's automated KPI monitoring Why founders should handle startup sales themselves When and how to hand off sales to a hired leader Packaging the sales process for handoff Writing Founding Sales - the missing manual Lightning round Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/278 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email

Guests

Pete Kazanjy

Co-founder

Atrium