SaaStr 783: How to Build a World-Class Customer Success Machine - Top Lessons from the CRO of Notion and VP of CS at GitHub
SaaStr 783: How to Build a World-Class Customer Success Machine - Top Lessons from the CRO of Notion and VP of CS at GitHub
Join Erica Anderson, CRO of Notion and Abbas Haider Ali, VP of CS at GitHub, as they share their unique experiences and professional journey starting at GitHub and continuing to Notion.
Learn about building effective customer success teams, the importance of the right KPIs, balancing investments, and fostering great CRO-CCO relationships. Find out how both structured and pod organizational models can contribute to business growth, and gain insights into effective monetization strategies for various customer-facing roles.
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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.
Hey everybody - thanks to the 10,000 of you who came out to SaaStr Annual. We had a blast and big news -- we'll be back in MAY of 2025. That's right, the SaaStr Annual will be a bit earlier next year, May 13-15 2025. We'll still be back in the same venue, in the SF bay area at the 40+ acre sprawling san mateo county events center. Grab your tickets at saastrannual.com with code JASON50 for an extra discount on our very best pricing.
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SVP Revenue at GitHub, Erica Anderson: Combining Top-Down and Bottom-Up Sales Motions
Erica Anderson had never carried a bag before she was promoted to Vice President of Worldwide Sales at GitHub in 2019.
With a successful career as a sales operations leader under her belt, Erica has since been promoted twice at GitHub — most recently to Senior Vice President of Revenue.
On this week’s episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Erica talk about the lessons Erica has learned about leadership throughout her career and the combined bottom-up and top-down selling approach of GitHub.
In this episode, we cover:
'The Home of Open-Source Software': How GitHub is used for software development and when Erica joined the company. (3:12)
How Erica was promoted to VP of Worldwide Sales at GitHub despite never having been a quota-carrying salesperson herself. (5:35)
The Value of Partnerships: What a successful relationship between sales operations and a sales leader looks like. (8:51)
'Listening and learning': The methods Erica used to develop a new skill set for the sales leadership job she had never done before. (10:47)
Hiring too soon: The 'very painful lesson' Erica learned at GitHub about hiring and expanding before fully understanding product-market fit. (15:43)
Finding what fuels 'internal drive' — and the differences between external and internal competitiveness in sales. (19:18)
How Erica's overall focus changed when promoted to a sales leadership role from a sales operations position — and the importance of individual forecasting for sales reps. (23:36)
Sales motions: The 'internal selling' Erica did to convince GitHub to embrace top-down selling in addition to its existing bottom-up sales structure. (27:41)
'Aggregating customer feedback': How GitHub decides which product feature requests to prioritize. (34:01)
The counterarguments made when Erica and her team advocated for a top-down selling motion to enterprise clients at GitHub. (38:03)
How Erica defines grit. (41:37)
Links:
Connect with EricaGitHub
Email: mailto: eanderson@github.com
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
Recode Decode: After 20,000 workers walked out, Google said it got the message. The workers disagree.
Six of the organizers of the Nov. 1 Google walkouts — Erica Anderson, Claire Stapleton, Meredith Whittaker, Stephanie Parker, Cecelia O'Neil-Hart and Amr Gaber — talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the worldwide protests came together and why Google's response has been inadequate. In this episode: (02:20) How the protests started; (07:13) The divide between tech rhetoric and tech reality; (10:24) How the organizers formulated their demands; (14:05) The rights of contractors at Google; (22:04) Why Googlers were ready to walk out; (29:31) Google's response and the organizers' reactions; (42:13) The post-walkout town hall meeting; (46:50) The privileges of being a tech worker; (50:25) What needs to happen next; (1:02:41) Are the walkout organizers hopeful? Fan of the show? It helps to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
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