20Sales: How to Scale a Career While Scaling a Family, Strategies and Specific Tools To Help Maintain Work-Life Balance, What Companies Can Do To Empower Parents To Be Their Best Selves & How to Prevent Parental Leave Being an Inhibitor To Your Career
Today's 20Sales is a special Mother's Day edition where we are joined by 6 of the best sales leaders who also happen to be rockstar mothers.
The Profiles
Maggie Hott is on the GTM Team (Go-To-Market) at OpenAI. Before OpenAI, Maggie was Director of Sales @ Webflow and before Webflow spent an incredible 6 years at Slack.
Stevie Case is the CRO @ Vanta. Prior to Vanta, Stevie spent an immensely successful 6 years at Twilio as VP of Mid-Market Sales.
Renu Gupta is an advisor and sales consultant to some of the fastest-growing SaaS companies today. Previously she has held sales leadership roles at Slack, Thrive and Dropbox.
Lauren Schwartz is the VP Enterprise Sales @ Fivetran. Before Fivetran, Lauren spent 4 years at Segment as Senior Director of Enterprise Sales leading to their acquisition by Twilio.
Julie Maresca is the Head of Global Accounts at Atlassian. Prior to Atlassian, Julie spent an immensely successful 6 years at Slack in numerous roles including Head of Enterprise Sales for North America.
Jessica Arnold is the VP of Global Sales Development @ Amplitude. Before Amplitude, Jessica was the Senior Director for Inside Sales North America at Dropbox for close to 6 years.
In Today's 20Sales Mothers Day Episode We Discuss:
1.) How have you navigated growing in your career at the same time, growing your family?
2.) How do you balance your career and being a mother - when do you lean in and out?
3.) What are some specific strategies or tools that have helped you maintain a work-life balance?
4.) How do you prioritize your mental health and wellbeing while juggling your responsibilities at work and at home?
5.) How do you handle the guilt that many working mothers experience when they have to focus on their career?
6.) What are the unique challenges and advantages of being a mother in a sales leadership role?
7.) How has your experience as a mother influenced your leadership style and decision-making?
8.) How have you navigated going out on maternity leave without it having an impact on your career?
9.) America has one of the worst parental leaves of any country in the world. How can you advocate for parental leave if the existing policy isn't up to par?
10.) What are some ways that companies can create a more inclusive and supportive environment for working mothers in sales leadership roles?
20 Sales: How To Structure The Interview Process for All Sales Reps, The Must-Ask Questions When Identifying Potential Sales Talent & The 3 Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Their First Reps with Lauren Schwartz, VP of Enterprise Sales @ Fivetran
Lauren Schwartz is Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran, the leading platform for modern data movement. She has helped scale Fivetran's enterprise business from its infancy to a team of nearly 100, while more than tripling enterprise revenues. Previously, Lauren spent close to 4 years at Segment where she started as the first female AE and ultimately built and led sales teams in enterprise and growth. Lauren earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business after 6 years at Google where her enterprise sales career began.
In Today's Episode with Lauren Schwartz:
1.) How Being Rejected as an Eighth Grader Can Lead to World Class Sales Leader:
How Lauren made her way into the world of enterprise sales with Google?
Why, for a while, Lauren wanted to get away from the label of a salesperson? Why "salesperson" does not do the job of sales justice?
Why does Lauren believe that one of the core traits the best salespeople have is being able to cope with rejection? How has Lauren been rejected? How did she respond? What changed their mind?
2.) The Sales Playbook: What, Who, When:
How does Lauren define the term "sales playbook"? What are the nuances?
Does Lauren believe the founder should always be the first sales rep? What are the core signs that a founder is now ready to bring in their first sales hires?
What are the 3 biggest mistakes founders make when they hire their first sales reps?
What are the core traits that the best early sales reps have?
3.) The Hiring Process: Building the Best Sales Team:
How does Lauren structure the hiring process?
What are the most unconventional but useful questions Lauren uses to determine the depth and quality of potential sales hires?
What are the glaring red flags that Lauren looks for in this interview process?
How does Lauren use case studies and deal reviews in the interview process to determine the quality of a candidate?
4.) Scaling the Machine: The Onboarding Process:
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when onboarding sales reps?
How should sales team onboarding be structured?
What materials should the founder have in place for the sales team to learn from on Day 1?
How can sales leaders ensure new sales team members engage across functions?
SaaStr 393: 3 Secrets to Selling Up-Market with the Leaders of Fivetran, Stripe, and Docusign
The journey for a company to move upmarket can be daunting and varies widely depending on the internal and external factors that inspire a shift in go-to-market strategy. Join these incredible sales leaders are they share their experiences in the evolution from SMB to Enterprise.
Kelly Del Curto, Senior Director of Sales at Lever Tammy Aguillon, Area Vice President, Commercial Sales at DocuSign Kate Jensen, Head of Platform Sales at Stripe Lauren Schwartz, Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran
Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/how-to-sell-upmarket-in-saas/