President of Sprout Social, Ryan Barretto: Establishing a Compelling Company Vision
Ryan Barretto knows all about what it takes to successfully scale a business.
After an impressive 10-year career in sales leadership roles at Salesforce, Ryan took a role as SVP of Global Sales at Sprout Social — a business creating social media management tools — where he helped grow the company from $30 million in revenue to $170 million.
Now, one IPO later, Ryan is President of Sprout Social — and, also, today’s guest on Go To Market Grit! On this episode, Joubin and Ryan discuss Sprout Social’s content-led inbound lead generation engine, as well as the importance of delivering a compelling company vision as a leader.
In this episode, we cover:
How Ryan's company, Sprout Social, is streamlining and improving social media management for businesses. (5:31)
Early stages and IPO: The most stressful aspects of growing and scaling Sprout Social sales operation from $30 million to $170 million of revenue. (8:27)
Leveraging content-driven marketing to support an inbound lead model. (13:55)
How Sprout Social's product-led trial model makes account executives focus more on 'customer success' — and the evolution of the 'enterprise rep.' (16:19)
The importance of asking for and taking feedback from colleagues as a leader. (19:59)
Self-critical learners: Characteristics of successful new hires at Sprout Social — and how Ryan identifies learners during job interviews. (22:49)
Why Ryan cares so deeply about learning and self-improvement — and how his upbringing as a first-generation Canadian informed his work ethic. (26:23)
Instilling and supporting a culture of learning within an organization. (33:31)
Fostering trust and rapport: Using collaboration with various business departments to communicate and build an inspiring company vision. (37:10)
Learning and building credibility as a leader through being hands-on in all areas of a business. (41:08)
'Nailing the why': The importance of clear internal communication during periods of change. (43:01)
What does the word grit mean to you? (46:27)
Links:
Connect with RyanLinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
SaaStr 313: What The World's Largest SaaS Incumbents Taught Me About Founding & Scaling SaaS Businesses
Today we deep dive into what startups can learn from the large SaaS incumbents of today.
Sara Varni: CMO @ Twilio on her biggest takeaways from her time at Salesforce.
Erica Schultz: President of Field Operations @ Confluent on her biggest takeaways from her time at Oracle.
Whitney Bouck: COO @ Hellosign on her biggest takeaways from her time at Box.
Leyla Seka: Partner @ Operator Collective on her biggest takeaways from her time at Salesforce.
Ryan Bonnici: CMO @ G2 on his biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce.
Ryan Barretto: SVP @ Sprout Social on his biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce
Tien Tzuo: Founder & CEO @ Zuora on his biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce.
Paul Albright: Board member @ Clarizen on his biggest takeaways from his time at SuccessFactors.
Jaleh Rezaei: Founder & CEO @ Mutiny on her biggest takeaways from her time at Gusto.
Eugenio Pace: Founder & CEO @ Auth0 on his biggest takeaways from his time at Microsoft.
Liat Bycel: VP @ Airtable on her biggest takeaways from her time at Twitter.
Mark Goldberg: Partner @ Index on his biggest takeaways from his time at Dropbox.
Read the full transcript on our blog.
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
SaaStr 206: 4 Core Considerations Startup Founders Must Recognise When Pricing Their Product, Why Being Good At Sales Won't Make You A Great Sales Leader and Why Boring Is Better Than Sexy When It Comes To Winning Your Market with Ryan Barretto, SVP of Gl
Ryan Barretto is the SVP of Global Sales at Sprout Social, a leading provider of social media engagement, advocacy and analytics solutions for business. To date they have raised over $111m in funding from the likes of NEA, Goldman Sachs and their very recently announced $40m Series D led by Future Fund. At Sprout Social Ryan oversees both the Sales and Customer Success organizations. Prior to Sprout, he was the VP of Global Sales at Pardot–a Salesforce company. At Pardot, Ryan's team tripled revenue growth in two years, making Pardot one of Salesforce's fastest growing businesses and during his 10 year tenure at Salesforce he saw the company grow from $180m to $7.5Bn.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
How Ryan made his way into the world of SaaS with Salesforce over 13 years ago? What were some of Ryan's biggest takeaways from seeing Salesforce scale from $180m to $7.5Bn?
Why does Ryan think that it is lazy to believe that you have to pick a market and you can't have them all? How can one approach the element of very different messaging being required for SMB vs enterprise? How can one do both? How does that change the structure of the team? How can one build a product with the simplicity of SMB and functionality of enterprise?
When it comes to winning the market, what does Ryan mean when he says, "boring is better than sexy"? What are the 4 elements all founders must consider when pricing their SaaS product? Where does Ryan see many go wrong with pricing? When serving SMB, how can one provide enterprise quality customer support? How does Ryan feel about customisation? What number justifies it?
Why does Ryan believe that being good at sales won't make you a great sales leader? What is needed to make the transition? What can sales reps do to learn and bridge that gap? What has worked for Ryan in the past? Where has Ryan seen many go wrong here? What 3 elements does Ryan look for in al additions to the team?
What is the number 1 issue that is preventing people building truly diverse teams? How can we change our job descriptions to make the more inclusive? How can we expand our candidate pool to include more diverse people than usual? What can leaders do to build environments of inclusion where people can really bring their full selves to work?
Ryan's 60 Second SaaStr:
What does Ryan know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
Sales rep productivity, what is good to Ryan?
What motto or quote does Ryan frequently revert back to? Why?
Read the full transcript on our blog.
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Ryan Barretto
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