Paul Dickau’s Post

Enterprise sales is one of the most lucrative roles in tech. Navigate it successfully and become a multi-millionaire. BUT BEWARE – if you hop from gig to gig: By chasing the next shiny object, you might be leaving hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the table. There are 5 levels in the career of an individual contributor seller. Each builds its own skills, offers and opportunities. And each comes with significant trade offs. But knowing how to play the long term game in B2B sales can make the difference between getting by and retiring early. I break down The Career Trajectory of a Seller here: https://buff.ly/3TQpJwQ #sales #enterprisesales

🧠People often think salespeople always make more money than others, right? The truth is, it depends, and the stress is always the same. ✔️ Many companies believe hiring salespeople will solve all their revenue problems, but this isn’t true. If you’re joining an early-stage sales team, it can be quite hard to make big money, I did twice :) ✔️For early-stage startups, hiring salespeople might be risky for cash flow. If you don’t have any clients and are trying to gain traction, it might not be a good time to hire a sales rep. When you do hire a rep, the best way to make their job easier is to provide them with some case studies. ✔️If you don’t have any examples and expect the rep to bring in clients without having any experience with your product, it will take a long time. You should show them: here are a few clients, this is how I reached out to them, and these are the problems they faced. This way, you can find similar prospects. ✔️I’ve talked with many early-stage founders who expected me to bring their first clients or asked me if they should hire a sales rep. ✔️Remember, guys you need to figure out the right time to hire sales rep If you don't have branding or some social proof but expecting sales rep to bring leads in competiton market that will be not easy. #saassales #saasgrowth #sdrs #coldemail #sales

Dog and Baby. You know what that means - we’re looking for our next hire. We’ve done just under $3M in revenue since we launched the company 22 months ago. We muscled through the tech downturn that came just a few months after we started a tech sales training and recruiting company. Now we have big changes coming or already underway : - capital raise - move to subscription model - increasing sales industry choices - monetizing our supply side (organizations) I’m learning a lot as a first time CEO, and self awareness has always been my biggest strength as a human. I’m really good at driving revenue, getting people excited, and getting a team on the same page. What I’m not good at is internal and external operational workflow optimization, financial planning, and translating my vision and business/data requirements clearly to our development team. So we’re looking to hire our first business and revenue operations hire. Alignment with our core value is table stakes: Accountability, Coachability, and Authenticity. Passion for our mission is Non-Negotiable: to help as many athletes and veterans transition to careers they love and empowering them to be successful, all while helping companies perfect the process of hiring sales people. Couple other requirements: - former college athletes or military veterans only - 2-3 years in operations (ideally some experience in RevOps, Product, Finance but an analytical and process oriented mindset can fill gaps) - No “Strategy Only” people. You’re gonna be in the weeds, building reports, executing changes with our team. - we have fractional help with Finance/RevOps/Development already - I need someone to take over these relationships and maximize what we are paying for Right or wrong, I was raised to believe that the point of a business is to make money. Raising capital isn’t going to change that tenant for me as a CEO. We have and always will be a profitable company. But if we are going to continue to scale the way we are, and do it efficiently, I need someone who sees the operational side of our business in a better way than I do. If you’re interested please send me a connection with a note that explains why you match the above description. If you know someone that should be in the mix, tag them or send them this post. If we get far down the road with a candidate, I will give you a couple references of operational specialists that have worked with to me in past sales leadership roles so you can hear directly from them on how I fit our core values. I expect the same for you. #AllGasNoBrakes #DialedIn

Are You Struggling with Your Sales Hiring? Finding the right sales talent can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. If you're facing hurdles in attracting and retaining top sales professionals, redef9skiLLs #HireAndAspire is here to help! At redef9skiLLs #HireAndAspire, we specialize in: 🔍 Identifying the Perfect Fit ⌛ Speeding Up the Hiring Process 💼 Boosting Retention 📈 Adapting to Market Needs: Partner with redef9skiLLs to transform your sales hiring process and build a powerhouse team that drives your business forward. 🚀 Ready to redefine your sales hiring with redef9skiLLs #HireAndAspire? Let's connect! #SalesHiring #TalentAcquisition #SalesRecruitment #BusinessGrowth #HiringChallenges #SalesTeam #RecruitmentStrategy #redef9skiLLs #SAAS #softwareasaservice

How to work out which triggers are most relevant for your prospecting campaigns? This is a very common question I get from clients. My first bit of advice is that the answer is not about you and how amazing your product/service is. The quickest way to find out the answer is by going to your discovery call notes and reviewing the answers that your prospects gave you when you asked. Gotcha! Don't worry...the majority of people I speak to aren't asking this question during their calls either (but they should start doing it). Anywho the question I usually ask my clients is: "What's happening in your prospects work life and company before they need a product/service like yours?" That starts to get the cogs turning. 🔎 I then probe a bit deeper with questions like... Individual/Persona level ↳ How are they being measured (KPI's)? ↳ What are they being asked to do? ↳ What are their main challenges? ↳ Why might their role be difficult? ↳ What frustrates them? ↳ What would make their life easier? ↳ What changes/shifts are occurring in their industry? Company/Market level ↳ What's happening at their company (growth, new markets, layoffs)? ↳ What challenges is the organisation facing? ↳ What trends are going to impact the company? ↳ What risks could they be exposed to? Ultimately, the answer to "what is the best sales trigger to use" is a combination of: ✅ a hypothesis from your experience and previous conversations ✅ answers to the questions above ✅ some good old fashioned Googling How do you determine which triggers are best for your #pipeline generation efforts? If you need help with triggers, send me a DM with your ICP/Personas and I'll see what I come up with. -- I solve #pipeline headaches in B2B Sales. DM me if you need help with planning, building or optimising your sales pipeline. #prospecting #outboundprospecting #salesprospecting

There's a fantasy that I've seen some new CEOs hold on to about hiring sales reps or outsourced lead gen teams. Fact is, the sooner they let go of this belief, the sooner they'll start making more sales. The fantasy is that a top sales rep who is happy with a 100% commission-only compensation structure actually exists. You might even see lead generation companies offering this. Reality check: no such person exists. Because it puts the risk entirely on the rep. This belief leads to underperforming reps, a revolving door of new staff, and constant frustration by management. It wastes a lot of time. So what works? The sales reps who are worth their weight in gold always have a salary + commission + bonus (in startups, maybe also equity). This distributes the risk to both the company and the rep, which is the fair way to do it. And the really good reps may make more money annually than the CEO - unless the CEO's ego enforces a cap on earnings, in which case the best reps will leave. Bottom line: pay your people well. Even if it means taking a lower salary yourself (remember, you've got more equity). #salary #saas #sales *** If you liked this post, please share with your network and follow me Raj Khera for daily executive coaching to grow your business.

Hiring senior sales talent can make or break a promising startup. Yet most founders trip up in avoiding common yet fatal hiring mistakes. Here are the 7 proven ways to hire senior sales executives who deliver: 1. Seek Sellers With Infectious Charm: Technical skills can be learned. But the innate ability to build instant rapport is rare. Look for magnetic personalities who connect effortlessly. This talent is non-negotiable. 2. Demand Niche Mastery: Generalists dabble but specialists conquer. Leaders must demonstrate a deep understanding of your product specifically. Not just the industry. This level of insight unlocks strategic problem-solving. 3. Recruit Those With a Ready Tribe: The best leaders attract followers. Vet for a clear hiring plan and database of past teammates eager to reunite. This momentum enables hitting the ground running. 4. Mandate Hands-On Selling: Great leaders remain active deal-closers no matter how big their team grows. If that hands-on passion for the hunt doesn't exist, pass on that candidate. 5. Reject Armchair Strategists: Real deals aren't won over email. Sales leads must enjoy meeting customers face-to-face. If not, keep searching. 6. Seek Fresh Blood: Gray hair commands respect but current know-how fuels growth. Look for executors who have been actively carrying quotas up until last month. 7. Judge Past Results, Not Brand Names: Big-name company experience means little without proof of personal excellence. Vet candidates based on their specific achievements. Not past firm affiliations. Get any of these hiring criteria wrong and you'd risk managerial paralysis, cultural fragmentation, and commercial stagnation. Get them right however and you can take your startup's growth trajectory into the stratosphere ✈️. The stakes are high so choose your sales leadership wisely. What would you like to add to this? Comment below 🤔 Found this helpful, consider resharing ♻️and following me Maaz Ansari for more such insights.

Just pure professional curiousity, why is it you are using hiring as a prospecting trigger and who are you using? I have had an incredible number of people reach out to me for various tools, meetings etc some i have taken up and some not but who are you using to know of these triggers? Im genuinely impressed by some people who made incredibly tenuous but clever links from me hiring to the need of their product. #revops #hiring #salesdevelopment #sdr #bdr

Business acumen is vital for your business. But how do we obtain it? The skillset of the reps at the front end, since the split out or predictable revenue, and still to this day in tech saas, has been entry level. We only need to lean back into other industry verticals, or simply remember what it was like prior. Reps at the front end were seasoned veterans with a well honed skills. Why? Coming up in the early 2000s.. you had to prove yourself in CS first. Which meant dazzling on the phones -Activation  -Onsell  -Upsell  -Opportunity spots.  -Increasing Contract penetration for 1-2 years for a CHANCE to be a Full Cycle rep. What did this give us? Complete commercial line of sight. We didn’t push up deals that wouldn’t align with CS.  We didn’t push up deals that wouldn’t pass credit.  We didn’t push up deals that wouldn’t pass legal. This gave you a higher degree of commercial acumen. This gave you a better business impact brain. This enabled, far better business case / proposals to be presented. These are the talent that can speak with your CEO Talk cost saving analysis with your CFO Speak to end to end service delivery with your CRO.  This isn't entry level folks. So what does this look like in everyday business?? Founders with funding ramps, that have never worked in sales or marketing, or CS. They have the best idea.  They get funding. They hire SDR, AE, CS. They dont know the job functions. They rely on the machine, everyone just looks at each other and points in a circle, and all that transpires is a churny mess of no one actually knows what they are doing. Funding ramp gone.  Reps fired. Process starts again. End the madness. Backwards to go forwards.  #Marketing #Deals #Sales  #ClosedCircuitSelling #Revenue 

Someone recently shared an interesting thought with me. Less-tenured sales leaders working in the SaaS space likely have little experience with economic adversity. Let’s face it: until 2022, times were pretty good in SaaS! Less so now. Those of us who experienced the “dot com bubble” and the recession of 2008/9 have experienced severe headwinds and learned how to weather them. Our newest sales leaders may be experiencing their first SaaS “storm” in real time. Forbes said, “The 2010s were a period of unparalleled prosperity for the world of SaaS companies.” 2022, however, ushered in SaaS’s “first recession.” Today, quota attainment is down, and generating pipeline, especially outbound pipeline, is more challenging than ever.  Add budget cuts and layoffs, and the newer sales leaders face challenges they’ve never seen. I have been racking my brain to determine what advice I can offer. Here is what I came up with. There is better advice out there. I hope people will share that advice in the comments 1). Stay close to your best people. Invest in them. Retain them. 2). Ensure your sellers get close to their prospects and understand the “power line.” Sam Jacobs had a great post on the topic. Read it. (Link in comments.) 3). Get even closer to your customers. Today, growing accounts is much easier than winning new ones. 4). Play a long game. By all means, abandon a sinking ship, but stay put if possible. 5). Prospect and help your team prospect. Being a leader should not prevent you from helping to develop the pipeline; this has never been truer than it is today. 6). Nearbound is your best friend. Work your network. Seek referrals. 7). Raise your hand. Ask for help. This is not a time to “turtle up” and hope for the best. Image: Cumulative Market Capitalization of all Public SaaS Companies ($ in 000s), Meritech