Were all those company sales big wins? For who? Who wants to be the biggest devil in hell? Never focus on salary in a sales interview
Three things I learned in SaaS, sports, tech, and live events 11.17.23
Three Things I Learned In SaaS, Sports, Tech, & Live Events
Chicago > Milwaukee > Denver > Las Vegas this week. I'm at F1 Vegas right now and will have a full report on the much-hyped event next week. This week's three things:
Who was the “big win company sale” successful for?
2017-2021 were crazy times. Valuations exploded, and investors went on a buying spree. Companies were selling and raising money like crazy.
We didn’t sell. We had offers, but we didn't pull the trigger.
We “missed it” in the eyes of many.
But did we?
Have a good friend who sold their business at the highest valuation possible in Q4 '21. His early investors cashed out big time. He took some money, too, selling about a third of his holdings. Everyone wins, right?
Wrong. He's miserable and full of regret.
The multiples have crashed. Leverage has gotten too expensive. And now he, his staff, and his new investors are underwater. The plan was two years until the next deal. That seems very unlikely now.
His seed and A investors? They won. They got paid and made theirs.
His team that actually does the work and the new investors? They wish they didn’t do the deal.
Nobody is in the wrong here. This is the game.
I've learned not to lose sight of the game the hard way. We had an investor I talked to every other week for years. I didn’t just consider him a friend; I considered him a close friend.
He moved on to the next thing years ago. I’ve heard from him one time. And it was when we did a secondary round where he asked if he should sell. Still hurts my feelings. I thought we were friends. But, lesson learned.
I've learned by watching him that I'm the only person looking out for the people I serve. And never to forget it.
Successful at what? Being the biggest devil in hell? What good is that?
Jordan Peterson with a good reminder to keep my sights set on what matters. Winning matters. What and how we're winning matters more.
Was in Chicago for a big national youth sports tournament. I've been around the game a long time and saw something I've never seen: A team kept their best player in the front row for all of overtime. This would be like having your clean-up hitter bat every inning (everyone has to rotate, meaning he is only eligible to be up front for half the game at most).
The tournament director called for a forfeit. Only they had no real way to enforce the forfeit. There was no punishment, and the cheating team won by two in overtime and then took to social media to boast about it. The coach admitted as much but wouldn't even forfeit the points.
There are so many public cheaters I could fill up all the allotted space with them. None of them regret it - they just regret getting caught.
If I want to win the right way, it's going to be harder. Challenge accepted.
We lost. Complaining changes nothing, so we won't do it. We'll see them again next time.
Salary is death in sales.
Had a candidate comment on one of our sales job postings: "the salary range isn't enough for me to move to NY or LA. Can I work remotely?"Good. I hope it's not. That's by design.
Any great salesperson will want the upside and plan their life on the upside so much so that's where they'll spend the majority of their time negotiating. Is the commission attainable, and if so, can I beat the big OTE? Great salespeople bet on themselves.Anyone in sales who can live comfortably on their salary is both overpaid and in the wrong job.
Do NOT hire anyone who focuses on salary into your sales team.