There’s always hope for a better future
|
Let me tell you a bit more about Katie, the woman I worked with who recently signed a deal for $230,000 + a bunch of RSUs at Harvey. If you’re even vaguely aware of the game, you should be aware that Harvey isn’t the average startup to work for. It’s like joining Databricks in 2019. Stripe in 2014. It's resume gold. I could go on. But let’s get back to Katie. She emailed me on June 12th of this year asking a few questions about how to find good companies to work for. I’ll discuss this in more detail another time, but she was following the procedure I see most people in tech/sales advocating for. It’s a fine on paper, but it’s not nearly enough to ensure you land at a great company. And as Katie found out, it’s not even enough to avoid a disastrous one. Even though she was performing well and hitting her numbers, her company’s founder was a startup CEO bro straight out of a bad reality TV show. I’m treading lightly to protect her privacy… but… she was basically asked to do a book report on a Brené Brown book. You can’t make this stuff up (odds this CEO is one of those weirdos on LinkedIn?) Anyway, by the time she reached out to me, she knew she needed a totally different approach to company selection. Here she is in her own words: I share this for one reason. Yes, Katie is a good rep who was hitting her numbers. That’s one part of the equation I can’t do for you. But even with talent and good numbers, she still found herself in a crappy situation. It happens. And it’s not your fault. Companies put a lot of thought and effort into presenting themselves as a perfect place to work during interviews. As a rep who’s only seen the inside of a few companies over your career, it’s hard to know the difference from the outside. That’s the gap Katie wanted to close by working with me. And so we did. In under 50 days, she landed a $230k + RSU package at Harvey. If you want to work with me for 6 weeks to make a big move like Katie’s, reply to this email and we’ll talk I’ll be back tomorrow with more about Katie’s story and the next cohort. Talk soon, Sam P.S. I can’t repeat this enough. Katie is a sharp rep. From her first set of questions on June 12th to today, she’s been on the ball and extremely intentional and proactive. If you’re the same, I want to help you create a huge outcome for yourself. Hit reply and let’s talk. |
Hiring for Sales
I have a newsletter that helps startup founders hire great sales talent
I’ve listened to a fair number of “success story” interviews over the years. And there’s one point that comes up again and again. To paraphrase: “Yeah it took longer than I thought… but honestly I was just spinning my wheels for the first year or so. Once I really kicked it into high gear, the result actually came pretty quickly.”I can relate far too well from my own experience building my recruiting business. There was a multiyear stretch where I was “in the trenches,” “grinding,” and all...
I’ve been teasing something big for a few weeks now… Here it is. Katie (name changed for privacy), joined my Summer Career Accelerator at the end of June… And she recently signed an offer with Harvey, the AI Legaltech startup, with a £170,000 OTE + RSUs. If you’re making USD, that’s ~$230,000. And for you Brits, don’t let anyone on Twitter tell you there are no high salaries to be found in the UK. All it took was ~6 weeks of focused execution with tight feedback loops working together. When...
The raw number of salespeople that startups need to hire is far higher than you think. Let's take an example, with a hypothetical sales team that is doubling in size from 20 → 40 reps in one year. For the sake of this exercise, we're going to assume that the sales team is 50% SDRs and 50% Account Executives. Sales Development Representative Attrition You can expect an SDR to stay in their seat for a year. You might be able to extend this a few months longer, say to 14-15 months. Go beyond...