Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling Every founder needs to sell. If you're not comfortable selling, then get comfortable. I see too many founders think that once they've secured the first revenue & gotten Series A they can hire a professional sales team. Wrong. Today's guest Frederic Kerrest (Co-Founder, Okta) tells us why it's so important for founders to be salespeople, and the when & how to star...
Jun 11, 2025•39 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling When budgets are tight and every rep needs to perform, you need force multipliers, not more headcount. Sometimes you need Rule of 40 -- a private equity orientation that can still lead to great success for the founders, the executives, and the investors. Mark Wayland (CRO, Box) talk about how only a few months into his grow at all costs company he found himself wi...
Jun 04, 2025•41 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling You've navigated your company to unicorn status. Crack the champagne, ring the bell, and hang the banner. Only, months later the macro changes. Now, you need to pivot the model, pivot the playbook, and pivot the team. Today I'm joined by Carina Brockl, (fmr. CRO, Aurora Solar) who faced these challenging shifts and tells us how she navigated them. The Science of Scaling ...
May 28, 2025•39 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling There's tremendous conviction that AI is eating the software ecosystem. Well, today we speak with Andy Shorkey (CRO, Writer). Not only is he navigating all the complexities of bringing native AI products to market, he's also reinventing the way that go-to market is done internally in a far more efficient way in the post AI world. LINKS Exclusive ICP Expansion Guide: htt...
May 21, 2025•38 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling Send me your cold calls! Email us at TheScienceofScaling@gmail.com. I'll help you set more meetings &. we'll use your call in an upcoming video. So Producer Matthew fails at cold calling. But he learns the framework that actually works. *Stop freezing up on sales calls, get a script!* 🔗 https://clickhubspot.com/29868f I roped in Producer Matthew to actually try sell...
May 14, 2025•22 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling Perplexity is attempting something no one thought possible: Challenging Google for search dominance. Dmitri Shevelenko was advising five different orgs, before fully signing on to Perplexity. What energy and pull he found from this vision? And he unpacks how Perplexity successfully transitioned from founder selling to professional sales. The Science of Scaling is a HubSp...
May 07, 2025•40 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling Imagine passing $5 million with three customers. That is whale hunting. Going after big customers with big deals from day one isn't advisable. But sometimes it's the only path. Today, Ed Calnan (Co-Founder and Fmr. CRO, Seismic) walks us through how to get big account's attention, get through procurement, get through security, all solve for all the things that kill the s...
Apr 30, 2025•40 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling Companies with a very tightly defined ICP that is operationalized on the frontline spend 50% less on sales and marketing. They have CAC payback periods that are 24% shorter than the mean, and those ICP customers have a 425% higher expansion rate in the first 12 months compared to those that are not. Today Dan Sperring (Founder, AlignICP) explores how product success is o...
Apr 23, 2025•33 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Grab our guide to transform your sales approach: https://clickhubspot.com/zrjp The amount of personalization is off the charts. The amount of time and money you're willing to invest is enormous. Because it's a million dollar deal. I'll walk you through how to navigate complex Decision Making Units, adapt your entire sales playbook for enterprise deals, and implement advanced qualification frameworks that go way beyond the basics. I'll also reveal what the best enterprise sellers consistently te...
Apr 16, 2025•25 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling What if I told you to build the sales team that doesn't talk about price or packaging? That doesn't even do discovery or qualification on budget or authority on the first call? You'd think I'm crazy. Chris Merritt (Founding CRO, Cloudflare) built a sales team that's a peer to its very technical buyer, whose first and only objective is to answer the buyer's questions. He ...
Apr 09, 2025•32 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling We all know Zoom. The company that helped society get through the global pandemic. But before they even had a dollar in revenue, Greg Holmes was the first sales hire and built the team. When Greg left the company, Zoom was valued at $140 billion. He credits his ability to build the foundational team in finding go-to-market fit as a key ingredient to that success. The tea...
Apr 02, 2025•38 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling Start the GTM section of your investor pitch deck with three words: Predictable, Scalable, Revenue. I don't know why it works so well. It seems so intuitive, but like every investor's like, "I love this guy! That's what I want." Yeah, , we all want that, but the question is how do you get there? So many startups get that wrong. They think it's a sales deck. They think it...
Mar 26, 2025•36 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling Index on impact, not work. Care about the impact people have, not the work they're doing. It's something too many sales leaders forget. Loren Padelford, who transformed Shopify Plus from zero to $1 billion in revenue in just seven years, is proudly a non-traditional sales leader. He positioned Shopify Plus as "anti-enterprise," instead looking beyond the current Fortune 5...
Mar 19, 2025•38 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling You're a CRO at a $4B company with 2,000 sellers. You've made it. Then comes an unexpected call: Want to lead sales at a 40-person team doing $25M? Most would laugh. Not Lauren Nemeth. As Twilio's sales leader, she saw something bigger in Pinecone - a chance to shape how AI transforms enterprise selling. From hiring algorithms to handling objections, she recognized that ...
Mar 12, 2025•37 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling "I have an amazing idea for a startup." That goes through the mind of every entrepreneur. Step #1: Raise venture capital to fund it. Wrong. People are always shocked to hear that more wealth is created in non venture-backed startups than in venture-backed ones. But it's the VC backed ones that make the front page of TechCrunch. Today we're unpacking the blueprint to boot...
Mar 05, 2025•41 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Get the Science of Scaling Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling There's a connection few founders make — customer interview best practices & deciding what product to build are almost exactly the same as building your sales playbook. Those best practices should influence your zero to one minimal viable product design. And during that stage, not only are you figuring out your MVP, you're actually building your sales process. There a...
Feb 26, 2025•39 min•Season 3Ep. 1
New season coming soon! Until then, enjoy this tactical conversation I had with Donald Kelly (Founder & Host, The Sales Evangelist). We pack more knowledge inside 25 minutes than most sales leaders get in a month -- including performance diagnostics, addressing stakeholder interests, pricing models, and attuning sales rep mindsets. We always love to hear from you so reach out to us at podcasts@hubspot.com or send me a note on LinkedIn.
Dec 17, 2024•30 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Are marketers just doing a bunch of arts & crafts? Are salespeople spoiled brats? I don't want to offend anyone, but I think most folks would chuckle at this: Sales and marketing leaders don't naturally get along. So what's the solve for a siloed marketing and sales? Let's talk through some key steps towards holding everyone accountable to meeting our revenue goals: Team communication responsibilities Identify how much pipeline and revenue comes from Marketing Defining a Marketing Qualified ...
Aug 29, 2024•14 min•Season 2Ep. 17
You wanted to know about me?! I'm flattered, humbled, and happy to share what's been inspiring me lately. Everything from my favorite comedians to my thoughts on the Innovator's Dilemma. I want to know what you're wondering about! Submit your question at podcasts@hubspot.com, dropping a note on LinkedIn, or leaving a comment on Spotify. Grab the 3 Steps to a Perfect Pitch guide here https://clickhubspot.com/pitch
Aug 22, 2024•12 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Today's listener Q&A is all about scaling your culture. We want to move GTM and sales away from an uncontrollable art form to a data-driven, predictable process. And that starts at the top. Our questions is -- "How can sales culture be influenced from the top down?" Here's what you can expect: "Scalable Visibility" through inspecting every aspect of your GTM Effective coaching strategies for your sales team Hiring high-quality, best fit candidates through training and certification How to cr...
Aug 15, 2024•14 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Today we have another mailbag question, and let me tell you: I love these. Today's question is one that's come up a lot lately for the portfolio over at Stage 2 Capital -- "How do you decide whether CS or Sales owns revenue from customers?" Here's what you can expect: Pros & cons in specializing roles between hunters and farmers A framework for decision making based on LTV captured in the first sale Designing the most motivating compensation plan The concept of Leading Indicator of Retention...
Aug 08, 2024•23 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Is the startup you're about to join gonna become a unicorn? That's the billion dollar question. It's so hard to tell. But one of the leading indicators of that that's rarely talked about is whether they're scaling to massive revenue through only inbound leads. It's so hard to find those companies. And if you do latch on. That's what happened with Carrie Bosworth, who a few years ago joined Checkr as the SVP of Sales. They scaled to huge revenue numbers through inbound only, but they knew it was ...
Aug 01, 2024•33 min•Season 2Ep. 13
You're looking for your next job. The last one didn't go so well. You gotta get this one right, and you found one. But how do you know if it's good and how do you know you can help? That's an important riddle. And today we bring in my friend Dini Mehta , the founding CRO of Lattice. She saw that this company wasn't exactly growing in its infancy, but she came across Jack Altman, Sam Altman's (OpenAI) brother, who's one of the most brilliant founders she met. So she had to assess Lattice to figur...
Jul 25, 2024•34 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Expanding from selling a single product to multiple products. It's almost a required journey for getting to unicorn status. And yet that journey often leads to failure. Most companies think, "Mobilize the organization, train the sales team, build the product, get the customer support folks trained, change the website." Only, that's the approach that leads to failure. So today we bring in Ryan Meadows, head of Global Sales at Klaviyo, to walk us through how his company has scaled to multi-product...
Jul 18, 2024•34 min•Season 2Ep. 9
If a sales rep receives more than three hours of coaching a month, they beat their quota by 7% on average. If they receive less than two hours of coaching a month, they miss by 10%. (Corporate Executive Board) Building a world class coaching culture is one of the most important ways to scale your sales and revenue. And that's what Jonathan Vassil (CRO, Toast) has done. Jonathan talks bout: Importance and influence of a sales coaching culture Creating performance management systems Prioritizing w...
Jul 11, 2024•32 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Have you ever reflected on the term post sale? Why do we call that post sale? When did we stop selling? And what have we started to do? Create customer value. Renew and expand. I've never thought about it until today's episode with Sangeeta Chakraborty (CRO, Miro) — a recent Silicon Valley darling. And what's really cool and unique about her is she grew up in customer success. Customer success didn't even exist 20 years ago. And now we have this new generation of CROs that grew up from that pers...
Jul 04, 2024•37 min•Season 2Ep. 7
You're the sales leader of a unicorn. Selling the tool that every sales leader tries to optimize around. So the question is: How do you and your team use it? We're learning from Ryan Longfield (fmr. CRO, Gong) about how to run your sales org like a billion dollar company using the same software we're all using. Because it turns out, almost all of us are not unlocking its real potential You'll also hear from Ryan about: How to chart your career path based on priority and life stage Why content ma...
Jun 27, 2024•37 min•Season 2Ep. 8
You're a first time founder, CEO, or sales leader. You've crushed the Seed stage of your business, and got the $10 million Series A check. Now you're at your board meeting. The multi-decade venture capitalist is feeding you with advice and counsel. And you take it. The problem is: They're wrong sometimes. But how do you know — you've never been in this seat before? As an independent board member, Jen Grant (COO, Cube) has seen every angle of this equation and she's here to help us decipher it. T...
Jun 20, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 7
You spoke and we listened. We cover a lot of the science of scaling in our episodes, but we know there's plenty of questions you still have. So we'll be answering listener questions periodically on the show. Send your question to Mark on LinkedIn, at our email address podcasts@hubspot.com, or on Spotify's Q&A prompt on your phone. Today, Mark predicts the future of AI in the revenue space and how leaders need to think today in order to find success in the years to come. It won't be easy, but...
Jun 13, 2024•12 min
We're in the Q2 board meeting, and we have a huge decision ahead: Who is our next sales leader? We're sifting through the candidates and one person says, ah, they're two big company. What does that mean to big company? Jeff Perry (CRO, Carta) knew he had to check his ego at the door if he was going to find success coming from a sales org like Oracle to lead a then 50 person team at Carta. Here's what it takes: Sales ops as a trusted internal partner for sales leaders Segmentation for optimal org...
Jun 06, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 5
