The Investor + Operator Podcast: How to Build a World-Class Revenue Org with Mark Cranney, Former a16z Partner (Nov 28, 2023)
- When hiring an AE, I’m looking for success themes and progression
- Intelligence (IQ & EQ)
- Courage / Perseverance
- Focus & Discipline
- “Woo” – how they carry themselves; personality; ability to get attention
- Ability to work in a team
- Competitiveness
- When hiring a head of sales, CEOs of early stage companies should look for candidates who have put together their own playbook rather than executing somebody else’s. So much also depends on alignment:
- Motion: PLG; inbound/marketing-led; outbound sales-led (bottom up vs. top down); channel-led
- Size: strategic; enterprise/majors; mid-market/commercial; SMB
- Product complexity
- Verticals
- Competitive dynamics: greenfield; brownfield/knock-out
- Also when assessing sales leaders
- Are they a student of the game?
- As a leader, do they have a following who will come with you to the next place?
- “The value of a go-to-market organization is to help customers determine what their buying criteria is. It is not about communicating value; it is about creating value.”
- In the first 90 days as a new CRO of a startup, run a bootcamp
- Include everyone – sales, marketing, professional services, and CS
- Delivered by the executive leadership team
- 50% product
- 50% process: Go through all the stages and gates of the sales process in case-study fashion using actual customer examples. Arm them with messaging & questions. Make them pitch-certify on each step.
- Make bootcamp competitive and be prepared to exit people who do not meet standard
- Bootcamp is also a forcing function to identify gaps in: strategy; content; roadmap; revtech; pricing & packaging
- I want my SEs to be on par with a strong technical product manager
The Run Revenue Show: How to Navigate Downturns and Adapt to Market Changes with Mark Cranney, Go-to-Market Advisor (Aug 21, 2023)
- You need to accurately forecast both good news and bad news
- I’ve always operated with a rolling 5-quarter forecast
- You should have executive sponsorship and activity on key deals
- You have to be excellent at competing against ‘do nothing’
- Book recommendation: Art of War
IoT Connect Podcast with Guest Mark Cranney (Oct 20, 2022)
(this was a conversation about SkyDio and drone applications)
The GTMnow Podcast: GTM1 – Creating a Winning Culture with Mark Cranney (Oct 18, 2022)
- On talent
- Track record of exceeding quotas (or being in competitive environments if coming right out of school)
- Character – Focused/disciplined; “woo” to get people to rally around them
- “Golden spur” = what is driving them to want to be successful
- The people you hire need to want (opt-in) to work in the system and culture you have built
- Ideal new hire bootcamp
- 4 to 5 days, in-person
- 50% product & market including: value proposition; segmentation/targeting; competitive differentiators; roadmap to close competitive product gaps; competitive playbooks to defeat incumbents, upstarts, and ‘do nothing’
- 50% sales process – based of case studies with customers
- Some people may not make it through bootcamp
- Confidence comes from unconscious competence
- ‘Executing a competitive strategy’ is a phase that comes before the ‘technical validation event’
- It is our job in sales to teach prospects how to evaluate new technology.
- PoCs/PoVs couple technical validation with ROI/business case
- You have to get granular on the buying criteria at each of three levels: CxO, middle managers, and individual users.
- “If you are not laying competitive traps, you are stepping in them.”
- Highly competitive environments will look toxic to some people and look like heaven to others.
- Be a student of the game – practice, drill, rehearse. It is what you are doing when no one is looking.
I’m Not Selling You Anything: Mark Cranney (Aug 10, 2022)
- At PTC, you measured your time in quarters. There was high accountability.
- When you speak with a gate keeper, just give your first name so they assume you are someone well known.
- Competence -> confidence -> conviction -> courage
Legends of Sales & Marketing: Sales Legend Mark Cranney, Former COO of SkyDio (Sep 14, 2021)
- PTC had to retool its GTM when transitioning from CAD/CAM to PLM.
- “The two big drivers of value creation [during the sales process] are technical validation/POC and building the business case with ROI.
- Why you over someone else is where the technical validation comes into play and the business case starts to form.
- You need to understand the buying criteria of people at all 3 levels of the value pyramid:
- CxOs: Focused on setting strategies, objectives, and initiatives. They determine ‘why do anything’ and later on ‘why now.’
- VPs/Directors: Focused on achieving funded initiatives. They determine ‘why you’ via the PoC.
- Individual contributors: Focused on using technology and process to fulfill the initiative.
Mission Daily: Running Your Business Like a Team Sport with Mark Cranney (Jun 20, 2019)
- a16z Executive Briefing Program
- Focus: G2000 and large government agencies
- Roles: Mainly CIOs but sometimes other CxOs
- Value Offered: “Curated Innovation” – Tell us about your initiatives and we will go inside or outside our portfolio to curate a list of companies to put 1:few in front of the executive
- Selecting talent using success themes
- Courage, focus, discipline, ‘woo’, what things they have had to overcome, where they are at in their life stage
- junior military officers; team sport athletes
Sales Hacker Podcast: 21. The Making of a Top-Producing Silicon Valley VP of Sales w/Mark Cranney (Aug 22, 2018)
- Talent:
- Track record of past performance
- Character: Courage; Competitiveness; Focus/Discipline/work ethic to get better on a day to day basis; Coachability; empathy; intellectual curiosity to figure things out
- Golden spur = what motivates them
- Example of courage: Overcoming resistance in a sale by going around or above
- Competence gives you confidence which gives you courage
- Hire for strengths since it is difficult to fix weaknesses
- Criteria for a great startup CRO
- Great recruiting eye
- Have not merely executed by actually created a sales playbook for your GTM motion
- Get very granular on actual AE productivity during ramp
- It is a mistake outsource sales process design and enablement.
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