Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr)

**Jason Lemkin** (0:00)
Here's the mistake that 99% of founders and sales reps make. We're not really selling in B2B. We're solving problems. Our job as sales reps in SaaS is to not sell a used car, okay? We are selling a Tesla Model 3 Performance.
It has competition. I might not need it this week, okay? But it's pretty darn good. Let me help you get you into that Model 3 Performance today. And I've even got a special discount for the end of this month. And let me just help you. And I've spent four calls answering all your questions, and I've explained to you all the things and why the supercharging network is better than the regular one that doesn't really work at the charger near your house. And I've gone on Google and I've seen there's no charging network near your house. There's only superchargers. I kind of got you, don't I?
And that's the job of SaaS and sales because we're not selling commodities.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:48)
Today, my guest is Jason Lemkin. Jason created and runs SaaStr, the world's largest community for SaaS and B2B founders. He also runs two of the biggest tank conferences every year, one in the Bay Area, which attracts over 15,000 people and one in Europe with over 3,000 SaaS executives, founders and entrepreneurs. Before SaaStr, Jason was the CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, which he grew to over 100 million ARR and then sold to Adobe, where he ended up as the vice president of the web services business. If you follow Jason on Twitter or LinkedIn, you know how much wisdom he has to share about all aspects of building a successful SaaS business.
In our conversation, we focused on what I find most product leaders have the least experience in, building a sales team.
We get very practical and tactical on how long you should wait to hire your first salesperson, what your one to two first hires should look like, why you should actually hire two salespeople, not just one initially, how to comp them, how to interview them, when it's time to hire a VP of sales, how to avoid your salespeople flaming out and burning through all your cash. We also get into how to make the product and sales relationship healthier, including how to push back on sales and feature requests, why your head of product should be super involved in your sales process, how long you should make your trials, why you should avoid annual contracts and so much more. Jason also shares advice for running a conference, which I found super interesting. This episode went long because I just couldn't stop asking Jason questions, but as a result, I'm excited to bring you this incredibly rich episode on building your sales team.
If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow this podcast in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. This helps tremendously and I really appreciate it. With that, I bring you Jason Lemkin after a short word from our sponsors.
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