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

Jason Lemkin created and runs SaaStr, the world’s largest community for B2B/SaaS founders, and is the managing director of SaaStr Fund, a $90 million venture capital firm specializing in early-stage enterprise investments. He is also the mastermind behind two major tech conferences each year—one in the Bay Area, drawing in over 15,000 people, and another in Europe, with a crowd of more than 3,000 SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. Before SaaStr, Jason wore many hats: CEO and co-founder of EchoSign (later bought by Adobe), vice president at Adobe Systems, co-founder and president of NanoGram Devices Corp., vice president of NeoPhotonics, and a senior director at BabyCenter. In our conversation, we discuss:• How far you should go without a salesperson• Signs it’s time to hire salespeople• Why you need to hire two salespeople• How to compensate your salespeople• How to interview salespeople• When to hire a VP of Sales• How to prevent their flaming out• How to scale your sales org• How to improve the relationship between your sales and product teams• Much more—Brought to you by:• CommandBar—AI-powered user assistance for modern products and impatient users• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security.• LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-a-world-class-sales-org—Where to find Jason Lemkin:• X: https://twitter.com/jasonlk• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmlemkin/• Website: https://www.saastr.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Jason’s background(06:18) The importance of sales in B2B businesses(11:23) Signs that you should start hiring salespeople(14:19) Attributes to look for in early sales reps(19:08) Hiring a VP of Sales(26:43) The role of a VP of Sales(30:06) Interviewing salespeople(45: