Chad Peets: Why Most Sales Reps Underperform & Remote Reps Ignore Development | E1193

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

August 23, 2024

Duration

1h 7m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Chad Peets is one of the greatest sales leaders and recruiters of the last 25 years. From 2018 to 2023, Chad was a Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures. Chad has worked with the world’s best CEOs and CROs to build world-class go-to-market organizations. Chad is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Lacework and Luminary Cloud and on the boards of Clumio and Sigma Computing. He previously served as a board member for Astronomer, Transposit, and others. He was an early-stage investor at Snowflake, Sigma, Observe, Lacework, and Clumio. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:15) The Way into Sales (07:09) Focusing on a Horizontal Customer Base (13:38) What Sales Leaders Bring Pre-Product that Founders Can't (15:51) What the Right Type of Sales Org Means (22:02) Fixing a Broken Culture Between Product & Sales (24:21) How Big Should ACV Be to Justify a Sales Motion (27:01) Are Founders Hiring Sales Enablement Early Enough? (29:57) Common Mistakes in the Sales & CS Relationship (31:32) Key Lessons from Building Snowflake's Sales Team (34:46) Hire Fast & Fire Fast? (39:30) Why Do Top Reps Turn into Non-Performers (45:26) What Makes a Great Sales Rep (53:17) Mistakes Founders Make in Timing Enterprise Expansion (01:02:23) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Discussion with Chad Peet’s We Discuss:

1. You Need a CRO Pre-Product: Why does Chad believe that SaaS companies need a CRO pre-product? Should the founder not be the right person to create the sales playbook? What should the founder look for in their first CRO hire? Does any great CRO really want to go back to an early startup and do it again?

1. What Everyone Gets Wrong in Building Sales Teams: Why are most sales reps not performing? How long does it take for sales teams to ramp? How does this change with PLG and enterprise? What are the benchmarks of good vs great for average sales reps? How do founders and VCs most often hurt their sales teams and performance?

1. How to Build a Hiring Machine: What are the single biggest mistakes people make when hiring sales reps and teams? Are sales people money motivated? How to create comp plans that incentivise and align? Why does Chad believe that any sales rep that does not want to be in the office, is not putting their career and development first? Why is it harder than ever to recruit great sales leaders today?

1. Lessons from Scaling Sales at Snowflake: What are the single biggest lessons of what worked from scaling Snowflake’s sales team? What did not work? What would he do differently with the team again? What did Snowflake teach Chad about success and culture and how they interplay together? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Riverpoint Capital on Twitter: https://twitter.com/riverpointcap Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #chadpeets #riverpointcapital #sales #venturecapital #salesperson #hiring #product #snowflake #saas

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Chad Peets

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Chad Peets and Harry Stebbings, Chad Peets: Why Most Sales Reps Underperform & Remote Reps Ignore Development | E1193 explores chad Peets Explains Why Modern Sales Orgs Fail And Reps Stagnate Chad Peets, longtime sales recruiter and Sutter Hill investor, argues that most founders don’t understand what great sales leadership looks like and therefore hire the wrong CRO, misbuild their orgs, and misalign product and sales. He explains Sutter Hill’s model of hiring a CRO pre‑product to drive true customer discovery, shape the roadmap, and build the sales playbook from day one. Peets lays out how to design profiles, processes, incentives, enablement, and CS so reps actually perform and businesses scale efficiently instead of bloating headcount and missing forecasts. He’s adamant that today’s biggest problem is reps who won’t sacrifice to develop, especially in remote/inside roles, and insists that intensity, development obsession, and in‑office learning still separate top performers from everyone else.

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