Eleanor Dorfman: How We Scaled Retool to $50M ARR; Red Flags for Sales Hires | 20VC #925

1. 0:00 – 0:30

   Intro

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:00

      Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination. Eleanor, it is such a joy to do this. I've heard so many great things, especially from Jordan, who said you're an absolute star. And he desperately misses working with you. But thank you so much for joining me today.

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman0:20

      Thank you so much. Working with Jordan was a has been, and I hope will be again, a highlight of my professional career thus far. So, the feeling is very mutual.

2. 0:30 – 2:50

   How do you get into the world of tech?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:30

      What incredible energy he has, I have to admit.

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman0:32

      (laughs)

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:32

      But I want to start a little bit on you. So tell me, how did you make your way into the world of tech and how did you come to be a sales leader, obviously, today at Retool?

   4. EDEleanor Dorfman0:41

      Uh, I frequently use my own narrative as an example for folks on why careers are such a jungle gym versus a ladder. But I actually lived in New York before, which is where I live now, um, and I worked for the New York City Department of Education on a middle school literacy program. I was in schools once a week working on rolling out software to ensure sixth graders, or grade six, uh, are graduating reading on grade level. Um, and as part of that, we purchased, as a school district, a lot of literacy software, and I was very focused on rolling that out. I ran into a ton of infrastructure challenges. I wasn't able to connect the software to the underlying data systems. And students move in and out of classrooms in New York City more than one million times a day, and so the data became obsolete almost immediately. And I had bought really expensive software and the kids couldn't use it because they couldn't log in because we didn't know what school they were in, who their teacher was, what classes they were in, and then we weren't able to securely send that to the software providers. So I taught myself how to write scripts to try and improve this process. I think I violated quite a few student privacy laws, uh, with the very casual way (laughs) in which I was shipping off student data to third parties, which in hindsight makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. Um, but I was looking, uh, one day for a solution to that and I found a tech startup that was solving that exact infrastructure problem called Clever. And I thought, "You know what? It might be a little more fun at this stage of my career to go work at a startup and to solve a problem I'm really passionate about." Uh, they didn't feel the same way. They rejected me three times, uh, because I did not have any relevant tech experience and I pronounced A-P-I "appy" on one of our first calls. Um, but ultimately agreed to give me a shot and take me on as an unpaid intern for three months. Uh, and, or maybe slightly paid intern, something that was a little dicey. Um, and I moved across the country, moved in with my mom's college roommate, Joan, uh, until I had a full-time job, uh, and worked there at Clever for three months. And then ultimately joined full-time and left as the, the head of customer success, um, solutions engineering and partner engineering.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings2:46

      So I do wanna touch on that because Jordan told me I had to. Uh, I'm

3. 2:50 – 4:37

   Customer success to Sales

   1. HSHarry Stebbings2:50

      never arguing with Jordan. He said given your roots there in customer success, like, how do you think that was an advantage for you today as a sales leader, having had that as your start? And how did that impact your mindset as a sales leader?

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman3:03

      Yeah. The, I think it's a massive advantage. I think I've, I've now looking back, I've led customer success teams, pre- and post-sales engineering operations teams, renewals teams, expansion sales teams, new business sales teams. And I think, actually, I think one way to put it, I have a customer from Clever, my first company, who I used to call and they would say, "We never have any idea what your role is. We just know we have to do what you tell us to." Um, and like would that all calls went that way. Uh, but I think it speaks to, it has made me... I don't see myself now as a sales team bui- builder, even though I've, I've sort of moved into specializing in sales. Um, I see myself as a company builder. It's why I like early stage startups. It's why I like to always see the complete picture and always ground every decision I make in what is the complete customer life cycle? What's going to need to happen three months, six months from now? What are we going to run into? What are the challenges we're gonna face? I think it's, it's helped me see around corners a little bit in a way that you can't if you haven't been exposed to as many different types of conversations. I mean, I've been in hundreds of QBRs, of renewals calls, of churn save calls, of discovery calls, of PoC scoping calls. Like the, the pattern recognition you can build by just having been present in so many conversations in so much of the customer life cycle, I think is actually kind of a huge advantage.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings4:21

      That was obviously Clever. And then we obviously had, you know, your time with Jenya and Jordan at Segment. When you think about it-

   4. EDEleanor Dorfman4:26

      Yes, two of my favorites.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings4:28

      I mean, unbelievable people.

   6. EDEleanor Dorfman4:30

      (laughs)

   7. HSHarry Stebbings4:30

      Uh, Jenya's interview process scares the shit out of me, but other than that, it's fine.

   8. EDEleanor Dorfman4:33

      Yes. Having been through it, I can confirm, it is terrifying on all sides.

4. 4:37 – 6:20

   What did you learn from team at Segment?

   1. EDEleanor Dorfman4:37

   2. HSHarry Stebbings4:37

      Yeah. But, but like, when you think about that time with them, are there one or two takeaways that you've really taken away from them and from Segment that stay with you today?

   3. EDEleanor Dorfman4:45

      Three, there's three that I would say. I've learned... I, the, the amount I learned in S- like, the compression of what I learned at Segment by just being around such incredible people, I feel incredibly lucky, uh, to have had that opportunity and to have learned from everyone I was able to learn from. But I think the biggest would be keep the talent bar as high as possible for as long as possible. Do not ever build a process or a structure or a team or anything until you know what problem you're trying to solve. That's become a very core thing that... We have a lot of Eleanor-isms, and one is whenever someone comes to you with something, I'll say, "What's the problem we're trying to solve?" I think it's so easy in hyper growth to just build, build, build, build, build, copy and paste your old playbook, build, build, build, build, build. And you have to, there's such pressure to move quickly, but if you know what problem you're solving, you can't go wrong and you can at least always stand behind that decision later. Um, and I think the third is that selling into a new category is really challenging. It's a different type of challenge. Retool was a new category. Segment was a new category. You're not just selling a point solution, you're not just selling a product. You have to create budgets. You have to create... It's like you're not selling a technology, you're selling a behavior change and you have to create both. And my friend's dad said to me once, "It's a lot easier to sell a Ferrari when someone knows what a car is." And, uh, it also taught me the importance of educating people on what a car is before you try to sell them a Ferrari. So-

   4. HSHarry Stebbings6:06

      (laughs)

   5. EDEleanor Dorfman6:07

      ... those, those would be the biggest ones.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings6:09

      We're gonna get into actually that element at Retool and, and cite challenges in some ways with that. I do want to start out, when we think about kind of founders listening today, hiring their first sales reps, sales leaders,

5. 6:20 – 7:04

   What does “Sales Leader” mean?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings6:20

      you know, your title today is sales leader. Can I be terribly rude, Eleanor? What does that mean and how is that different to a head of sales or a CRO?

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman6:29

      ... so it's me, so it's always unclear to everyone involved what my role is. They just know they need to listen to me. Um, but, uh, so right now I lead our AE organ- organization. Um, I've been at Retool for almost two years and was really focused on deals, on hiring, on recruiting, on building the team, on getting the sales leaders in place, sales enablement, all of that. It's more, so I run the AE organization and then it's take on whatever other problems we need to take on as a company that somehow have an impact on sales as part of that.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings6:57

      So help me out here. Um, I'm a founder, uh, and you're an angel in my company and you're gonna help me today.

6. 7:04 – 8:25

   Who creates the sales playbook?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings7:04

      Um, do I create the sales playbook? Do I hire a team to create the sales playbook? And what is a sales playbook?

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman7:13

      So I think the role of the founder at the beginning in terms of the sales perspective, that's not their job, I believe, to create the sales playbook, but it is their job to generate the inputs that go into that playbook. And I think the playbook could be sort of two different things. It could be how do you do deals, like your deal playbook. What does that look like? What's your sales process? But then at a much more macro level, I think it very much is also what's your hiring profile? What's your org design? What's your customer life cycle? What's your tech stack? All of these things. But I think when you go back to the beginning and what do founders need to focus on, the founder's job is to talk to as many prospects and customers as possible. They need to be focused on finding product market fit. They need to get just incredibly close to the problem that they're solving. They need to learn how customers want to buy their product, because that's step zero of building a sales playbook. Do they wanna sign up with a credit card? Do they want a POC? Do seven people need to be involved? Does only one person need to be involved? How senior does that person need to be? These are the inputs that a sales hire, first sales hire will need to build the playbook, but I don't think this a founder necessarily needs to do that, but they do need to generate the inputs.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings8:24

      When is the

7. 8:25 – 9:42

   When do you hire your first salesperson?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings8:25

      tipping point for you need to hire your first sales hire? And how do you think about advising me on whether that's a senior leader who builds a team beneath them or whether it's junior AEs who we send out into the field and just go hunt quota?

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman8:41

      I mean, I, I think it is a little more arts than science, and I think a lot of it depends on what you expect out of that person. If we're gonna someone hire, hire someone junior, don't expect them to build the end-to-end thing of the entire hiring profile, this tech stack, get the leaders in place, be one of sales enablement, all of that. So I think a lot of it comes down to what are the founder's expectations? I mean, everything comes down to expectations, but what are the founder's expectations of what that role will do? But I think, so you can hire someone at any point, it just matters on what to expect from them. But I think you don't hire someone until you have found... I've thought about this a lot in advising, but you found some form of product market fit, you can retain the customers you're clo- you close, you have some notion of how your customers wanna buy your product, you've generated some form of reliable inbound. I think, back to the expectations piece, I think sometimes there's an expectation that you hire a salesperson and then boom, there's revenue. But really, sales is there to accelerate a healthy machine, but it can't fix a broken one.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings9:41

      Totally

8. 9:42 – 11:30

   What gives you confidence at Retool?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings9:42

      get you. Gave you the confidence that there was enough foundations for you to accelerate rather than create or fix at Retool. Sorry.

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman9:51

      I actually outbounded, cold outbounded some of their customers, uh, who I'd worked with previously. Uh, so before I actually moved forward in the process, I went and talked to their customers. I wanted to understand without having them handed to me, what was the problem Retool was solving for them? What was it important? What was, like, why was it so important? What was their willingness to pay? Would they renew and why? Um, so I talked to probably five customers. Uh, that was what gave me a ton of confidence. Um, and then the other thing that gave me a lot of confidence is you see a lot of early stage startups that are good at selling to other startups and to tech companies, and they already had s- a handful of customers that were outside of tech. They were more traditional companies. They didn't have huge engineering teams. Like, it was beyond those sort of savvy tech customers. They, they had actually found product market fit. Nascent product market fit, but product market fit nonetheless beyond just tech companies. Um, and so I've always picked the product over anything else. Like, it just has to be a prob- product I'm really excited about and the way customers talked about it and the way the market was reacting to the product gave me, um, a lot of conviction.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings11:01

      I always get very excited when you see, you know, Ford garage in, you know, Dallas who are now user or whatever that kind of strange and unexpected customer is. That's-

   4. EDEleanor Dorfman11:10

      Yeah, like a, a regional credit union, like a company that doesn't really have a huge engineering team but still has business problems. When you can sell the technical product that solves business problems, you're in a really special spot.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings11:22

      I think we, we spoke about the profiles there, you know, senior versus junior. A lot of people say it depends on actually your motion, whether you're PLG or whether you are

9. 11:30 – 13:30

   PLG vs Enterprise Sales

   1. HSHarry Stebbings11:30

      enterprise. And they, they kind of always are quite binary when I speak to them, which is like you have to be one or the other. Do you agree that you have to be product led or like enterprise top down traditional sales? Or can you be both at the same time?

   2. EDEleanor Dorfman11:44

      I do think it's a little bit of a false dichotomy. Um, I think especially in the early stages, I think there are some... and again, I think this is also what founders should realize in their first through view. It's all about how your customer wants to buy and what does that look like at that stage? Do they wanna read docs and sign up with a credit card? Do they need to bring in other people? Can they buy it themselves? What's their level of seniority? What does the sales process look like? How long did it take? Were they immediately able to go get budget? Did they have to go above? Did you have to go above? Did you have to run a full-blown trial or did they just wanna try it out for a little bit? These are the types of things that I think are what's so important for, and why finder- founder led sales in the beginning is so important, because it's going to teach you what type of model you're in. I also do think you can have both. Uh, Segment was both, uh, while I was there. Retool is both right now. We have a PLG motion and we also have an enterprise motion.I think that works from zero to 100 million, roughly. And I think once you hit around 100 million, you need to start to pick a lane a little bit more because by that stage, your buyer has likely changed. Your sales process has likely changed. If you're a category creator, your market's maturity has likely changed. Your product has likely changed. And at that point, it sort of becomes more evident that one or the other is going to be your primary sales motion. So I think in the beginning, it can be a healthy tension, and you can learn. Your only job is to learn as much as possible with every single deal and every single cycle. Um, and then at around 100, I think you can really start to narrow in on one.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings13:12

      How do you think about the problem which is like, in product-led growth, often you sell to more savvy startups onboard easily. And then I see a lot of founders layer on sales teams wanting enterprises, the additional layer, and the poor sales reps go, "Well, the customers are telling me about the product messaging on our website, and they're concerned about it being for startups.

10. 13:30 – 15:10

    Challenges of serving both PLG and Enterprise

    1. HSHarry Stebbings13:30

       And I'm having to sell this kind of different product." How do you think about the challenge of serving two masters too soon, and when the right time is to kind of layer on that new customer persona?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman13:41

       I mean, I think it's hard, but I think it's fun, and I think it's why salespeople still get to have a job and add a lot of value to the process. Like that's the part we're figuring out. We... So I always wanna make sure we have enterprise logos on our website so that we can point to, yes, it's all of the above. And I'll frequently say, "The way that pricing and packaging is structured is it lends itself to that." So I'll say, "Yeah, we have these self-service options on our website. They're for folks at smaller companies. They're for startups. They're for you to get started. They're for you to trial. They're for you to have an easy way to get started with the product." But when you're buying and investing in a product like Retool or X or Y or Z, a platform, it's a behavior change. And it requires multiple stakeholders. It requires a full-blown evaluation. It, it requires having multiple use cases in order to get started. And it requires creating space in your budget and your team and your process to bring a new platform in. And that requires a more thorough evaluation. And that's why we have done with customers like X, Y, and Z. Um, so to me, that's the fun part, is the deal situational awareness it requires. Like our reps have to always think, "What type of deal am I in? Am I in an enterprise deal? Am I in a PLG deal? Do I need to just get out of the way? Do I need to zoom out and run a nine-month sales cycle?" It's, it's part of the fun to watch them really learn their approach to that exact problem, and how and when they find the signals early on in the deal and recognize how to run it.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings15:03

       You ment- you mentioned your experience now with Retool. Uh, I, I do have to ask, Jordan asked this as well. So it's direct, but it's from

11. 15:10 – 16:30

    How do you sell a product with no buyer or use case?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings15:10

       him, not me, so I'm not rude. Uh, he said, "How did you figure out with Retool how to sell a product with no buyer and no use case?" Uh, let's start there. (laughs)

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman15:20

       Um, well, um, I do think open-ended use cases and platform sales are very, very fun. I'll say this, you don't get bored. Every deal is a little bit different. Um, but I think it isn't that there isn't a buyer. There just isn't a defined owner out of the gate. Like you can't just answer the question, "Who owns Retool at your company?" It, it depends on what stage you're at as a company, your level of maturity, how you're getting started with Retool. Are you getting started with a single use case? Are you getting started with Retool as a platform? Are you getting started with Retool as, uh, you know, a point solution for something? Um, so it's really-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings15:53

       Sure.

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman15:53

       ... dependent on that.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings15:54

       How do you do outbound if there's not a head of compliance that you always go to, head of product? What, how does one do outbound in this world?

    6. EDEleanor Dorfman16:01

       We... With a lot of experimentation. Um, (laughs) we do a lot of vertical-specific webinars that are targeting popular use cases that we've seen in FinTech or we've seen for marketplaces or we've seen for B2B. Um, and so we... It's just highly personalized. It's, we look for folks who are hiring heads of internal tooling. Uh, we, we look for folks that we know are right at the stage where you go from having sort of ad hoc internal tools to a more robust approach to internal tools. Um,

12. 16:30 – 17:20

    How do you do product marketing?

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman16:30

       and then we experiment some more.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings16:32

       Okay. Product marketing. When you have such a horizontal use case optionality pool, how do you think about effective product marketing when it could be so many things to so many people?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman16:43

       Yeah. Again, it's all in the use case and what are the problems we're solving. And I think what's been interesting actually about the market shift over the last few months, it feels like years, uh, is, is the value prop of Retool has shifted a little bit. It was acceleration. It was time to value. It was enabling people to grow really quickly and move at warp speed. And now it's about efficiency, and it's about doing more with less, and it's about consolidating your tooling on one platform. So I think that's been a hugely valuable thing in how product marketing thinks about it is not, "Who's our buyer? What's the product?" But, "What are the problems that we solve?"

13. 17:20 – 18:27

    Blending PLG with traditional sales-led model

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman17:20

    2. HSHarry Stebbings17:21

       Given your experience, and then we'll move on to actually building the team, what's your biggest advice to founders when it comes to blending together product-led growth and a traditional sales lab model?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman17:32

       Uh, just take the ti- always asking yourself what you're learning and what you're trying to learn. Like it shouldn't just be... Just know the why behind everything you're doing. It, you know, it shouldn't just be, "Uh, well, Stripe was really successful, so we're gonna do what Stripe did." (laughs) You know, it should be, "Why was Stripe successful? What can we take away from that? Okay, what is our product? What's the hypothesis that we're testing?" You should just... It's a risk 'cause you create complexity when you create both, and you have to do it for a reason. So you, uh, it, it comes back to, what's the problem you're trying to solve? What's the hypothesis you're testing? Don't go out and just hire 10 or 15 reps. Hire one, hire two. How are they successful? What are they doing? Are we ready? What's the right profile? Great, let's hire two more, three more. Great. Are they successful? What's their profile? Okay, good. Now we feel we validated this hypothesis, let's hire more. But to be cyclical and test hypotheses as part of it before you just create a lot of complexity that you have to unwind later.

14. 18:27 – 20:28

    How do you think about pricing?

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman18:27

    2. HSHarry Stebbings18:27

       This is unfair of me to go off-script, but like you said there, like, you know, "Don't just copy Stripe," you know, always know the why. When it comes to pricing, I'm always like, "Oh, fuck it. Don't bother to reinvent the wheel. If it works for other people, just do it." Like if it's a similar lab model, do you agree with that when it comes to pricing, or do you actually think I'm being too flippant?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman18:45

       No, I think it's... Pattern recognition is so important, and people are used to... They buy seats from Salesforce. They pay... Well, it depends what product of Stripe. They pay consumption pricing with Twilio. They... You know, there are no models. Going out and creating a new pricing model is... Why? Like, do not reinvent the wheel when it comes to pricing. However, I think it is important to know what your value metric is and to always start with, "How do customers get value out of my product? What is that metric? How can I get as close to that metric as possible?" Because you need the price to value to be there. When you buy more Stripe and you spend more money, you get more revenue. Like, there is extremely tight price to value alignment.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings19:23

       Mm-hmm.

    5. EDEleanor Dorfman19:23

       And so what's the way to get that tightest price to value alignment, where if they're spending more, you're increasing the value that you're delivering.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings19:31

       My... Uh, sorry. We will move on to building a team. I'm on so many boards where, you know, you look at the pipe and you don't hit quota, and they're like, "Well, that deal slipped into next quarter. That deal slipped into next quarter." How do you analyze what that really means, and how do you create urgency in a sales process? Fun little tidbit. That's a tough one. (laughs)

    7. EDEleanor Dorfman19:53

       (laughs) I was like, I was like, "Well, if I have to answer that, then..." Uh.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings19:56

       Yeah. (laughs)

    9. EDEleanor Dorfman19:56

       Uh, I think there's no silver bullet to any of this stuff, which, again, is why you need tight leadership and deal inspection early. Like, you also... That comes down to the culture. Like, do you build... What's the culture you're building? Do you have a high-ownership, high-accountability culture where reps feel very accountable to bringing in their deals on time? I think that comes down to people and the people you hire and how you manage them and how you scale the team.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings20:19

        Yeah. I, I totally agree with you. Right, we're gonna talk about scaling the team (laughs) 'cause I'm just going totally off script now and it's really dangerous. Um, so I'm too intrigued.

15. 20:28 – 22:56

    Why don’t you like to hire from incumbents?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings20:28

       When, when we, uh, spoke before, you said you don't like to hire from incumbents. Now, most founders I see go, "Ah, Salesforce. Ah, Stripe." Um, why is that? And... All right. Why do you not like to hire from incumbents?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman20:43

       I think it also... I should clarify. It depends when, but I think early on, especially when you're building a sales team from the ground up, it's, it's sort of that, that view on of who you hire, that's the DNA of your sales team. I'm an extremely... Probably to a fault, I've been told I'm become irrational when it comes to the team. (laughs) Uh, but an extremely people-oriented person. I think they're... Recruiting is your most important job as a sales leader. How you lead the team is your most imp- You know, there's... The people are ultimately... Like, the answer to most questions, I think, that you would ask about scaling a successful s- sales team, there's process, there's pricing, there's packaging, there's all those. There's the product, obviously, but so much of it comes down to the people. The rest of it is there. Like, I think that's the difference between good companies and great companies. Um, but the-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings21:27

       Uh, but why not e- why not incumbents?

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman21:30

       Yeah. So, I think in the beginning, you have no idea what you're doing. Uh, you have some ideas, you know what hypotheses you're testing, but you don't have sales enablement. You don't really have the playbook for the deals yet. W- do you have your ICP? Do you know if you're PLG or enterprise? Do you know what works? Pricing is still probably really new. The product probably has a lot of gaps where you're sort of a human patch against product gaps. And sales leaders are running a million miles a minute, so you're not gonna get a ton of support, so you kind of have to be a street fighter. You have to be really adaptable, you have to be really flexible, you have to be able to operate without a safety net, and you have to do so with a level of confidence, and you have to b- enjoy that level of ambiguity and sort of flourish in that type of environment. And folks who have been an incumbents for a while, they get... They have well... They're well-oiled machines and sometimes you just want a street fighter who's gonna go out there and say, "Okay. What's my onboarding? Oh, there is none? Cool. All right. I'm gonna figure this out." Um, and those are the folks who... You're gonna learn more from them than from anything else, 'cause they're gonna bring this fresh perspective. They're gonna be hungry, they're gonna be curious, they're gonna be creative, and they're gonna help you figure out what to do next.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings22:43

       So, I totally agree with you in terms of the mental flexibility that street fighters have. Wonderful terminology. Great title for the show, by the way. Um, but, uh, I, I, I want to ask, if we think about the process, I've never hired sales teams before, Eleanore, in this

16. 22:56 – 24:15

    The process of hiring a sales member

    1. HSHarry Stebbings22:56

       hypothetical founder situation. So, when it comes to the process, how do I structure the process? Like, can you walk me through how you do yours and how I should do mine?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman23:07

       So, again, I think that it always comes back to what's important to you at that stage. What are you hiring for at that stage? And I think so many of my sales cycles that I'm in are, "Are you going to build something or are you going to buy something?" I think it's the same with hiring. When it comes to your candidates, what do you wanna build and what do you wanna buy? And so I always think about, "Here's what I can build. I can teach this sales process. I can teach how to use the product. I can teach how... The technical aspects. I can't teach IQ, I can't teach EQ, I can't teach character, I can't teach drive, and I can't thi- teach curiosity. And I can't teach the ability to deliver pricing without fainting." You know, or something like that. Like, "What's the... What are the things that I cannot teach that I must buy and are critically important to me?" And those five are mine. So, design interviews that test for those things. Like, what are your important... How do you test for those? Where are you getting the signal? I also want to test for technical comfort. So, what's in the interview to make sure they're just not gonna be intimidated by a technical product or selling to engineers? I want to test for past performance. Have they been successful? Um, and then I build the interview process from there. But it starts with, "What am I buying?"

    3. HSHarry Stebbings24:13

       Eleanor, I am a moron,

17. 24:15 – 25:52

    How do you test for technical aptitude?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings24:15

       okay? I need help more than this. We're gonna break down one by one. Technical aptitude. Like, how do you test this? Is it, like, screen share w- w- a demo? And I'll... How... Let's dive into that. W- how do you test for technical?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman24:29

       Uh, I like them to explain. We- we have one of our sales engineers interview and we... Basically, and it's on walk us through the previous last product you've sold. Walk us through the tech. And so then we can test, how deep did they get in their previous product and did they understand it? And then we'll ask a few questions about Retool. We're not even looking for...... for future candidates out there. Um, we're looking for less can-you-answer-them more how do you handle yourself when you're asked questions you don't know the answer to. Do you try to make something up? Or do you just say, "Great question. I'm not sure. I'll have to bring in someone else."

    3. HSHarry Stebbings25:01

       Got you. Okay, so we got a sales engineer, they help us understand that. We walk through a prior product that we've worked with. What were the other ones?

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman25:08

       Uh, I care a lot about customer centricity. Uh, we're very customer oriented. I have a customer success background. So we ask folks to talk through previous customers they've worked with. What do they remember about them? What stood out? What was the value they were able to add? What problems did their product solve for them? And basically, do they think about it in terms of the customer or do they think about it in terms of the deal?

    5. HSHarry Stebbings25:28

       Huh. Interesting. And we always want them to be customer first.

    6. EDEleanor Dorfman25:32

       Or like really good at deals. But yes-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings25:34

       Uh-huh.

    8. EDEleanor Dorfman25:34

       ... I think a customer first mindset is also something you can't teach. You can't build it. You have to buy it.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings25:39

       Okay. Is there any other core elements?

    10. EDEleanor Dorfman25:43

        I mean, I think the history of performance is really standard and really important. Uh, things that we-

    11. HSHarry Stebbings25:49

        Oh, so we- so if we dig in there, like

18. 25:52 – 27:01

    Analyzing past performance

    1. HSHarry Stebbings25:52

       Jordan said on the show, the trouble is performance can kind of be a- a mask? Like if you, you know, so he gave Twilio as an example. You worked at Twilio in 2009 and you signed Uber and Airbnb and everyone, you're gonna be like the greatest sales rep in history. (laughs) Um, which may be, you know, misleading. How do you really try and understand performance more than surface level?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman26:13

       So actually, Jordan taught me one of the- the best things here, which is that salespeople are good at selling. That is their job. And when they're interviewing, they're selling their favorite subject, themselves.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings26:23

       (laughs)

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman26:23

       And the- (laughs) the key is to go 19 levels deeper until you reach the real point. So yes, they sold this. Okay, tell us about the deal. Okay, what was your role? Okay, who did you work with? Okay, how did you do that? Okay, what problems did you run into? Okay. Like to actually get to the bottom of not just look at the numbers, but the story behind the numbers.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings26:41

       Got you. Do you think-

    6. EDEleanor Dorfman26:42

       How much of it was outbound? How much of it was inbound? Did you have to create your own pipeline? Did you work with sales engineers? Did you work with CSMs? What did that look like? But ask those questions so you understand the inputs that went into the outcomes.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings26:55

       Totally get you, and I think absolutely right there. It's interesting on outbound versus inbound. Uh, are there any

19. 27:01 – 27:31

    Red flags in hiring

    1. HSHarry Stebbings27:01

       big red flags for you in hiring? When people say I versus we, when there's very hyperbole, is there any way you're like, oof, no?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman27:11

       The I versus we one is huge. Um, I think when you're doing performance screens, there are quite a few others, if they take ownership over things, if they're like, "Hey, well, my SDR was really tough that year," or "My SE couldn't do this," or the product X, Y, and Z. Like I think an ownership mindset can come through really clearly in examples like that, and that's a big red flag.

20. 27:31 – 29:18

    Case studies - pitch us Retool

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman27:31

    2. HSHarry Stebbings27:31

       Do you do a case study ever? Is there a final one where it's pitch Retool or- or a case study of some sort?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman27:38

       Yeah, we do pitch Retool.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings27:40

       Got you. And that's the final step?

    5. EDEleanor Dorfman27:42

       Mm-hmm.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings27:44

       Okay. What- what makes the best, the best in those cases?

    7. EDEleanor Dorfman27:49

       Then- So as- to your point, or what Jordan said earlier about how do you sell a product with no buyer or no use case? We test for that in the interview process. How do you sell a product (laughs) with no buyer or no use case? Uh, so it's, to me, the biggest signal on dot connecting. Can they take an abstract product and tell a compelling story? So-

    8. HSHarry Stebbings28:08

       Mm-hmm.

    9. EDEleanor Dorfman28:08

       ... can they pitch a company? Can they understand the company and their business model well enough to know what problems exist? Can they tap- connect the dots between Retool's functionality with the problems that company has? And can they turn that into an interesting narrative that would be compelling for a buyer?

    10. HSHarry Stebbings28:26

        We've been in the mindset here that we're just buyers in this talent market. Sadly, that's not the case. (laughs) When you think about closing candidates, have there been patterns between the hardest and the easiest candidates to close?

    11. EDEleanor Dorfman28:40

        Yeah, I mean, I think it- it's- it's looked really different over the last few months. Like it's definitely shifted and- and you can feel it. Um, in terms of the hardest candidates to close, ones who came just from a company that just had a big exit where the really good early talent is starting to look. Those are people- those are profiles people really like to go after us. So those are really tough to close. They have a lot of options. They've had a lot of success. They know what they're looking for. Uh, they know the hallmarks of a company that will be successful, so they push you really hard. Um, those folks can be really hard to close.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings29:16

        Can I as- speaking of the market there and how- you mentioned

21. 29:18 – 30:17

    How does the market change hiring?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings29:18

       it's changed a little bit in the last few months. How do you think about the market mattering when it comes to hiring the best talent? And does what people want in a role change according to market? Really presumably salary versus equity.

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman29:31

       I have noticed a shift. I think people are... It's funny, I think when things were so insane towards the end of 2021, people were looking for the next moonshot. Like they wanted the big valuation, they wanted the equity, they would take early bets more. Uh, and then people are trying to de-risk their choices now. Is this company spending responsibly? Have they made smart financial investment- investments? Are reps hitting their numbers? People have been challenging me on that way more than they used to. What does rep success look like? Where is it? Where are the deals coming from? What is lead flow like? And so I think now folks are optimizing for cash a little bit more than equity. Still both though. Um, but they're more focused on de-risking versus finding the moonshot.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings30:15

       I- I- I do have to ask you, we were mentioning kind

22. 30:17 – 31:10

    Sales comp plans

    1. HSHarry Stebbings30:17

       of salary versus equity there. I don't know, I've never done sales comp plans. Uh, help me out as a founder creating my first sales comp plans. What are some big lessons or thoughts that I should think through as I create my first?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman30:32

       I think it's- it's so founder by founder and what your philosophy. Like it shouldn't be, "Hey, this is what we do for sales." It should always flow back to what's your company philosophy? How do we wanna motivate employees? What's our company philosophy on equity? And then for sales, it's just how do we create- for our first hires, how do we motivate them and create incentives to act like owners while still...... creating a structure that will scale beyond the first two or three sales reps.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings30:58

       Totally get you. Can I ask, we mentioned like, the talent changes there in terms of what they want from the roles. When we think about like, actually once onboarding, the quotas that they're going against, that must change

23. 31:10 – 33:08

    How do quota targets change in cold and hot markets?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings31:10

       too. In terms of like, how does quota setting and target setting for you as a leader change in cold versus hot markets?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman31:19

       I mean, you don't get to decide what the market is, unfortunately. So I think (laughs) all- all you can do is always look at the most recent set of data. You have to look at the company goals and where are you trying to go, and then you reconcile the two. So what are you seeing? What is top of funnel? What does past performance look like? What is average deal size? What is average sales cycle? What kind of pipeline coverage do you need to hit the target every month, every quarter, every year? And how can you take that and map it into a comp plan, where, you know, hopefully... I think the- the- the logic I've always used is that you should design a comp structure where at least 80% of your reps are hitting, um, and that's sort of where the bell curve is.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings31:58

       80% of reps are hitting. Okay, I get you. Can I ask, in a different market, demand cycles change. How do you think about s- And how would you advise sales leaders who need to go to the C-suite, their founder CEO, and say, "I get it, it was big last year, but budgets have been cut and it's smaller this year"? How do sales leaders educate CEOs on demand changes given markets?

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman32:25

       I mean, I think it's still too soon. I think we're- we're just a few months into this, and I think it's important to not get whiplash and it's important to continue to focus on the goal in front of you. And when you reach the natural point, whether it be at the end of a quarter, the end of a half, the end of a year, everyone comes together and does that. It isn't just sales, it's also sales, it's marketing, it's product, it's success. And again, I think it all needs to roll back up to the company philosophy. Where is the company trying to go? What are their targets? What are the inputs to those targets? What's... I've always worked at companies that set big, audacious goals, um, and so I'm personally very motivated by that. But then how do you find the balance of what's gonna motivate folks and hold them accountable and challenge them, um-

24. 33:08 – 35:25

    How to prevent reps from being demotivated

    1. HSHarry Stebbings33:08

       How do you-

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman33:08

       ... but still achievable? (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings33:09

       How do you- How do you prevent reps from getting demotivated or discouraged when they don't hit the ambitious goal that's been set?

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman33:18

       I think you have to figure out, like, you always have to be looking at the inputs and to get ahead of it as quickly as possible. So right now, folks should be looking at their books of business. Are they talking to all of their customers? What kind of outbound are they doing? What success are they seeing? I still think as a sales rep, you have the opportunity to be control of your own destiny, and so much of it is just, you know, recognizing what you can be in control of. But you control what you can control, and that is all the company can ask of you. And so as a leadership team, you have to create an environment where people do feel safe and they know that you'll take care of them, but that they're doing everything they can that's within their control. And I think that's leadership that's cross-functional partnership. It's making sure product and marketing is coming to your team and saying, "Here's what we're doing to make you successful. Here's what we're working on." There's an avenue for sales reps to have asked of the business to say, "Here's what I need. Here's where we're struggling. Here's what I need to be successful." Um, so I think it's how you create an environment, it's how you create the culture on the team, and it's you do what you say you're gonna do as a leadership team and made sure that everything that's in your control you can help with.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings34:20

       Impossible question, how do you get sales performance to go up in a cold market, and what other levers do we have at our disposal?

    6. EDEleanor Dorfman34:29

       Um, I mean, it's so funny, 'cause it's such a different market than say for COVID, where there were some sort of clear COVID winners. Whereas this is like, no one's really winning. Um... (laughs)

    7. HSHarry Stebbings34:42

       Yeah. I- I- I- I- I- I don't know.

    8. EDEleanor Dorfman34:43

       It's like, it's very different. (laughs)

    9. HSHarry Stebbings34:46

       Yeah.

    10. EDEleanor Dorfman34:46

        It went from, "Oh, okay, in COVID we're going after these companies. We know we can sell to this. We know we're gonna let the poor events industry take a breather right now, you know, we're not (laughs) gonna go after them." But here it's- it's across the board. Um, so again, it's sort of- sort of how like great companies can come out of recessions, and Uber came out of 2008, and all of these now name brand companies. Uh, you have to cl- cling to that delusion that greatness can come out of these moments, 'cause it forces you to be really creative. Um, and so I don't know how you make it go up, but I do know that it's an opportunity to take a step back and make sure you have the right pieces in place, and that you've got them on the right places on the chess board, and that they're

25. 35:25 – 36:20

    Discounting to get deals done

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman35:25

       really ready to go when you can accelerate again.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings35:28

       How do you feel about discounting to get deals done?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman35:33

       W- I mean, no, not like team no discount. There's a time and a place. Um, but I think discounting is sort of a false herring. It's just, do you understand the value per- you're providing? Do you understand how important that is to them and what problems you're solving? Do you understand their alternative to using your product, and do you have a compelling ROI case? And then if you have all of those things and you have them with the right people and you're negotiating with someone who can say yes... Sometimes people have a tendency to negotiate with people who can only say no. If you're negotiating with someone to say yes and you believe it's a fair exchange of value, and if it's a discount that gets you there, great.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings36:10

       We- we- we spoke about from like the sales leader perspective, how can we make sure we have sales performance? Uh, if we're an AE, you said before there are things that AEs can do to ensure that they hit or

26. 36:20 – 37:30

    Advice for Account Executives

    1. HSHarry Stebbings36:20

       exceed quota. What do you think that they can do? And if you're an AE in today's market, what do you advise them in terms of what they can do to hit and exceed quota?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman36:29

       I mean, I think nothing's a given, um, but I think people are still running their businesses. They're still operating. It's an opportunity to get creative, to pivot your messaging from- to efficiency, to cost savings, to operational efficiencies, all of these things. And I think I've watched the team get really creative. We've got two folks down at a customer on site right now running a hackathon with a team. They're Retool sponsoring a hackathon, and they're building applications together. And so they're meeting all these new teams, they're embedding themselves in the business, they're building great relationships. Um, and I think hopefully they'll find some cool opportunities. Uh, we've got folks running webinars themselves with customers they work with and targeting very specific verticals, which I think has been really cool to watch. We've got folks creating their own customer dinners and traveling to create new interests. Like, the team is getting really creative, um-... and I think that that's what this type of economy will drive, is really, honestly, inspiring creativity from the team.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings37:29

       One

27. 37:30 – 39:35

    How to onboard new sales reps

    1. HSHarry Stebbings37:30

       thing that I often see being done truly terribly, and me in this hypothetical situation, I'm worried about it on their onboarding. How do I onboard new sales reps efficiently? How should we stage it and how do you do it?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman37:43

       We had our head of sales enablement, uh, she started a few months ago, and she's amazing. And I think that one of my biggest lessons was, you hire for sales enablement too late. Uh, and I think we hired too late. I think we have a lot of process debt as a result. Um-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings37:58

       Wha- wha- what are, what are signs that you're ready for sales enablement?

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman38:02

       (sighs) I mean, I always think people hire rev ops too late and sales enablement too late, um, because you can't hire it once you need it. You gotta hire it before you need it. So, (laughs) maybe hire it when you've onboarded your first few reps and you realized if... you're starting to figure out what works, but you as the sales leader is, are wearing too many hats and you wanna go focus on something else, then bring in sales enablement then. Um, I think it's a tough role to hire for too, but, um, I think you hire before you need it. When you're feeling like onboarding's going really well and you're patting yourself on the back, it's probably time to hire sales enablement. Uh-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings38:38

       Okay. And so what do they do to make onboarding efficient and what does good look like in terms of sales onboarding?

    6. EDEleanor Dorfman38:44

       Yeah. I actually think Segment had really great sales onboarding. I think we're building some really good onboarding. I'm a huge fan of Gong. We've got a series of onboarding playlists that are tied to different stages in the cycle. Onboarding, we've got a discovery playlist, a POC scoping playlist, a negotiation playlist, and then we sort of stagger onboarding in the first two weeks to focus on learning the product, the process, and people. We conclude their first two weeks of onboarding with a certification. They do a demo certification, and then we're about to layer in a discovery certification. Once they pass those certifications, that's when we say, "Okay, great, you can be in the round robin. You can start outbounding, and here are your customer accounts." Um, and then we have... I think Sally has orchestrated this, where we have these onboarding cohorts where they're doing Gong listening parties together. We have a series of five trainings that you do in your first month, uh, that are tied to the key stages in

28. 39:35 – 40:45

    Redflags you’ve made the wrong hire

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman39:35

       the sales, sale cycle.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings39:37

       Tell me, what are some early red flags (alarm blaring) that a hire you've made is a mis-hire?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman39:44

       I mean, I think it's so tough because you're not expecting any outputs at that stage, and obviously that's the biggest signal in sales, but the folks who have-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings39:53

       Do, do you not, do you not ex- do you not expect some within 30 to 60 days? I wanna be seeing customer calls going forward to the next stage. I wanna be seeing conversations progressing. We can push this.

    5. EDEleanor Dorfman40:04

       Yeah. I would say an empty calendar is a red flag, to your point. They're not outbounding, they're not booking any meetings, they're not meeting with their SDR, they're not meeting with their sales engineer, they're not meeting with their CSMs. So I think an empty calendar would be a huge one. Um, and two, uh, I think if someone's really ramping and going all in, they are asking me so many questions. Like, if they're not peppering you with questions, if they're not peppering their onboarding buddy with questions, if they're not posting in channels being like, "Hey, I was reading this, I was listening to this call, could someone walk me through this?" then I know they're not actually trying to deeply engage with the material and internalize it, and that to me is a huge red flag. So yeah, an empty calendar and no questions.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings40:44

       Okay,

29. 40:45 – 42:12

    What relationship should founder have with sales leader?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings40:45

       good. Uh, tell me, final one. Again, I'm the founder and CEO. What relationship should me and you have, Eleanore? This is like the early days where, you know, you've just joined and you're, you know, my, my sales leader. Is this a w- weekly meeting? What are we discussing at... Is it a monthly meeting? How do we think about that? What do you want the relationship with me, the founder and CEO, to be?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman41:06

       I mean, I think a- again, if you have a s- founder with a sales background versus a founder with a sale- not a sales background, that's going to look very, very different. Uh, and so I think it, it, it starts there and what, what the founder wants, and I think it comes down, what are the expectations for the role? What does success look like? And then I think you just say, "What do I need to do that?" And I think as a sales leader, you shouldn't be afraid to say, "Hey, here's what I need. Here's what I need to be successful, and here's what I'm gonna get from you, and here's what I might need to get from someone else." But, I don't know, weekly sounds pretty standard to me. (laughs) I don't think you... This is another one where you don't need to totally reinvent the wheel.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings41:41

       Do you do postmortems on lost deals?

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman41:45

       Not as much as we should. Um, but for really big ones where, especially if it's something we've committed or we've called in and it doesn't close, we'll definitely do a postmortem.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings41:54

       Gotcha. Do you advise founders anything in terms of postmortems on won or lost deals?

    6. EDEleanor Dorfman42:00

       I mean, I think win reviews are extremely valuable for the s- for the AE s. Uh, we do a ton of those every two weeks in a sales all hands. We'll do, uh, win reviews, and then we'll do lessons from

30. 42:12 – 43:37

    How do you structure a sales review?

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman42:12

       the field, which is, "How did we win?" Um-

    2. HSHarry Stebbings42:14

       How do you... how, how, wh- how, how do you structure a win review? What does that meeting look like?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman42:20

       Well, th- well, if it's an all hands, it'll just be someone presenting a slide that'll sort of talk through the three things, like, how did we answer the questions, "Why buy anything? Why by now? Why buy retool?" How did we recognize that we had these signals? What gave us confidence that we were going to win the deal? Um, did we run a POC? Who were the stakeholders involved, and what... and then back to those three questions. For loss reviews, I think early on, it depends how close the founders wanna be. I think it's important. If the lessons you take away... Like, I do like a blameless postmortem. It's just five whys, ask the whys as many times as you can. There's really important lessons that come here, and like it also fosters a mindset of you win and lose as a team. And so I do think in the early days, there's a lot of value in founders being involved in those and having a really deep understanding of why you're winning or why you're losing.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings43:07

       Yeah. Totally agree with you. Uh, can I ask, how do you prevent morale being lost again when there's a lost deal?

    5. EDEleanor Dorfman43:14

       I think that's also-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings43:15

       Because like you wanna learn from it, but you don't wanna be like, "Oh, we fucked up."

    7. EDEleanor Dorfman43:20

       I, I think that's also the culture. Do you have a culture of psychological safety? Like, you need to create an environment where people feel empowered to ask for help.... and people feel empowered to say they're losing, and that they don't feel they're gonna get punished because it is the single only way you learn and grow as a company. And so, I think that's

31. 43:37 – 44:30

    The hardest thing about scaling into a sales leader?

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman43:37

       on their leaders to create a culture where they feel safe doing that.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings43:40

       What do you think is the hardest bi- thing for you in terms of scaling into a sales leader?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman43:46

       It's a lot of work. Um, (laughs) it's really, it's just a lot of work at a hyper growth company. I just took a week and a half off and came back and worked three 15-hour days back-to-back. Um, and then I decided I needed another vacation. Uh, I think it's just hard, and I think a lot of people don't want to say that it's hard or say that it's a lot of work. I think it's really fun, I think it's an intellectual challenge, I think it's extremely rewarding, and I think it's a lot of work, and it's really hard. (laughs) And there's a thousand things that are immediate, and I think it's that classic urgent versus important, and how do you prioritize what's important and how do you make sure you get done what is urgent.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings44:22

       I want to move into a quickfire round. Otherwise, I can talk all day. Uh, I've literally just been peppering you with questions. It's so unfair. Um, so I ho-

32. 44:30 – 45:11

    What sales tactics have and have not died?

    1. HSHarry Stebbings44:30

       I, I say a short statement and you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    2. EDEleanor Dorfman44:33

       That sounds okay.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings44:35

       Okay. So what sales tactic has not changed over the last five years?

    4. EDEleanor Dorfman44:42

       I think relationship building has been fundamental to sales since day one, and even with PLG, even with everything that's come, building relationships with your buyers and understanding their pain has always been and is still incredibly important.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings44:56

       What sales tactic has died a death?

    6. EDEleanor Dorfman45:00

       Uh, lack of personalization, like spray and pray outbound, hold calling without knowing who you're talking to. I think buyers now today expect a level of personalization

33. 45:11 – 47:03

    How to do Webinars

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman45:11

       that they historically have not.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings45:13

       I mean this not rudely. I was surprised when you said about webinars earlier. What makes webinars good versus bad?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman45:22

       Uh, we, the way we do... Are they personalized, are they relevant, and is someone getting value from the interaction? So when you're putting together the content, are you designing it to say, "Who are my listeners, who is my audience, and will they take away value from this?" So ours are customers typically demonstrating what they've built, and then we have someone in the comments or in the chat moderating and answering questions from the audience. So it's not Retool pitching Retool, it's customers talking to their peers about what they've built to solve business problems.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings45:54

       What would you say is the biggest mistake that you see founders make when hiring sales teams?

    5. EDEleanor Dorfman46:01

       The biggest... I think not hiring, honestly, not investing in those foundational pieces early enough, not investing in revenue operations early enough, not investing in sales enablement early enough.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings46:13

       What would you most like to change about the world of sales?

    7. EDEleanor Dorfman46:16

       More women in leadership.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings46:19

       For sure. I agree with you there.

    9. EDEleanor Dorfman46:21

       (laughs)

    10. HSHarry Stebbings46:21

        No, it's a bit like, honestly, it's been striking to me-

    11. EDEleanor Dorfman46:23

        (laughs)

    12. HSHarry Stebbings46:23

        ... actually doing a sales channel. Yeah. Um, agreed.

    13. EDEleanor Dorfman46:28

        (laughs)

    14. HSHarry Stebbings46:28

        What can we do to make, what can we do to make that happen? Is it just fostering community and w- w- h- help me.

    15. EDEleanor Dorfman46:35

        Yeah. I think I was really lucky. I've worked for two women who were people I wanted to be when I grew, uh, in sales, uh, Roley and Leslie. Uh, and so I think I saw what women in leadership looked like, and so I always felt very supported. Jordan is an incredible leader as a woman who will find opportunities for you, create you, never make you feel less than. Um, and I think it's just got to be something people care about, and that companies care about and care about

34. 47:03 – 48:43

    What company’s sales strategy have you been most impressed by?

    1. EDEleanor Dorfman47:03

       investing in.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings47:04

       What one company sales strategy most recently have you been impressed by significantly?

    3. EDEleanor Dorfman47:13

       Oh, there's actually been a few. I mean, I think we're, we're starting to sell our second and third products, and, and watching the way it's coalesced into this platform story has been really compelling. I think these hackathons people have been doing are really fun, going on site and finding value-add, fun ways to interact with customers.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings47:33

       Outside of Retool, Emma.

    5. EDEleanor Dorfman47:35

       Oh, outside of Retool. Um, we might have to come back to that one. I haven't thought about outside of Retool in a while. Um, I actually will say-

    6. HSHarry Stebbings47:45

       So, so Jordan said Retool as his example.

    7. EDEleanor Dorfman47:48

       Oh, Jordan said, so then I definitely need to do a Monte Carlo one. Oh, I actually do have a Monte Carlo one. All right, Monte Carlo-

    8. HSHarry Stebbings47:53

       Sure.

    9. EDEleanor Dorfman47:53

       ... uh, has invested in field and content in a way that I have found very impressive. I think they've created a category through just sheer market education in a way. Uh, they somehow seem to be at every conference producing new content every week and have created a new language and a new category. And they had a booth at the Snowflake Summit, where if you'd won the raffle there, you won a ticket to actual Monte Carlo, which I thought was pretty cool. (laughs)

    10. HSHarry Stebbings48:25

        (laughs) I mean, w- who doesn't love a trip to Monte Carlo?

    11. EDEleanor Dorfman48:28

        (laughs)

    12. HSHarry Stebbings48:28

        Alana, listen, this has been so much fun. As I said, I had so many great things from Zania, Jordan, Kevin, many, many more people. So thank you so much for joining me today, and I'm sorry for peppering you with questions.

    13. EDEleanor Dorfman48:38

        No, it was great. Thank you so much for having me.

Episode duration: 48:43