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Pete Kazanjy

1 episode

Episodes

Founder-led sales | Pete Kazanjy (Founding Sales, Atrium)

Dec 15, 20221h 1m

Guest: Pete Kazanjy - CEO and Founder of Atrium. Pete is the author of "Founding Sales," a highly recommended book for B2B founders, and he runs Modern Sales Pros, a large community of sales professionals. Key Takeaways: Founders should engage in sales themselves to understand the market, refine their product, and develop effective sales strategies before hiring a salesperson. A reliable sales process is indicated by closing 15-25% of opportunities after 50-100 attempts. Hiring should begin with early-stage, gritty sellers rather than a VP of Sales, focusing on those who can adapt to an evolving sales process. Effective sales management relies on monitoring leading indicators such as meeting frequency and progression through sales stages. Sales skills, including building rapport and asking insightful questions, are crucial and can be developed through practice. Topics Covered: Founder-led sales, sales mindset, hiring salespeople, sales process optimization, product-market fit, sales metrics, remote work challenges in sales.

Notable Quotes

โ€œDon't be afraid of sales. There's a lot of people out there who would love to tell you a story that it's magical or like, 'Oh, you've got to be a born seller,' and it's really not.โ€

Overcoming fear of sales

โ€œSales organizations are just revenue factories, so if you want to think about systems thinking and processes, but in a way that's not a textbook, it's absolutely fantastic.โ€

Sales as a system

โ€œYou're generally speaking, not going to close the deal on the first time through the pipe. If you have a 30% win rate, that's pretty great.โ€

Persistence in sales