The Exchanges

Q Okay, so let's just go to those. You said about the notebook element there and the product feedback that you gave. With the benefit of hindsight, what should you have done differently?

A I should have demanded. I should have. So there are two things. Number one is I should have never taken my eye off the, or focus on the new logo acquisition stuff. And to Sridhar Ramaswamy's credit, he's really helped reinvigorate that at Snowflake. So that's number one. When I left, we had trialed it last year at Snowflake. The beginning of this fiscal year, we had someone who was a direct report to me running all acquisition Only acquisition for as a fourth line manager down that works fabulously. So number one, that works. And we should have done that earlier. And then on the product side, I should have, I should have, there was a company that I wanted to buy that had a world-class notebook and I should have been more forceful about it because it was one of those, like one of the things that I always would say is like, Hey man, I don't make product decisions. I let the smart people do that. In hindsight, I should have forced it. I should have forced it.

AI assessment note: “In hindsight, I should have forced it.”

Q This is like too good. So I have to just dive in here. So when we actually think about these kind of reports, Being we have 300,000 salespeople that listen to every show, which is worrying given I've never been a sales rep. But my question is, how do we structure these sales emails for them listening, thinking, okay, I want to do it. How do I do it?

A Again, if you think about it, I'm going on eight sales calls a week. I'm trying to go on two to three net new business meetings a week. So I structure on, okay, if I'm going on two to three net new business meetings, I went to ABC company. I met with The chief data officer or director of IT or whoever it is. Here's who I met with. And here's the conversation I had and the next steps. And I try to get next steps in every one of them. And then when I go back to ABC company and I meet them again, I'm trying to set up a pilot and convincing them to try our product at the time. And then they're giving me objections on why they can't give us data. You don't encrypt data or you're in the cloud or whatever the objection is. And I'm putting those objections in the email. Do the company so that the founders, the engineers hear that. And a lot of features, like I remember we went early days. I brought Terry, or there was this technical feature called windowing that we needed, that we didn't have. And the guy's like, well, you need windowing. I need windowing. I have no idea what windowing is to be honest with you, but I'm like, okay, we need windowing Terry. And that night, the brilliance of Terry goes home and builds the basic concept of what is Selflake's windowing Functionality today. That's the beauty of the relationship between sales and product is I bring them to water and they have…

AI assessment note: “I structure on, okay, if I'm going on two to three net new business meetings”

Q Let's just break that down for me. Why eight sales calls?

A You got to leave time for prospecting. You got to be able to prospect. And that's the other thing is if you don't figure out how to plan for the next week, it's all about time management. I think for me, going to college or university is all about time management. If you're not going to be a, you know, an engineer, you're not going to be a doctor or something like that. You're going to be a stupid sales guy like me. It's all about figuring out how to manage your time. And I think for me, it was, okay, I could do, go on eight face-to-face sales calls a week and still have time to follow up on all that stuff, on all the emails that I need to do to follow up on the eight sales calls, go on two to three net new business meetings a week and prospect. So if you think about just time management, that's really what's in the realm of possibility. I worked at a place at EMC where my sales manager, who was super intense, required Meetings a week, and that was not possible. It was not possible. Eight is good. Eight is good.

AI assessment note: “eight face-to-face sales calls a week and still have time to follow up”

Q How do you create urgency in deal cycles? Even if they say do want it and they do have a compelling reason, how do you create urgency? Cause they can just take a while.

A Well, if you can find the compelling event and you basically create a backwards timeline of saying, hey, you want to get this migration done, you want to get this project done, whatever it is, by this date, here's what has to happen. In order for us to get it there, here's the following things that have to happen. We have to go through contracts. Our average time for a contract to get signed is three months. We have some customers who are small customers who will take 60 days, but we have customers that will take, like, in a large enterprise, their procurement departments, they crush Innovation by just their process. Large organizations have crazy, slow processes. Oh yes. Even longer. We've been in procurement for six months. It's crazy. It's great. So like large enterprises.

AI assessment note: “you basically create a backwards timeline of saying, hey, you want to get this”

Q You know, a lot of founders are concerned. What do you hear when you speak to CFOs? Is spending still going?

A Look, people have to do business. You're either going to keep moving or you're going to die. I call BS on that. And I think if you don't have a good value prop, yeah. If you have a, if you have a nice to have like a sales tool, that's going to be hard. A nice to have forecasting tool. Like I got someone who tried to introduce me to some sales forecasting tool and I'm like, you're barking up the wrong tree here. I don't have that pain and I'm not doing that. The reality is, is that's, that's not a huge pain for me. I'm not going to go buy a nice to have something that would be additive. But find the pain and CFOs are spending it right now. And I see that real time.

AI assessment note: “find the pain and CFOs are spending it right now.”

Q what I just can't get my head around with you, Chris, which is like, you are this unicorn. Again, I've interviewed You had 200 of the best operators in the world across product growth, sales, everything. Everyone agrees in people having stages of company. You transcend that and are kind of stage agnostic. Do you think people should be bound to specific stages or can they be plastic to many?

A I think CEOs, founders like to blame other people for failures. Sales, sales is probably the first person to get the finger pointed at. For me, What was incredibly helpful is having John McMahon on the board of Snowflake, because when Mike Spiser came in to Bob and said, Hey, you're going to go hire someone over Chris. Bob was like, no. And why? Like, what am I going to get that Chris isn't giving? And John was helpful because John gave me feedback. Like, if you don't do these things, you're going to get replaced. And by the way, what I said earlier is I took his feedback real and John was very direct with me. You're either going to keep this job or not, and here's what you have to do. So I think to founders, if you can have a sales leader that has done this before on your board or as an advisor or whatever, it's incredibly helpful because they'll help you identify, can this person scale? And sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. But the number one thing is you have to give them feedback if they are doing that, and do they act on that feedback?

AI assessment note: “they'll help you identify, can this person scale? And sometimes they will, sometimes they won't.”

Q We spoke before on Message about 20 X quotas for 11 reps, and I got so much inbound from that, and I think quota setting is so hard for founders today. When we're told that we need to grow faster than ever, we see five hundred million ARR bandied around so commonly. How do we think about setting quotas in this very new world?

A If you have a company and the, the founder says, oh, I should give them two million dollars, you know, in a quota. My question, first question is, do you have any evidence to show that you should be able to, they should be able to hit that quota? I'm like, no, but we're an AI company. Well, who gives a fuck that you're an AI company? Like show me the data. So from my perspective, if you're building a great organization and And you have a fast growing sales org you, and you have north of a million and a half dollars of productivity of them, of, of a rep that can, you know, onboard and within six months to over a million and a half dollars, keep hiring faster and faster and faster. If they're doing three, four million dollars, don't pat yourself on the back because that means you're missing opportunities. You're missing a opportunity in the market because they're just sitting there and they're fat and happy. Like, they're just like, yeah, it's easy to make my, my number. So I, I, I think it's like, look, make it hard for them to get to a million and a half, um, and, and find those, those hunters, and that's the kind of organization that will, will make you a very differentiated organization.

AI assessment note: “make it hard for them to get to a million and a half”

Q Can I ask, going back, we said, what if it's all going well? The flip side is, what if it's going badly? What do you do when you have a sales team that's not hitting goals, that's not hitting target, and you need to fucking motivate the troops? How do you do that?

A I mean, you know, I just had this conversation yesterday with a company that I'm involved in, and, you know, he had a segment of his business, you know, That, that missed the number. And, and, um, I'm like, okay, let's look at, did, did every rep in that organization miss? Did every manager miss? How's the second line manager? And turns out that like the problem is probably the second line manager. And so like you have to take action, um, because people are apathetic. If people get lazy and I've gotten lazy, I was got, I got laid. I brought Chad back into Snowflake cause I got lazy. Um, and, and so it happens. Uh, and so you have.

AI assessment note: “let's look at, did, did every rep in that organization miss?”

Q That is very, very kind. I just wanted to start with the book. If you were to summarize, what do you most want people to get from doing the book?

A So I, I co-wrote it with, uh, Snowflake's Chief Marketing Officer, Denise Pearson, and Really the, the reason that three years ago that we decided to write the book was that in most organizations, especially I'm seeing it from the outside now looking in is as I become an advisor to many companies, a lot of founding CEOs feel like it's great to have friction between sales and marketing. And Denise and I never had friction. And if we had friction, we dealt with it ourselves. We didn't go to, you know, mom or dad with going to our CEO, you know, we dealt with it internally. And I think it's really important. To have this really close relationship between sales and marketing and for marketing to treat sales as their customer. And that's what Denise and I really focused on in the book. And that's why we do it is that people ask me advice all the time around how to build their companies, how to build go-to-market. Well, I hate patting myself on the back, but Denise and I did a very good job of building a world-class go-to-market organization at Snowflake. And that's what we talk about in the book.

AI assessment note: “how to build a world-class go-to-market organization at Snowflake.”

Q How fast do you know if someone's going to fail? Is it very obvious or does it take more time?

A Well, If you go out on a sales call, and the person doesn't know what the hell they're talking about, and they've been on the job for six months, yeah, you're going to be in a world of hurt, and you should just cut bait. To quote Frank, he has this saying, when there's doubt, there's no doubt. And I think in your gut, you see it. And I think a lot of times, because you're a human, because you have empathy, you want to help people along because, and you want them to succeed. But at some point, they hit ceilings, And you either have to say, Hey, you're, you're not scaling. You're not doing this. And in your gut, you see it. And that's the hardest part is how fast can you make that decision? I think you see it pretty quickly. It's just, do you have the guts to go and make that tough decision quickly? Cause it's not, it's gut-wrenching.

AI assessment note: “I think you see it pretty quickly. It's just, do you have the guts”

Q We were downstairs before this and I showed you the video where I said work from home Friday is an excuse for a three-day weekend. Do you find that this generation of sales rep is aware of the requirements to win?

A I mean, I think there, there was a time where, you know, these reps, there, there's this entitlement, this like, you know, generational issue. Um, and I think COVID accentuated it, um, and, and really started the three day work week. I think, um, I think now, um, you know, you, you talk to any college grad, um, and they're struggling to get jobs. Um, and that's, that's changing their mindset. And so a lot of these people who have these entitlements, they're going to have a bunch of young kids come up And steal their lunch because they're going to go out and want to work because they're desperate to work. So I do think it's going to change.

AI assessment note: “there's this entitlement... And that's, that's changing their mindset.”

Q How do you create urgency in deal cycles? Even if they say do want it and they do have a compelling reason, how do you create urgency? Cause they can just take a while.

A Well, if you can find the compelling event and you basically create a backwards timeline of saying, hey, you want to get this migration done, you want to get this project done, whatever it is, by this date, here's what has to happen. In order for us to get it there, here's the following things that have to happen. We have to go through contracts. Our average time for a contract to get signed is three months. We have some customers who are small customers who will take 60 days, but we have customers that will take, like, in a large enterprise, their procurement departments, they crush Innovation by just their process. Large organizations have crazy, slow processes. Oh yes. Even longer. We've been in procurement for six months. It's crazy. It's great. So like large enterprises.

AI assessment note: “you basically create a backwards timeline of saying, hey, you want to get this”

Q not what you did. I always say, Don't hire a head of sales until you have a clearly defined sales playbook. You know your motion, you know your ICP, you know your ACV, and it's defined because that will actually determine what type of head of sales you hire. How do you feel about the founder creating the playbook versus bringing in a head of sales to create the playbook?

A Well, so the founder has to have a vision, but I also think that they also have to be very open to customer feedback. And if, if there's arrogance at the founder level that they know better than a customer, then you lose. Our culture itself, like to this day comes from our founders and it's put the customer first. And so they, they'll listen to the customer. I helped them improve the product. I helped them figure out exactly, you know, what are the features they needed to build, but ultimately it was their vision. So it was this combination of myself and then Bob Muglia, who was our first real CEO and he created our pricing and all that other stuff. So I think A founder, you know, who thinks they know all, I don't want to work for that person. I think you have to be very much open and very much have to take feedback. And if you're open to that, whether you're the head of sales, like Mike Spicer didn't hire me to be the chief revenue officer of Snowflake. And in fact, I think he probably said to each of the board members, we'll probably fire Chris in a year or two. I was a director of sales. So whether I was the VP of sales, the chief revenue officer, that came later. It was more like, Help us build a product that lasts. And then I think he figured he'd hire someone with more experience than me.

AI assessment note: “it was this combination of myself and then Bob Muglia”

Q What's the biggest mistake you think founders make when assembling sales teams?

A Well, I tell this to founders all the time. They actually, it's on the marketing side is where they make the mistake. Founders love product marketers. They understand the product and they're going to build this marketing literature and stuff like that. That's a waste of time. The marketing team needs to generate pipeline. They need to generate leads, meetings, whatever it is that the metric that you want to come up with. And founders, they're like, I don't want some pipeline generation machine. I want a great marketing page of telling the sales team why the product is so good. Let the sales team and you, founder, figure that out together. Don't rely on the product marketer to do that because they're not in the field. The sales team's in the field. You're in the field. To me, that the number one thing that I, I say to sales leaders, dude, go hire a world-class pipeline generation marketer. That is what you need because then you'll learn from the sales calls. Then you'll, that'll help you develop the product. So I think that's the number one issue that I see in startups.

AI assessment note: “it's on the marketing side is where they make the mistake.”

Q We were downstairs before this and I showed you the video where I said work from home Friday is an excuse for a three-day weekend. Do you find that this generation of sales rep is aware of the requirements to win?

A I mean, I think there, there was a time where, you know, these reps, there, there's this entitlement, this like, you know, generational issue. Um, and I think COVID accentuated it, um, and, and really started the three day work week. I think, um, I think now, um, you know, you, you talk to any college grad, um, and they're struggling to get jobs. Um, and that's, that's changing their mindset. And so a lot of these people who have these entitlements, they're going to have a bunch of young kids come up And steal their lunch because they're going to go out and want to work because they're desperate to work. So I do think it's going to change.

AI assessment note: “a lot of these people who have these entitlements, they're going to have”

Q Let's just break that down for me. Why eight sales calls?

A You got to leave time for prospecting. You got to be able to prospect. And that's the other thing is if you don't figure out how to plan for the next week, it's all about time management. I think for me, going to college or university is all about time management. If you're not going to be a, you know, an engineer, you're not going to be a doctor or something like that. You're going to be a stupid sales guy like me. It's all about figuring out how to manage your time. And I think for me, it was, okay, I could do, go on eight face-to-face sales calls a week and still have time to follow up on all that stuff, on all the emails that I need to do to follow up on the eight sales calls, go on two to three net new business meetings a week and prospect. So if you think about just time management, that's really what's in the realm of possibility. I worked at a place at EMC where my sales manager, who was super intense, required Meetings a week, and that was not possible. It was not possible. Eight is good. Eight is good.

AI assessment note: “eight face-to-face sales calls a week and still have time to follow up”

Q What's the biggest mistake you think founders make when assembling sales teams?

A Well, I tell this to founders all the time. They actually, it's on the marketing side is where they make the mistake. Founders love product marketers. They understand the product and they're going to build this marketing literature and stuff like that. That's a waste of time. The marketing team needs to generate pipeline. They need to generate leads, meetings, whatever it is that the metric that you want to come up with. And founders, they're like, I don't want some pipeline generation machine. I want a great marketing page of telling the sales team why the product is so good. Let the sales team and you, founder, figure that out together. Don't rely on the product marketer to do that because they're not in the field. The sales team's in the field. You're in the field. To me, that the number one thing that I, I say to sales leaders, dude, go hire a world-class pipeline generation marketer. That is what you need because then you'll learn from the sales calls. Then you'll, that'll help you develop the product. So I think that's the number one issue that I see in startups.

AI assessment note: “it's on the marketing side is where they make the mistake”

Q I'm really like you, Chris, but you're, you're also quite direct. I can imagine in a deal review with me, I would also be a little bit on edge. My question to you is, and I, I did get this from Kyle, how do you give feedback that's empathetic, where we know you're a good guy, but it's also direct and maybe not always that nice and easy to hear?

A I mean, Kyle and I have had tough conversations before, and he's a good friend of mine. Look, you don't have to be an asshole. You don't have to be mean to people. Frank always says this to me. He says, do you think the board of directors are my friend? And the answer is no. He, he, he answered it for me and he said, no. He said, they fired me in a heartbeat if they didn't think I was doing a good job. I saw that firsthand when they, when, when the board of directors fired Bob Muglia. Bob thought they weren't his friends and they weren't. Right. And I saw that happen. And I think you, you kind of have to know that in the corporate world, no one's really your friend. You have a job to do and you have an obligation to shareholders. And if you operate that way, And you understand that's the premise that you're operating on. That's, that's how I operate, so.

AI assessment note: “in the corporate world, no one's really your friend. You have a job to do”

Q You know, a lot of founders are concerned. What do you hear when you speak to CFOs? Is spending still going?

A Look, people have to do business. You're either going to keep moving or you're going to die. I call BS on that. And I think if you don't have a good value prop, yeah. If you have a, if you have a nice to have like a sales tool, that's going to be hard. A nice to have forecasting tool. Like I got someone who tried to introduce me to some sales forecasting tool and I'm like, you're barking up the wrong tree here. I don't have that pain and I'm not doing that. The reality is, is that's, that's not a huge pain for me. I'm not going to go buy a nice to have something that would be additive. But find the pain and CFOs are spending it right now. And I see that real time.

AI assessment note: “find the pain and CFOs are spending it right now”

Q what I just can't get my head around with you, Chris, which is like, you are this unicorn. Again, I've interviewed You had 200 of the best operators in the world across product growth, sales, everything. Everyone agrees in people having stages of company. You transcend that and are kind of stage agnostic. Do you think people should be bound to specific stages or can they be plastic to many?

A I think CEOs, founders like to blame other people for failures. Sales, sales is probably the first person to get the finger pointed at. For me, What was incredibly helpful is having John McMahon on the board of Snowflake, because when Mike Spiser came in to Bob and said, Hey, you're going to go hire someone over Chris. Bob was like, no. And why? Like, what am I going to get that Chris isn't giving? And John was helpful because John gave me feedback. Like, if you don't do these things, you're going to get replaced. And by the way, what I said earlier is I took his feedback real and John was very direct with me. You're either going to keep this job or not, and here's what you have to do. So I think to founders, if you can have a sales leader that has done this before on your board or as an advisor or whatever, it's incredibly helpful because they'll help you identify, can this person scale? And sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. But the number one thing is you have to give them feedback if they are doing that, and do they act on that feedback?

AI assessment note: “they'll help you identify, can this person scale? And sometimes they will, sometimes they won't.”

Q not what you did. I always say, Don't hire a head of sales until you have a clearly defined sales playbook. You know your motion, you know your ICP, you know your ACV, and it's defined because that will actually determine what type of head of sales you hire. How do you feel about the founder creating the playbook versus bringing in a head of sales to create the playbook?

A Well, so the founder has to have a vision, but I also think that they also have to be very open to customer feedback. And if, if there's arrogance at the founder level that they know better than a customer, then you lose. Our culture itself, like to this day comes from our founders and it's put the customer first. And so they, they'll listen to the customer. I helped them improve the product. I helped them figure out exactly, you know, what are the features they needed to build, but ultimately it was their vision. So it was this combination of myself and then Bob Muglia, who was our first real CEO and he created our pricing and all that other stuff. So I think A founder, you know, who thinks they know all, I don't want to work for that person. I think you have to be very much open and very much have to take feedback. And if you're open to that, whether you're the head of sales, like Mike Spicer didn't hire me to be the chief revenue officer of Snowflake. And in fact, I think he probably said to each of the board members, we'll probably fire Chris in a year or two. I was a director of sales. So whether I was the VP of sales, the chief revenue officer, that came later. It was more like, Help us build a product that lasts. And then I think he figured he'd hire someone with more experience than me.

AI assessment note: “the founder has to have a vision, but I also think that they also have”