Opinion
Kim Graves: High-performing sales teams cannot be built fully remote
“I don't think you can build the same type of collaborative, dedicated sales team where everyone's just working from home.”
Insight
Graves: First sales hires should focus on learning, not quota execution
“The earliest stage of building a sales team is not looking for Traditional coin operated reps that are going to come in and just build the sales playbook for you. The earliest stages are actually about learning.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kim Graves: Fortune 100 executives cannot be reached via PLG motions
“Executives of fortune, 100 companies aren't typically tinkering with the latest technology. They're focusing on their business priorities. They're focusing on How to drive the business forward. And you don't get in front of those people with a product led moti…”
Opinion
Kim Graves: Cold calling is the most underrated outbound sales channel
“Because I see it working and people don't do it. Cold calling is hard. It's way easier to send an email and get a rejection. That's easy. When you cold call someone and you get a rejection, that hurts. And so when you think about the other sellers around you i…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Graves: AI sellers remain far from replacing enterprise sales reps
“I will say, I believe it would work if it's a very transactional product. Like, if you're like, hey, we're a conference, and we are selling conference booths, this is the price. I think, like, an AI Seller can actually probably sell that quite well, but when y…”
Disclosure
Slack deliberately avoided sales outreach to community workspaces despite high user counts
“And so at Slack, we saw that our biggest workspaces were actually communities. They were professional networks that were using Slack to trade best practices. There were student groups that were using Slack to work on projects. And the sales team was tempted to…”
Insight
Graves: PLG founders must personally establish their ideal customer profile
“It's figuring out who is your ideal customer profile, and I strongly believe it's the founder, because that's not only going to guide your go-to-market strategy, it's also going to guide your product roadmap, and where do you continue To lean in.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Graves: Account executives must own their own pipeline generation
“Every sales team I've led or account executives are responsible for their pipeline, and they're responsible for their pipeline because they're also responsible for their number.”
Insight
Graves: Top sales reps are consultative and curious, not extroverts
“The best sellers are extroverts. They're great at messaging and pitching. Now I don't believe that. I think the best sellers are consultative, curious, and ask the best questions.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2030
Kim Graves predicts enterprise SaaS sprawl will worsen before consolidating long term
“And my prediction is it's going to get a bit worse in the short term, but long term, we are going to consolidation because there's no way an employee can learn 200 different tools and be effective in their day to day.”
Insight
Graves: Reps facing price pushback should ask questions, not defend price
“And instead of going into defending your product and why the price is the price, go back into question asking. Go into like, okay, tell me more. Why do you think it's expensive? What do you think is the right price to pay? And then just treat it as that conver…”
Disclosure
Graves: Notion structures sales pipeline stages around seller mindsets
“That's actually something that we've brought into our sales process here at Notion. So when you're building a sales process, it's very typical to think about the stages of the deal. Stage one, qualify the deal. Stage two, do discovery. Stage five is negotiatio…”
Insight
Graves: Startup Equity Outweighs High OTE for Early Sales Hires
“If you're at a fast growing company that is doing really well, your equity is going to be way more meaningful than your OTE.”
Insight
Graves: Sales Reps Should Manage Pipeline Like an Investment Portfolio
“If you have a diversified portfolio, similar to financial advising, like you don't want to just focus on the highest risk stock. Like you want to make sure you have a diversified portfolio. Portfolio. I bring that mentality into sales to think about, okay, in …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kim Graves: Establishing successful outbound sales messaging takes a full year
“It typically takes like a year to figure out, Who are the accounts that we're outbounding? Who within those accounts care about what we're selling? What is the messaging that is going to compel them to book a meeting with us?”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Graves: AI will automate down-market, transactional selling motions
“I see AI taking on a lot of the transactional selling activities. And if you have a point solution, or if it's a small deal, I can see AI taking a lot of that down market selling motion.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kim Graves: Enterprise AI adoption remains slow as companies wait and see
“I've been very impressed with the pace of AI innovation, but in terms of AI adoption is actually been very slow. And the average enterprise company is still waiting and seeing what happens.”
Insight
Kim Graves: A prospect refusing internal introductions is not a real champion
“I would argue it's not a real champion if they're not willing to introduce you to more people. Because a real champion is putting you in front of the right people to get the deal done.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kim Graves: Status quo, not competition, is Notion's top reason for lost deals
“Status quo. We use a framework. Why change? Why your product? Why now? And it's not a competitor. It's the company isn't stuck in their ways. They don't see a big enough problem, and they don't do anything.”
Insight
Kim Graves: Pitching cost savings closes enterprise sales faster than pitching innovation
“The easier one, I would say, is saving money, because that is cut and dry, but the long-term one, and where we want our customer success to really help them see the value, because otherwise, the risk is another competitor is going to come along and do the exac…”
Disclosure
Notion uses Gong and Notion AI internally for sales call transcription
“We have both Gong, which records the calls and the video, but we also use Notion AI internally to transcribe those calls.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Early Slack Account Managers handled AE, SE, and CSM duties combined
“And it was in the job that I realized that the account manager role was an account executive, a solutions engineer, and a customer success manager, all in one, helping our customers.”
