The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 26 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Schwartz: Tying sales compensation to product adoption aligns incentives better than bookings
“A traditional bookings quota and a variable compensation structure, what that does is it drives someone to land a deal and nothing else. When you start to align compensation with the actual adoption of the product and consumption of what you sold as a salesper…”
Schwartz: Startups are never too early to build go-to-market partnerships
“So I don't actually think there is ever a time that's too early in a founders in, in a startup's life cycle to lean on the connections you have in your community to start developing those partnerships.”
Schwartz: Combining top-down sales with PLG drives true enterprise momentum
“That like top-down sales combined with product-led growth is how you truly drive momentum.”
Schwartz: Discounting and relationship-based selling cheapen your product's value
“I don't really buy into discounting or relationship selling personally to me. That's a sort of cheapening the value that this company is going to get from their investment in your product.”
Schwartz: Early-stage startups need scrappy reps, not tenured sales leaders
“You don't need someone who has spent their career scaling sales organizations and building out a ton of process. You need someone who is willing to get out there And kick down doors and ask the hard questions that will allow you to have to take that feedback a…”
Schwartz: Having sales candidates pitch prior products in interviews is ineffective
“I've spent a lot of time hiring people with, when they had to come pitch their product, That's not usually that valuable because often the people in the room like on the panel don't, they haven't been in the seat of the buyer. And so no one really knows what t…”
Schwartz: Managers can gauge a sales rep's eventual success within 30 days
“I'd say in the first 30 days you can get a sense of whether they're going to be successful because you're looking for things like what are they doing to What are they doing to get organized? What are they doing to start to learn about your product?”
Lauren Schwartz: Working mothers must dedicate time weekly to non-caregiving outlets
“Find an activity that's just yours. A creative outlet that fills your cup and doesn't require you to take care of anyone else, even for just three hours a week, because we spend the rest of our lives caring for our families, caring for our teams, and the only …”
Lauren Schwartz: Deliver results to earn leverage for custom workplace accommodations
“My advice is to earn the right to ask for what you need to be successful, and if that's a more flexible travel schedule or a milk stork service while you're on the road, ask for it, and set them online for yourself and for your team for what success looks like…”
Schwartz: Curiosity and asking for forgiveness are essential sales skills
“The best skill you can develop in sales is an insatiable curiosity about what's possible. And truly the instinct to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.”
Schwartz: Sales teams heavily overlook the value of ecosystem co-selling
“So I think actually the value of co-selling with sales teams at other businesses that are in your ecosystem, where a customer would benefit from the compilation of what we call a modern data stack. Is, is really overlooked in sales.”
Schwartz: Early startup salespeople are equal parts sellers and product R&D
“The role of the salesperson, especially in an earlier stage startup is equal parts sharing the story and the vision of your product, but also doing research and development, right?”
Schwartz: Fixed sales playbooks are too prescriptive for early startups
“I think that the word playbook is like a little prescriptive for super early stage startup. I think If what we're thinking about is first couple of hires and what they actually need, their job is to go out into the market and collect information about your add…”
Schwartz: Enterprise deals lacking a clear 'why now' were never real
“At Fivetran we say, why do anything? Why do it now? Why do it with Fivetran? Right. And those are the questions that you need to be answering on every deal. And if you don't have an answer to why do it now, slipping isn't even the right term. It was never goin…”
Schwartz: Startups must hire two sales reps simultaneously to test market demand
“You do want to have multiple sellers going at the same time. Otherwise, you know, let's say it's Lauren and Harry and If it's just Lauren and Lauren is a terrible salesperson, then you didn't really learn anything about your product or your messaging or your c…”
Schwartz: Sales interviews must target specific metrics over open-ended storytelling
“What's really important when you're interviewing salespeople is that you don't leave it open-ended for storytelling because any good seller can sell you a dream, right? And so unless you are testing for the specifics and the metrics and the repeatable performa…”
Schwartz: Spontaneous role-plays reveal if sales candidates can listen and pivot
“I often will just do a role play with them that they're not prepared for. So something like, all right, real life situation that I'm facing. We're deep in procurement with this customer. Here's a situation. Okay. You're the sales rep on procurement. Let's go. …”
Schwartz: Sales hiring fails when leaders assume deal experience from titles
“Making assumptions about their experience. I hired someone once. Who did this was back when I was doing, we were doing pitches and his pitch was so smooth. And I was like, oh, great. You know, he's very comfortable off the cuff, blah, blah. And I had asked, bu…”
Schwartz: Unsolved prospect problems represent sales qualification failures
“If it turns out that we don't solve the problem that they're trying to solve, that means we missed on qualification and quality qualifying them out of our pipeline.”
Schwartz: Losing to customer inertia means reps targeted minor practitioner projects
“If that happens, my reaction is what was the identified pain, how painful was it? Did we miss an opportunity to attach to a bigger business problem? Cause a lot of times when you're selling technology, you're like, oh, I found a practitioner who wants this thi…”
Schwartz: Black-box subscriptions and shelfware licensing models are becoming obsolete
“Pricing that's not aligned to value. Black box subscription shelfware, licensing. That, that model is, is moving in the past.”
Schwartz: Top sales performers excel in category-creating, unbudgeted environments
“I think the best sales teams are people who have had to be in a category creating environment. So people who like the real hustlers that I've seen be successful are people who are selling Products where there isn't already an identified budget and it's, it cre…”
Lauren Schwartz: Google used double-crediting sales commissions for parental leave
“When I was at Google, there was a double conch policy. So everyone wins and everyone's incentivized around the same thing.”
Lauren Schwartz: Professionals must personally build their own mentorship board
“You have to take responsibility for designing that personal board of directors. It's not something that's going to be handed to you.”
Schwartz: Segment initially rejected her because her Google background lacked scrappiness
“I was actually rejected when I first interviewed at segment because one of the pieces of feedback was, well, you came from Google. We don't think you're likely to be that scrappy.”
Schwartz: Asking candidates about lost deals reveals their internal locus of control
“And then I do this a lot when I ask about, tell me about a deal that you lost. And the reason I want to learn about that is because you get a really good signal about someone's locus of control. Either they're, they have an internal locus of control and they'r…”