Dan Shapiro details scaling LinkedIn's Talent Solutions go-to-market organization during a conversation with Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Peter Levine.
Insight
Dan Shapiro: Direct enterprise sales teams capture higher pricing than self-serve
“And my guess is that for most products, you could actually find a price that you could, the product would, you know, in theory actually sell itself at scale. Truth is that we found that price to be materially lower than the value we can communicate to the mark…”
Insight
Dan Shapiro: The best way to assess salespeople is having them sell
“I think beyond that, I think probably the biggest lesson I learned about hiring salespeople is the easiest way to assess a salesperson is to get them to sell to you.”
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Dan Shapiro: Good salespeople ask great questions; bad ones talk too much
“Good sales person asks good questions, bad sales, people talk a lot.”
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Dan Shapiro: Leaders who think firing is easy belong in middle management
“Anyone that acts like, has the bravado to act like, oh, it's easy for them to know when to fire someone, I think that those people, ah, are in middle management. They're sort of relegated to middle management, right?”
Insight
Dan Shapiro: Hiring enterprise sales leaders into early-stage startups often fails
“And at least in a startup, most people, like, the thought process that we've seen is, you know, okay, we're at 50 people. We need to be at 500 people. Who has managed a 500, been a manager in a 500 person org? Okay, great. Let's go bring them into our org. Oka…”
Insight
Dan Shapiro: Sales compensation plans do not dictate company culture
“And I think what we've learned at LinkedIn is that compensation is not how culture is formed, ok?”