Sahil Mansuri
Founder and CEO, Bravado. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveoperatorinvestor@svmansuri ↗LinkedIn ↗bravado.co ↗
Sahil Mansuri is the founder and CEO of Bravado, a professional network and talent platform tailored for B2B sales professionals. Before founding Bravado in 2017, he led sales teams at Glassdoor and Virool, having started his career working on the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.
1shows
1appearances
22statements
4resolved
3supported
0contradicted
75%fully supported
Everything Sahil Mansuri said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Mansuri: Reassign your best salespeople to customer success during a downturn
“Take your best salespeople and make them see a sense. There's no point. There's no point in having your best salespeople sell. Well, what's the point? People aren't going to buy anyway. I mean, and if they do, they're going to buy in onesie twosies, not in the…”
Mansuri: Predicts over 80% of tech companies will miss Q4 2022 goals
“We would predict based on the data that we're seeing that over 80% of companies will miss their Q four goals.”
Mansuri: Over 92% of VP sales leaders are men and 85% white
“92% of sales leaders are VPs of sales are men. Over 85% of sales leaders are white.”
Mansuri: 63% of tech sales reps missed their Q3 2022 quotas
“In Q three of this year, 63% of sales reps missed quota. 63%. That's up from 54% in Q two and 46% in Q one.”
Mansuri: 76% of tech companies missed their Q3 2022 revenue targets
“76% of companies missed their Q three target. 76% of companies missed their Q three target. That's up from 59% in Q two and 51% in Q one.”
Mansuri: Salespeople act like mercenaries because comp plans incentivize it
“Salespeople get labeled as coin operated and mercenaries and, you know, all these other adages because the way we compensate them, the way we treat them, the way we measure them is in a mercenary sort of way.”
Mansuri: Companies either grow or die; cutting burn to survive fails
“Companies either grow or they die. There's no middle, right? There's no like, oh, we're gonna cut burn and just try to like survive the winter long enough so that like, that doesn't work, right? Because employees get, get demoralized. Investors lose faith. The…”
Mansuri: Email is where deals die; sales intros should happen over text
“Stop using email. Email is where deals go to die. Text message is where deals get done. And so this notion that, like, I'm going to e-entry over email and that's how we connect is just far worse than the thing that I would really recommend”
Mansuri: Cold emails and SDRs cannot sustain companies over the next year
“I don't think just relying on a bunch of STRs and cold emails and stuff is gonna get you through the next six to 12 months.”
Mansuri: Cold email blasts fail in downturns unless reps teach prospects something
“This idea that like, I'm going to go onto my CRM system and fire up a hundred cold emails and I'm going to close business. Like that works when capital is cheap and everyone's buying everything and every rep hits quota and every company's growing, et cetera. T…”
Mansuri: The core function of a venture capitalist is 100% sales
“100% of VC is a salesperson. Cause they're selling LPs to give them money and they're selling CEOs to take their money in exchange for equity. Like that's the job of a VC. All the analytics, all the data and the, this and the, that, those are just like updatin…”
Mansuri: 100% commission-only sales roles do not exist in SaaS
“It doesn't exist today in SaaS. It does exist in other places. It just doesn't exist in SaaS really.”
Mansuri: Founders cannot optimize their way out of macroeconomic downturns
“People try to like optimize their way out of problems. You can't optimize your way out of a problem. You got to completely change the rules of the game.”
Mansuri: In downturns, cross-selling must replace cold prospecting
“Cold prospecting goes down in favor of cross selling and upselling your existing customer base, because it's hard to break into new accounts when companies have budget freezes and hiring freezes and layoffs, and everyone is watching it really closely, the capi…”
Mansuri: Counteract founder optimism bias by using predetermined quarterly checkpoints
“You got to forecast a year, but then set milestones, checkpoints, and kind of make predetermined decisions that allow you to avoid the bias of then walking into Q one and being like, oh, we missed in Q one, but no, no, we're really going to hit it in Q two. Yo…”
Mansuri: Flawed sales compensation is a symptom of prioritizing hypergrowth
“The real problem isn't sales compensation plans and quotas. That's a symptom. A real problem is we all just wanted to have hyper growth instead of thinking, are we actually building good businesses?”
Mansuri: The average enterprise sales cycle doubled to 115 days in 2022
“The average enterprise sales cycle was 62 days. It's now like a 115 days or something.”
Mansuri: Great salespeople are internally pessimistic and try to disqualify prospects
“Great salespeople don't have what I call happy ears. This is a problem that people misunderstand. People think that being a great salesperson is being ever the optimist, and that's actually not the case, because then you'll waste your time on a bunch of deals …”
Mansuri: Excelling at sales does not require being extroverted or pushy
“This notion that like the way you're good at sales is because you're super extroverted and pushy and willing to put yourself out there and whatever, ah, is, is, is a misguided notion.”
Mansuri: Meltwater reached $100M ARR with zero venture capital
“It's one of the few companies that has made it to a hundred million dollars in recurring revenue. Without a drop of venture funding. It's a Norwegian company, actually.”
Mansuri: A SaaS sales rep's quota is typically five times their OTE
“The ratio between your OTE and your quota is typically five to one. Your quota is usually five X. And this comes from this idea that your cost for a sales rep fully loaded should be about 20%.”
Mansuri: "Stumbling on Happiness" teaches founders the psychology of buyer decision-making
“And I think, especially if you're a founder or a, or an executive who wants to learn how to sell and wants to understand how your buyers make decisions, I think it's really impactful and teaches you a new way to think about sales using psychology.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Sahil's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Bravado | 1 | 22 | 75% 3/4 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |