Mar 18, 2021 · 38m · saastr
The Future of Sales Post-Covid with Brex's CRO, Sam Blond
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this SaaStr discussion, host Jason Lemkin and Brex Chief Sales Officer Sam Blond explore the permanent shift to remote sales organizations, breaking down geographic compensation tiers, structured SDR enablement, and remote executive recruitment.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Jason holds 33.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 5.3 Guest teaching 3.3 Guest disagreement 0.9 Jason pushing back 2.3
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 34:38 Blond pushes back on full remote for early-stage teams
Blond counters the total remote assumption by asserting that early-stage founders and executives still strictly benefit from late-night, in-person whiteboarding rooms during the first 12 to 18 months.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 14:15 Lemkin challenges lower accelerator dollar payouts for regional repsLemkin directly challenges the logic of paying lower cash accelerator amounts to reps in secondary markets who generate the exact same high-value overperformance as Bay Area peers.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 15:00 Blond explains percentage-based geographic compensation modelsBlond educates Lemkin on the operational mechanics of cost-of-living indexing, explaining why scaling accelerators by percentage rather than absolute dollars maintains fairness across regional tiers.
Jason holds their own ▶ 11:50 Lemkin uses Gorgias board data to prove the value of customer success investmentsLemkin brings specific portfolio metrics from Gorgias to demonstrate how reallocating remote headcount savings into customer support directly compresses onboarding times and drives net revenue retention.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brex's Permanent Remote Pivot and Geographic Distribution | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Lemkin sets up the conversation by asking about Brex's post-COVID hiring pace and remote policy. Blond explains Brex's early decision to go fully remote and hire outside Tier 1 hubs, while Lemkin validates the shift away from concentrated Bay Area sales floors. | |
| Reinvesting Geographic Cost Savings into Customer Support and Success | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Lemkin questions the economic rationale of geographic salary tiers on quota-bearing roles before pivoting to showcase deep domain knowledge. He shares board-level case study data from Gorgias to argue that geographic labor savings should be reinvested into customer support and success rather than pure bottom-line margin. | |
| Structuring Commission Accelerators Across Geographic Tiers | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 | Lemkin pushes on commission accelerators, asking why an overperforming rep in Denver should receive fewer absolute dollars for identical revenue than a rep in San Francisco. Blond explains Brex's percentage-based accelerator structure designed to maintain local purchasing power parity. | |
| Remote SDR Enablement, Structured Workdays, and Objective Performance | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | The conversation focuses on remote SDR onboarding and performance accountability. Blond outlines how structured calling blocks and objective stack-ranking data replace subjective in-office presence and eliminate mediocre performers who previously coasted on charm. | |
| Effective Onboarding Strategies: Shadowing and Team Lead Compensation | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Lemkin proposes a structured 30-day zero-quota shadowing onboarding program for new reps, which Blond notes he intends to adopt at Brex. Blond explains Brex's new initiative tying 25% of team lead comp to peer deal support to reduce friction in asking for help. | |
| Geographic Diversity Expansion versus Referral Network Trade-Offs | 6 | 3 | 1 | 4 | Lemkin asks whether remote hiring has improved sales team diversity. Blond acknowledges geographic diversity gains but admits that heavy reliance on low-risk referral networks hampers diversity, prompting Lemkin to challenge referral bias and suggest a 50/50 ratio. | |
| Distributed Executive Recruitment and Concluding Remarks | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Lemkin probes whether top Bay Area executives will work for international and distributed CEOs. Blond offers a stage-dependent perspective, arguing that early 0-to-1 startups still require in-person co-location while scaling SaaS companies can effectively recruit distributed leaders globally. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Blond: Brex revenue accelerated during COVID due to tech spend
“Our revenue did the opposite of what we were a little bit concerned about, which was Accelerate, because the spaces that we're selling into are tech and e-commerce and these companies that spend a lot on things like software and servers and ads and things that…”
Blond: Brex decided to remain permanently remote post-COVID
“We made the decision very early on that we are going to go fully remote even after COVID ends.”
Blond: Brex biases hiring away from Tier 1 cities for cost savings
“We have a bias towards new hires that actually aren't in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles. What we categorize as tier one cities because there's cost savings associated with hiring people in lower cost locations.”
Blond: Brex pegs sales compensation to local cost of living
“We work with our people team and they have different cities and they peg them based off of a It's all cost of living related. And so you mentioned if there is an AE in San Francisco with a 250,000 dollar comp band, what we do is if we're hiring them in Denver,…”
Lemkin: Cost-effective humans are the single best investment in software
“If you have cost effective, high quality humans, that is the single best investment you can make in software.”
Lemkin: Uniform global pay policies disappear by 50 to 100 employees
“Big companies are never going to pay everybody the same everywhere in the globe, at least the majority aren't. Some will, and more power to them, but most, most of that's going to go away by 50 or a hundred employees, right?”
Blond: Brex scales accelerators by percentage, paying higher nominal dollars in SF
“When people overperform, an extra 10% is 10% on each of those. So if somebody gets an accelerator at the 250,000, they may make two 75, and in Denver they make two two 20. So it's 10% of what your salary is and not necessarily the hard dollar value. So the per…”
Blond: Location-based pay inherently means getting paid less for identical output
“It's universally applicable that you're getting paid less for producing the same, depending on where you're located.”
Blond: Brex has not lost SDR productivity after going remote
“We've actually found that to be true. We haven't lost productivity with this group of employees.”
Blond: Remote work makes sales performance evaluations far more data-driven
“The shift to remote has I think more than ever made the sort of perception of performance... Very data driven. It's less. You, you're so, I'm in data so much more and so much less going to lunch with people and developing these sort of like personal relationsh…”
Blond: Employees uncomfortable asking for help will struggle more remotely
“There are people who and this is maybe less true in sales, but it does exist, that are less comfortable sort of like asking for help. They're just not, they feel like they're intruding or they're taking somebody's time. Those types of people will struggle more…”
Lemkin: New sales hires should spend their first 30 days purely shadowing
“For the first 30 days, no employee has to do anything but shadow. There is no quota. There are no sales. You should not even do your own call. You will not get a lead. You are paired with Sam or Abigail or Jody in any role, but especially sales and marketing. …”
Blond: Brex ties 25% of top rep's comp to team performance
“So we just added in addition to managers and in addition to these buddies, we now have a team lead or a coach that is the top performing individual contributor on our team. 25% of his number is now tied to the performance of the team. And because of that, it's…”
Blond: Referral hiring lowers risk through mentorship but hurts diversity
“The person that makes the referral really takes that person under their wing and makes sure that they're successful. We get the reflection on them and like all of these positive, I think or not, I think I'm pretty certain that it doesn't help diversity.”
Blond: Remote early-stage teams miss out on critical spontaneous problem-solving
“There is so much value to having the early team be in an office together. I think not just developing relationships, but also the, like, You know, eight o'clock at night, everybody's still in the office. Oh, this thing came up. Let's all jump in the room and w…”