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20 Sales: How To Structure The Interview Process for All Sales Reps, The Must-Ask Questions When Identifying Potential Sales Talent & The 3 Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Their First Reps with Lauren Schwartz, VP of Enterprise Sales @ Fivetran

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Oct 19, 2022

Lauren Schwartz, VP of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran, has a rich history in scaling sales from her time at Google and Segment. She shares her journey from being rejected as an eighth grader to becoming a top sales leader. The conversation dives into the importance of a structured interview process for hiring sales reps, revealing common mistakes founders make. Lauren emphasizes the role of resilience in sales and discusses the value of a sales playbook and understanding customer pain points, crucial for startup growth.

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INSIGHT

PLG vs. Enterprise

While some companies can succeed with sales-led growth alone, many startups rely too heavily on product-led growth.
Enterprise sales teams are uniquely positioned to drive broader product adoption across large organizations.

ADVICE

Multi-threading

Multi-threading is crucial in enterprise sales: identify champions, competitors' champions, and the champion for inaction.
Synthesize insights from multiple stakeholders to present a comprehensive understanding of customer needs to the economic buyer.

ADVICE

Initial Sales Hires

Hire sales reps who combine fearlessness with process-driven execution when building your initial team.
Hire multiple reps simultaneously to distinguish individual performance from product-market fit insights.

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Lauren Schwartz is Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran, the leading platform for modern data movement. She has helped scale Fivetran's enterprise business from its infancy to a team of nearly 100, while more than tripling enterprise revenues. Previously, Lauren spent close to 4 years at Segment where she started as the first female AE and ultimately built and led sales teams in enterprise and growth. Lauren earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business after 6 years at Google where her enterprise sales career began.

In Today's Episode with Lauren Schwartz:

1.) How Being Rejected as an Eighth Grader Can Lead to World Class Sales Leader:

How Lauren made her way into the world of enterprise sales with Google?
Why, for a while, Lauren wanted to get away from the label of a salesperson? Why "salesperson" does not do the job of sales justice?
Why does Lauren believe that one of the core traits the best salespeople have is being able to cope with rejection? How has Lauren been rejected? How did she respond? What changed their mind?

2.) The Sales Playbook: What, Who, When:

How does Lauren define the term "sales playbook"? What are the nuances?
Does Lauren believe the founder should always be the first sales rep? What are the core signs that a founder is now ready to bring in their first sales hires?
What are the 3 biggest mistakes founders make when they hire their first sales reps?
What are the core traits that the best early sales reps have?

3.) The Hiring Process: Building the Best Sales Team:

How does Lauren structure the hiring process?
What are the most unconventional but useful questions Lauren uses to determine the depth and quality of potential sales hires?
What are the glaring red flags that Lauren looks for in this interview process?
How does Lauren use case studies and deal reviews in the interview process to determine the quality of a candidate?

4.) Scaling the Machine: The Onboarding Process:

What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when onboarding sales reps?
How should sales team onboarding be structured?
What materials should the founder have in place for the sales team to learn from on Day 1?
How can sales leaders ensure new sales team members engage across functions?