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20 Sales: Why Founders Should Not Be The One To Create The Sales Playbook, How To Structure Each Interview in the Hiring Process For Sales Reps, How To Use an "Interview Panel" Effectively and more with Zhenya Loginov, CRO @ Miro

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Jun 22, 2022

Zhenya Loginov, CRO at Miro and former leader at Segment and Dropbox, shares insights from his remarkable journey in sales. He emphasizes that founders shouldn’t create their sales playbook; instead, they should focus on hiring the right sales leaders. Zhenya discusses common missteps by companies in enterprise sales and the importance of structured hiring processes. He also explores the balance needed between agility and structure in sales teams, especially in remote settings, and highlights effective strategies for maintaining team morale.

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INSIGHT

Common PLG Pitfalls

Companies often transition from PLG to enterprise too late or too early.
Misaligned team structures can create conflicts between PLG and enterprise goals.

ADVICE

Hiring for Passion and Potential

Hire sales leaders with 70% of the required experience and a passion to learn the remaining 30%.
Focus on non-negotiable criteria and ruthlessly filter candidates.

ADVICE

Thorough Pre-Panel Interviews

Spend 4-5 hours interviewing candidates before involving the interview panel.
Use structured interviews focusing on past experiences and must-have criteria.

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Zhenya Loginov is the CRO @ Miro, the leading visual collaboration platform that helps bring teams together and meaningfully improves the way people work. At Miro, I run the go-to-market team of 700+ people across 11 global offices. Prior to Miro, Zhenya was the COO @ Segment where he built and ran the global go-to-market team of 200+ people, expanded the product-market fit into the Enterprise and grew revenue 6x, leading to their acquisition by Twilio for $3.2Bn. Finally, before Segment, Zhenya led a 100-person team at Dropbox across numerous different functional areas.

In Today's Episode with Zhenya Loginov You Will Learn:

1.) Entry into Sales as an Outsider:

How Zhenya made his way into sales as an outsider and came to be one of the most powerful revenue leaders today with Miro?
What are 1-2 of the biggest takeaways for Zhenya from his time at Segment and Dropbox? How did they impact his mindset today?
Why did Dropbox not win the enterprise when they had the chance? What mistakes did they make?

2.) The Sales Playbook: What, Why and How:

What does "the sales playbook mean to Zhenya?
Does the founder need to be the one to create the sales playbook?
What are the signs that the founders needs to bring in their first sales hire?
Should this sales hire be a sales leader or more junior sales rep?
Is is possible to run a PLG and enterprise sales motion at the same time in the early days of the company?
What do many founders misunderstand when contemplating adopting an enterprise sales strategy?

3.) Hiring the Team:

How does Zhenya structure the interview process for new sales hires?
Zhenya spends 5 hours with each candidate, what does he look to get out of each meeting?
How does Zhenya break down the criteria for what he wants to see? What are some examples of this?
How does Zhenya test to determine if the candidate has these criteria? What questions does he find to be most revealing? Why does Zhenya find case studies to not be useful?
How does Zhenya use interview panels to ensure he makes the right hiring decision? Who is on the panel? At what stage do they meet the candidate? How does Zhenya like to use the panel?

4.) Laying the Groundwork: The Onboarding Process:

What is the right way to structure the onboarding process for all new sales hires?
What are some early signs that a new sales hire is not working?
What can sales leaders do to ensure new reps get "early wins" on the board?
What can leadership do to ensure the sales team has good cross-functional communication across the org? What works? What does not work?
What are some of the biggest challenges of running a remote sales team?