Our guest this week is Jill Rowley! Jill has over two decades of experience in B2B SaaS: she was one of the first 100 employees at Salesforce and employee #13 at Eloqua, and joined Marketo 11 months before it was acquired by Adobe. Now, she advises startups as a GTM Advisor and Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital.

In this episode, she and Ross dive into common startup sales mistakes, how to build deeper partnerships, and tactics for making your solution "stickier" in your customers' world.

Get episode summaries & subscribe to get more startup sales tactics here.

About Jill

Jill Rowley has 22 years in SaaS, the majority in MarTech. Born Sales, Bred Marketing, Bleed Customer. Early employee at Salesforce (first 100) and Eloqua (#13). Former Chief Marketing Evangelist at Marketo. Been through numerous acquisitions, including Oracle ($871 million), Cisco ($270 million), and Adobe ($4.75 billion). One of the first Social Selling evangelists and professional speakers on the topic. Investor and advisor at various B2B SaaS companies, including Stage 2 Capital, Guild Education, Vidyard, Terminus, and People.ai.

Welcome back to the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!

Jared Robin is the CEO & Co-Founder of RevGenius, a community of 27,000 sales, marketing, rev ops, and CS professionals to get inspired, learn, and grow. Previously he worked in sales and leadership roles for 15+ years, including FedEx and various VC-backed startups.

Listen to hear Jared & Ross' conversation about partnering with customers, building RevGenius, and the future of B2B sales.

About Jared & RevGenius

Jared Robin is co-founder & CEO at RevGenius, Winner of Best International fashion Film Awards, homie of revenue professionals worldwide, and proud Ny'er.

RevGenius is a community of 27k sales, marketing, revops and cs professionals worldwide. Our mission is to bring inspiration and creativity to all revenue professionals. Before founding RevGenius, Jared spent 15+ years in various sales and leadership roles in both fortune 100 (FedEx) and early-stage VC-backed startups (Peter Thiel backed etc).

This week, we’re sharing a masterclass we held recently with an incredible panel of sales & CS leaders on how to use mutual action plans (MAPs) to win & expand more deals.

We talked about why every seller should be using MAPs to partner with buyers and get them to value quickly, so you can hit revenue targets and build long-term advocates for your product.

Get more takeaways from the masterclass here!

Meet the experts:

Welcome back to the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!

Our guest this week is Swapnil Shinde, CEO & Co-Founder of Zeni.

Zeni is an AI-powered startup bookkeeping and accounting service. Swapnil is a 3x founder and led Zeni’s sales for its first two years, closing over 100 customers single-handedly.

Swapnil chats with Ross about founder-led sales, what to look for in your first reps, and his top book recs for startup/sales leaders.

Want more content like this? Subscribe to the From Vendorship to Partnership newsletter! Every other Thursday, we'll share conversations with top sales leaders, invites to masterclasses & other events, and more. You can check out past editions here.

Welcome back to the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!

This week, we’re sharing a “jam session” we held recently with Marissa Fuhrer, Senior Manager of Enterprise Sales at Figma.

Figma has built a winning sales-assisted motion on top of their PLG core to move up-market seemingly overnight. One of the secrets to their sales success? Making the most of every deal through buyer collaboration.

In this jam session, Ross talked to Marissa live on Zoom, and sales leaders had the chance to ask questions about collaborating with buyers and building a scalable, customer-first sales process.

If you want to watch the session instead, check it out on YouTube.

For more content like this, subscribe here to get podcast updates and the From Vendorship to Partnership newsletter!

About Marissa

Marissa Fuhrer is a Senior Sales Manager at Figma. Prior to Figma, Marissa spent a few years at Dropbox, Scoop and BrightEdge, where she helped lead sales efforts in the Education space as well as public companies around the US. In her free time, Marissa enjoys spending time with her 4 legged daughter, Winnie.

Welcome back to the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!

Our guest this week is Clay Bentley, VP of Sales at Metadata.

Before joining Metadata two and a half years ago, Clay led sales at G2 Crowd for four years, and previously worked as an AE at several SF-area companies and startups. He told Ross: “Startups are my thing – they get me out of bed in the morning.”

Listen to the episode for insights & advice from Clay on common early stage sales mistakes, balancing priorities, and coaching your reps.

About Clay & Metadata

Clay is the VP of Sales at Metadata, and was formerly the VP of Sales at G2. His journey has taken him from SF → Chicago → Nashville, where he currently lives. Metadata automates paid campaign execution and strategy, eliminating manual and repetitive work for B2B Marketers.

Metadata is hiring! Check out their open roles here.

Welcome back to the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!

Our guest this week is Christian Borrelli, VP of Global Sales at CaptivateIQ! Christian joined CaptivateIQ as one of the first employees, and has scaled the sales team to 100+ since then.

In this episode, Christian & Ross chat about the future of B2B startup sales, what most people get wrong about sales at startups, and using data to iterate on your sales process.

About Christian:

Christian Borrelli leads the sales organization at CaptivateIQ, the leader in commission management software. Prior to joining CaptivateIQ as one of its first employees and scaling the sales team to 100, Christian held finance and operations roles at Siemens, Cybereason, and EMC. He currently resides in Austin, TX.

Welcome back to the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!

Our guest this week is Kevin Nothnagel, VP of Sales at Clockwise.

Kevin is a multi-time sales and revenue leader with a wealth of sales and PLG knowledge from his time at Dropbox, Productboard, and now growing the team at Clockwise. He and Ross talk about building playbooks, celebrating your losses, and other sales teams they look up to.

About Kevin and Clockwise:

Kevin Nothnagel is VP Sales at Clockwise, and previously built sales teams at Productboard, Facebook, and Dropbox. He joined Clockwise to build the sales team and help organizations everywhere find more Focus Time to be happy & productive at work. Clockwise automates many of the everyday chores of managing your team's calendars and is used by over 10,000 organizations such as Netflix, Atlassian, and Uber.

Welcome back to From Vendorship → Partnership, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!

Our guest this week is the one and only Mark Roberge: co-founder at Stage 2 Capital, author of the best-selling The Sales Acceleration Formula, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, and former CRO at HubSpot Sales.

To say the least, Mark has a ton of incredible sales insights to share (way more than we could cover in 20 minutes!)

Subscribe for more content like this, and check out the Stage 2 Capital Accelerator that Mark mentions in the episode.

About Mark:

Mark Roberge is Co-Founder at Stage 2 Capital, the first VC fund run and backed by go-to-market executives. He is also Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Business School. Prior to these roles, Mark served as Chief Revenue Officer at HubSpot where he scaled annualized revenue from $0 to $100 million and expanded his team from 1 to 450 employees. Mark is the author of the bestselling book, The Sales Acceleration Formula, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Boston Globe, TechCrunch, Harvard Business Review, and other major publications for his entrepreneurial ventures.

Welcome back to From Vendorship to Partnership, Season 2: Seller's Journey!

Today we have a special episode: we’re sharing a masterclass with former Stripe sales leaders (and Ross’ former colleagues!) who are now leading sales at other top orgs & startups:

They talked to Ross about their experience building and scaling the Stripe sales team together, tips for moving into leadership roles, and other advice for startup sales teams.

For more startup & sales content like this, subscribe to our email list at https://inaccord.com/from-vendorship-to-partnership