Collin Cadmus Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Hello and welcome back to the Collin Cadmus Podcast. Today I’m joined by Jeron Paul.

Jeron studied economics and philosophy at Brigham Young University and then received his MBA at Harvard. After school he spent 3 years as a consultant before starting his first company Boardlink, which was acquired by Thomas Reuters. Jeron then spent 5 years in venture capital before starting his next two companies Scalar and Capshare, both with successful exits.

With all of that experience behind him, in 2018 Jeron founded Spiff which was acquired by Salesforce in February of this year for $419 million. In episode 9 I spoke to Spiff’s Chief Marketing Officer, Anna Fisher and I sat on their GTM advisory board for 3 years until the acquisition.

Jeron believes every person has an infinite potential to do good and his goal in life is to unlock as much of that potential in himself and others as possible. He believes in fighting group think, the Socratic method, and the power of humility. One of the things he’s most proud of is sharing larger than normal equity stakes with those who are bold enough to build businesses with him, and I can say after having been an advisor on the receiving end of the Salesforce acquisition equity, he practices what he preaches in that regard and that’ll be one of the topics we’ll dive into today.

It’s been 7 months since Spiff was acquired. Since then, Jeron has served as the SVP of Product at Salesforce, presumably continuing to oversee Spiff, but without further adieu, let’s dive in and learn more about what it took to build Spiff and sell it to Salesforce in just 5 and a half years.

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TOPICS:

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:49 What is Spiff

00:07:39 GTM Advisory Board

00:16:01 Equity Philosophy

00:27:16 M&A

00:30:04 Growth Channels

00:37:40 Doing it again today

00:42:06 Who should use Spiff

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QUESTIONS:

1. What is Spiff and why did you build it?

2. You decided early on to build a GTM advisory board; what were your main motivations and goals behind doing this and was it worth it in hindsight?

3. We often hear stories of founders finding creative ways to screw people out of their equity at the time of acquisitions and IPOs, but you did the opposite. Talk me through your philosophy on equity and the decisions you had to make during the acquisition as it pertains to employees and advisors liquidating their shares.

4. Was M&A always the plan? Or did the pandemic and financial crisis play a role in the decision to sell?

5. What were your main growth channels and can you share roughly the split of revenue that came from each, like inbound, outbound, channel partners, etc.?

6. If you were to start Spiff today would you do anything different?

7. Is Spiff still a product for non-Salesforce users or is it now specifically for Salesforce users?

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LINKS:

Spiff: https://spiff.com

Jeron on X: https://twitter.com/jerondanielpaul 

Collin on X: https://x.com/collincadmus

Modern Outbound System: https://www.collincadmus.com/the-modern-outbound-system

Sales Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/sales-coaching

Founder Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/founder-coaching

Collin Cadmus Podcast: https://www.collincadmus.com/podcasts/collin-cadmus-podcast

Revenue Growth Blog: https://www.collincadmus.com/blog

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Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Hello and welcome back to the Collin Cadmus Podcast. Today I’m joined by Chris Orlob.

Chris studied marketing at Utah Valley University and then went on to start his career at InsideSales.com, after which he started his own company Conversature, which eventually merged with Gong, at which point Chris became the Director of Product Marketing and eventually the Head of Sales where he helped grow the company from $200k ARR to over a $7B valuation in 5 years.

In 2022 Chris left Gong to start his current venture, where he serves as the Founder and CEO of Pclub.io, a sales training platform that aggregates courses from top practitioners into one platform.

The last time I spoke with Chris was back in 2019 and it feels like just about everything has changed since then with the advent of remote work, sales AI, and the divergence from the Growth-at-all-Cost model, so I’m excited to dive in and get his thoughts on all that’s changing.

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TOPICS:

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:12 Outbound Prospecting

00:11:37 Remote vs Office

00:16:42 Quota Attainment

00:23:48  Average Tenure

00:30:24 Growth-at-all-Costs

00:36:43 AI in Sales

00:41:20 Pclub

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QUESTIONS:

1. Outbound prospecting has become increasingly challenging as conversion rates for calls and emails continue to decline. What do you think outbound salespeople should be doing differently today?

2. What’s the best way to build a sales team in 2024; remote, hybrid, or in the office, and why?

3. Average quota attainment is under 40%. Why do you think it’s so low and what needs to change?

4. Average VP Sales tenure is below 18 months. Why do you think it’s so low and what needs to change?

5. What’s happening to the Growth-at-all-Costs model?

6. What role do you see AI playing in sales over the next 5-10 years?

7. What is Pclub?

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LINKS:

Pclub: https://www.pclub.io

Chris on X: https://x.com/Chris_Orlob

Collin on X: https://x.com/collincadmus

Modern Outbound System: https://www.collincadmus.com/the-modern-outbound-system

Sales Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/sales-coaching

Founder Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/founder-coaching

Collin Cadmus Podcast: https://www.collincadmus.com/podcasts/collin-cadmus-podcast

Revenue Growth Blog: https://www.collincadmus.com/blog

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Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Anna is one of the most successful east coast SaaS marketers of the last decade. She’s from MA, went to UMass Amherst, started her career as an Account Manager and Client Service Supervisor, but then she went to work for a company that would change the trajectory of her career forever, ZoomInfo. 

Anna started at ZoomInfo in 2012 as a Marketing Communications Manager and climbed the ladder for 8 years all the way up to VP of  Marketing. She led ZoomInfo’s marketing through an enormous growth phase and successful IPO in June 2020. And then in November, Anna found her new home as Chief Marketing Officer at Spiff. 

She’s one of the few people I know who has worked for 13+ years across only 2 companies. She makes it look easy, but we know it isn’t. This is her story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

He’s been selling something to someone his entire life. He’s been teaching and coaching salespeople for almost 20 years. He’s the Founder and President of A Sales Guy Inc. and the Author of GAP Selling, but you know him best as Keenan. The man who needs only one name. This is his story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Jason graduated from Harvard University and Berkeley Law, he started his career as a Corporate Counsel, and then transitioned into various technology leadership roles, eventually leading him to co-founding EchoSign which was later acquired by Adobe.

Jason then founded SaaStr, a social community of over 500,000 SaaS founders & executives and over 3M content views each month. If you haven’t discovered it already, checkout SaaStr.com, it’s loaded with valuable content and resources for everyone in SaaS. Jason also co-authored the book From Impossible to Inevitable with Aaron Ross. This is his story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Brendon graduated from Saint Mary’s College of California, started his career in Recruiting, and then transitioned into sales where he eventually landed himself at LinkedIn in 2005 as employee #15, and LinkedIn’s first ever Head of Sales.

Brendon’s next move was one that would change his life forever. He went to work for Jason Lemkin as the VP Sales at Echosign, which was eventually acquired by Adobe for an estimated $400 million. After Echosign Brendon went on to be the VP Sales at Talkdesk, now valued at over $3 billion.

Then started his own consulting firm, Cassidy Ventures, where he helped found Gong, and most recently co-founded HiFive (formerly CoSell) where he works as the Co-CEO (hf.app). He’s a frequent speaker at SaaStr and other large sales events. This is his story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Trish is the Founder and CEO of the Bridge Group which she founded in 1998, and prior to that she spent her entire career in sales. Starting out in telemarketing, which is essentially an SDR today. Trish grew into becoming the Founder and CEO of one of the most well respected consultancies in the business and she's also the author of the Amazon best seller, The Sales Development Playbook. This is her story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Aaron Ross went to Palo Alto high school and Stanford University. He started his career in mergers and acquisitions, had a 2 year stint in product marketing, then became cofounder of eLease which shut down and liquidated after 2 years. He then joined Salesforce.com (now commonly known as Salesforce) where he spent what I would call “the 4 years that changed his life”.

Aaron became a tremendous success at Salesforce, developing their outbound sales approach which he calls “cold calling 2.0”. This sourced over $100M in recurring revenue for Salesforce, where Aaron went on to lead corporate development and acquisitions.

Aaron spent a total of 4 years at Salesforce and drove the company through the exponential growth that has turned them into the SaaS behemoth that they are today, with shares trading at over $250 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Aaron went on to write his book Predictable Revenue which has sold 200,000 copies and founded his company Predictable Revenue which has grown to 60 employees and $4m in revenue. So he’s not just a teacher he’s also an operator. The sequel to Predictable Revenue was From Impossible To Inevitable, called the ‘growth bible of silicon valley’. He also has 9 kids. This is his story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

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She started her career as a sales intern, went on to become an account executive, spent some years recruiting, and eventually went out on her own and built Betts Recruiting, which is now is the leading recruitment firm for revenue generating, marketing and people operations roles. She has over 80 employees and revenue in the millions. This is her story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

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One day he was modeling CK underwear to pay the bills, the next he dropped out of college to build the sales team at SeamlessWeb in NYC (Now Seamless Grubhub), then founded SinglePlatform (acquired for $100M), then founded GoodUncle (acquired again). He was the first startup CEO I had the privilege of working for at SinglePlatform, and I would not have had the sales career I've had if it weren't for that experience. His story is one of the best and most inspiring I've ever heard. So inspiring that we had him tell it to every new hire class at SinglePlatform. This is his story.

Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.