5x Sales Leader / 2 Exits / VP Sales / CRO / Consultant / Advisor / Coach / collincadmus.com
9 months in CEO tells VP Sales if they don't hit their number they're fired. VP Sales immediately changes from long-term strategy to short-term. VP Sales puts aggressive pressure on their team. VP Sales micro-manages pipeline and gives best leads to top reps. VP Sales pushes team to be overly aggressive with prospects. AE's call and email prospects 3x more than usual with high-pressure tactics. Prospects get turned off. AE's get burned out. VP Sales gets fired. This scaleup just became a startup again. Congratulations on the failure, CEO. VP Sales never stood a chance. Short term pressure on executive leaders rarely helps. It's more beneficial to build their confidence than to shatter it. Leadership VS Dictatorship 101. Who would've thought this lesson needs to be taught in 2024. But it does.
Collin Cadmus - There is another dichotomy at play that no one really talks about. If you're hiring a VP, Sales, the CEO has (probably) just raise $XXm in Series A/B funding by telling the VC that their is a $XXB market and we are going to triple, triple, double, double, double because that's what Neeraj Agrawal at Battery Ventures told me I need to do to be a unicorn. The CEO also MUST believe that they have a game-changing product/solution (you almost have to... the CEO almost must be a serial optimist). Now you hire a VP, Sales whose ONLY job is to get out there, speak to customers, sell, hear feedback, block, tackle, scale, etc. and that person comes back with the hard truths... .... The product isn't as mature as the CEO thinks .... The market isn't as big as the CEO told the VCs .... The sales cycles are 2x what they thought they were And eventually, the squeaky wheel gets cut... After all, only an idiot would have given the CEO $XXm if it wasn't the best product in the world with a HUGE market... This is the untold reason why the average VP, Sales tenure is 18 months.
The VP of sales job is a ticking time bomb as soon as they join the company. My number 1 advice to CEOs if you hired a VP of sales (you trust to do the job): - get out of their way. I'll give you another example Ive seen: CEO hires VP of sales and then pressure VP to hire 2-3 more sales reps every month or quarter. Why? Because they "need to grow" The real reason? B/c there's pressure from the board/tippy top and CEO shared unrealistic forecasted numbers.
What this and similar posts get wrong is that we all actually want the same thing. The CEO wants the VPS to be successful and the whole team to make money and succeed. This stance usually comes from a place where the CEO has lost confidence and feels like they need to draw a line in the sand and potentially move on. It’s our job to give the CEO and board confidence that even if we’re missing plan, we’re doing the right things to get the company moving in this right direction. We have to take some accountability here too. The narrative that it’s never the revenue leaders fault and it’s usually the CEOs fault just isn’t true. I like your content but wanted to push back here because I think our community needs a slightly different frame of reference on this topic.
Who would want to participate in a game like this? You are over worked, underpaid, all because of the greed of the CEO. This is not an isolated situation. The worst part is the CEO always ends up OK, even if they are ousted and everyone else is under financial stress from day 1. If you have your own business you never have to deal with this nonsense.
This is a play I’ve seen over and over again in sales, channel/partnership, marketing, and even with products. The results are the same: missed targets. It’s actually heartbreaking, as everyone comes out worse in the end. The Short-term revenue mindset often creates deals that are tough to renew and expand unless significant investment is made into nurturing and customer success. What I see more often is no investment in retention, and new issues like unhappy churned customers, not being able to create sustainable ARR, and having to attempt to raise another round or close shop become huge distractions. I agree that building confidence is important, but it’s also important to hire people who already have experience educating senior leaders and/or the CEO on the menu of approaches and timelines with forecasted results.
The first sentence sets up the narrative by threatening to an eventual firing. Everything starts from fear rather than encouragement. Good leaders that I have seen, and only had too few of, will NOT micromanage to hit goals BUT remove hurdles that elongate the sales process. One of my favorite quotes is from Dune, "Fear is the mind killer." People don't think properly which results in panic and poor action. The question in sales is 'How can we change this in high-pressure, competitive environments?' I wish I could answer it.
Totally agree with this. A way to try and avoid this is for the sales leader to set expectations by drawing up a plan with timeline and benchmarks. Ie First 90 days are really a time for the vp of Sales/Cro to assess the organization, sanity check the infrastructure and processes and build and/or refine strategy. That strategy should set realistic benchmarks and goals for 3, 6 and 12 months out with the ability to flex and pivot as needed. Now you’ve armed your CEO with a plan that he/she can take to the board.
That VP of Sales never stood a chance. This highlights a fundamental paradox of success that Charles H. Green articulates in his writings and too few business leaders understand. To achieve short-term results, one must adopt a long-term perspective, not a short-term one. If our actions are focused on our objectives, why should the buyer believe they are designed with their interests in mind? They absolutely shouldn’t, because they’re not. Those behaviors revealed their true objective: securing the sale rather than genuinely helping the client.
Talk to me about founders who have limited cash runway and are facing realistic cash flow constraints and have 60 days to bring in revenue to survive. Love this strategy, do not disagree, but I would love to see you speak on this for those who have a much shorter “long view”, knowing they can have this longer term strategy in place while also having to use sales to drive real results in the immediate term or “VP” has no salary. I think many leaders could benefit from your perspective!
5x Sales Leader / 2 Exits / VP Sales / CRO / Consultant / Advisor / Coach / collincadmus.com
4wEvery salesperson knows the difference. Being led by a short-term VP Sales (trying to save their job) VS being led by a long-term VP Sales (comfortable in their job). The difference between these two VP's is often not them, it's their CEO. No salesperson wants to be led by a short-term VP Sales. Yet most CEO's apply this type of pressure on a quarterly or monthly basis. The moment it starts we already know how it ends.