The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:27:11 · Carles Reina, Harry Stebbings
[00:27:11] S0: By being ruthless. You need to be on top of it. It's like it requires extra time, and it requires people to be forced to actually, like, be on the road. It's like we will have multiple touch points, but I don't hire people that are junior. I hire people that are actually, autonomous, very energetic, very passionate, will accept like a million no's, fundamentally, because building sales is tough. Building sales remotely is even tougher, and you just need to be on top of it. [00:27:36] S1: We're going to get to actually the people, but I do just want stay on these meetings because we have them separate. We have them remote. We have them monthly. Let's start on the sales team side before we move to the CSMs. What are you expecting them to bring? Should they send pipeline ahead of time with notes? What's that prep phase pre meeting?
00:27:53 · Carles Reina
[00:27:53] S0: So they will essentially tell me how much they've closed, how much it's in the pipeline, how much they're expecting to close in next thirty days. And essentially, we start going to the deals, right? We talk about the biggest deals and all of that stuff. And then I always like look while they're talking, I look at their pipeline, and I pull up some random deals so that to understand like whether they have a full grasp of what they're talking about. Because sometimes, you know, like sales teams, like they can end up like cheating and then having a bigger pipeline that is inflated but it's not moving, right? And catch them. But for me, the key item that I always tell them is at the end, when they present, I keep interacting them and giving them feedback and asking questions. But at the end of it, I'm like, the question is always the same: What are the blockers that you have, and how can I help you? For me, what I do is I build a list of the blockers for each one of them, summarize them later on, and then post it across the entire organization, being like, Hey, if we solve all of these blockers in Europe, we could be making a lot more money. In India, these are the blockers. In Spanish, LatAm, these are the blockers. In Middle East, these are the blockers. Right? And then everyone is like, understands what are we, what are we in each one of the regions.
00:28:58 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:28:58] S1: Okay. And so we have that. And when they come to you and they say something, because I'm on a lot of boards, and very often it's like, that one, that slipped in next quarter. What do you say when you get reps who say that? And what's the right way to deal with that? [00:29:12] S0: I mean, there's always like deals that will end up like moving towards the next quarter. That's inevitable, right? Was like the question... [00:29:18] S1: And you do this, sorry, by the way, in front of everyone. Yes. You don't do it one by one. [00:29:22] S0: No. No one has enough time to do it one by one. And I think like everyone can benefit from like doing it in front of other people. It's the pressure. It's the fact like you can give them what to do and bad feedback. People learn from it, right? So the learning component is, I think, it's important, specifically from a sales perspective. [00:29:38] S1: How do you do that without shaming people? [00:29:40] S0: I don't know. You need to shame them. Like, if someone hasn't done their job, they haven't done their job. And you need to actually publicly tell them so that, like, they understand that they haven't done their job, and everyone else knows that, like, they're getting shit for it. [00:29:50] S1: So you don't agree with the praise in public, criticize in private?
00:29:50 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:29:50] S1: So you don't agree with the praise in public, criticize in private? [00:29:53] S0: No. I don't agree. I think I need to tell you what is right and what is wrong. Of course, I'm not gonna tell you this is full shit, you're gonna get fired. I'm not gonna say that. But at the same time, I'm not gonna hold back on saying if you haven't done a good job. And for instance, there was like a case earlier this year of one of my account execs that I told the person, You just were lucky. And you've closed these deals just for pure luck, but you haven't done any good job. And then, like, the next one, it was so funny, there was exactly two people with the same case. And then the next one that came in presenting was I told him, You have done exactly the same thing, but you have not been lucky as the previous person. And that's why you haven't actually closed anything. Both of them, the following month, absolutely smashed it. Salespeople need to be on their toes all the time, and they need to be told. And if they're good at their job, they're going to accept the criticism, learn from it, and then improve. [00:30:48] S1: How long are those meetings? [00:30:49] S0: We end up putting usually an hour and a half, and then people have like about like seven, eight minutes to present, and then like it's very, very quick in general.
00:30:49 · Carles Reina, Harry Stebbings
[00:30:49] S0: We end up putting usually an hour and a half, and then people have like about like seven, eight minutes to present, and then like it's very, very quick in general. [00:30:57] S1: What happens, and this is a hard one because ElevenLabs seemingly just such rocket ship revenue growth. What would you advise if you would put on a hypothetical hat for it not working so well? What would you advise a sales leader or a CEO who's taking this, who's gonna run with this, but the numbers are not up and to the right? How do I have a meeting like this without feeling like dejected, demoralized when numbers aren't up and to the right?
00:31:19 · Carles Reina
[00:31:19] S0: I think it just depends on like why the number's not on the right place, right? I think like you need to do understand, like do the back work first to understand like what's happening. Is it because the sales team is not good enough? Is it because the product is not good enough? Is it because we're not being aggressive enough? What is essentially happening here? Because like if you don't have a full understanding, then like you might be like shaming people for the wrong reasons, right? And the best way of understanding is roll up your sleeves and actually pitch customers. I am the SDR in chief in the company, right? I absolutely love it. I actually love outbounding people. I love it. We were like, Matti and I were like in Singapore talking to Razer, the laptops company. Absolutely love the brand. And then that came out because I outbounded the CEO and I messaged him like, Matti and I are gonna be in Singapore in a few days. Like, we'd love to actually meet and figure out how we can talk, how we can figure out, like, a partnership. And he replied saying like, Yes, let's do it. So we end up spending like a good hour in their offices, which is fantastic. I do it all the time and then I pass it to the team because I do believe, like, a good leader needs to be a good outbounder. It's interesting that I have this narrative also with VCs, right? It's like, for me, a VC is just a glorified SDR or BDR.