The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:50:39 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:50:39] S1: Advise me, how can I train my reps most effectively? Is this like listen to all my Gong calls, go spend time with product, go spend time with customer support? What should I do to train reps most effectively? [00:50:49] S0: In the early days, the best thing is they should join calls, like immediately. They're not going to be talking in those calls, but they should just join absolutely immediately so that they see how other people are doing it. They need to be answering tickets of support questions. They need to essentially be talking to the engineers and then going deep into the product side. Once all of that has passed and you're already making a good amount of money and you claim that you have product market fit, claim because you never know. Then essentially it's a completely different game, right? Because you want to make sure that your reputation is on the line, you want to have them selling to the proper people. So essentially you end up having join me, then also watch some customer call through Gong, and at the same time, you need to pitch me, you need to have the certifications and all of that stuff, right? Then you end up migrating towards much more of a corporation style where then people take a lot longer for two weeks. They have this run period, but they they understand everything, they meet multiple people and so on. That's like a little more boring. [00:51:46] S1: When was your hiring process broken? And what did you learn from that time?
00:51:46 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:51:46] S1: When was your hiring process broken? And what did you learn from that time? [00:51:52] S0: So we made a lot of mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes because like the first ones that I hired on the go to market market side, I thought, okay, let's bring someone that understands a lot more on the product side. I can train them how to excel, and then it will be fine. And then it turned out it just was not working. And the person was really good on the product side, but on the sales side, there is something that was missing in there. Then that's what can [00:52:15] S1: teach them that sales. This
00:52:15 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:52:15] S1: teach them that sales. This [00:52:17] S0: is a hunter mentality. This is like being hungry, being super driven, passioned, and so on that you get straight away or you don't get it. And I think that was a mistake. The person who's still with us is doing super well, right? And we always joke with him saying, Hey, you joined in the wrong role. But that was the type of profile because we were selling we had a lot of self-service companies, we had a lot of inbounds, you were thinking much more like, it needs to be product led sales, it needs to be fundamentally thinking about the product and trying to help them navigate it and so on, and you were like, Shit, no, no, no, no. These people already know what ElevenLabs is, right? Specifically the inbounds. So it's less about the product and more about like, We need to convince them to sign this fucking contract, right? So like, that's a completely different profile of people. And then that's when I brought my first two proper account execs that started on the same day, and I trained them in parallel, and they did super well. [00:53:09] S1: What did you do well that you would recommend to everyone else having seen it?
00:53:09 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:53:09] S1: What did you do well that you would recommend to everyone else having seen it? [00:53:13] S0: Literally like getting them coach with me. Seeing me pitch, right? It's like, I had done it already like hundreds and hundreds of times. Seeing me pitch, seeing me how I was answering goals, seeing me that like, I would tell the customers, like, By the end of the day, you have all of these things. And then by the end of the day, I would send those things because the best thing that you have is trust with your customers. It set up the right culture and the right way of operating in the team. That was for me the most important thing. And then on top of that, I was keeping in the loop and joining their calls randomly. So I would open their calendar and be like, Okay, they have a call in ten minutes. Fine, I will join that call. I would just pop up in that call and essentially make them nervous because then the worst thing that you have is like, you're both joining a call, like, unexpected, so what's going to happen there? And I would just stay quiet. And would like, No, I'm just here to support. Don't worry. But of course, you could see that they were very nervous, right? And they make a ton more mistakes. So like, you end up building that muscle memory by forcing people to make mistakes as well. [00:54:10] S1: Do you worry about having a culture of fear? You said the word ruthless. You are very direct. I love it. I thrive off it. I'm a narcissist and need therapy. Do you worry about having a culture of fear?
00:54:10 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:54:10] S1: Do you worry about having a culture of fear? You said the word ruthless. You are very direct. I love it. I thrive off it. I'm a narcissist and need therapy. Do you worry about having a culture of fear? [00:54:22] S0: Don't think the team is scared of me because I think when I hire people, I always tell them this line, which is like, ElevenLabs is not the easiest company to work for. And that's always what I tell them, is like, You're gonna be working a lot. I'm gonna have very high expectations. We're gonna have a lot of fun. If you're not ready, absolutely fine. Don't join us. But I want you to know before you accept the role. And then it sets the right tone. Like, some people have told me, like, This is not for me. And I 100% respect it. Majority of people end up saying like, I value that. [00:54:52] S1: Of the successful sales reps that you have, what is the most common background and what backgrounds tend to not work?
00:54:52 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[00:54:52] S1: Of the successful sales reps that you have, what is the most common background and what backgrounds tend to not work? [00:54:58] S0: We've tried all of different backgrounds, and it doesn't really matter whether you come from a very pure massive sales organization like Salesforce or you come from ABC background. Like, it doesn't really matter. It is like how willing are you to concentrate, like go deep and have this high energy situation with your customers and care about your customers, the only thing that actually drives value. Think about it like you're not doing sales. You're building a community. Whether you're doing ElevenLabs or you're doing company X, it doesn't really matter. If you think about your customers are pure sales, then you're falling into being a transactional element, right? No one wants to be sold anything. But if you're building a community that loves your product, that loves your brand, that loves everything that you represent, then sale is much easier. [00:55:42] S1: How do you build a community?