Dear VP of Sales: No One is Out to Get You.
I did a podcast with Kyle Norton CRO of Owner.com the other day, coming out soon, and it will be great. One of the themes is how many VPs of Sales and CROs think CEOs and Boards and VCs are essentially out to get them. That the goal is to fire them 7-8 months in when they miss an impossible plan. We see this all over LinkedIn, in fact.
Does this end up happening sometimes? Yes
Does any founder I know >want< to fire a VP of Sales? Heck No. No.
The amount of energy that goes into a VP of Sales search is huge. If often takes the better part of a year, and often after after an initial misfire or mishire. Everyone wants that VP of Sales to work. Anyone sane knows starting over will take again, the better part of the year. Almost no CEO or VC firm has a magic, superstar VP of Sales just waiting to gladly take your job.
What I see today is actually many VPs of Sales often given almost too much time. With “macro impacts” and “the downturn” a built-in excuse for many founders today (as long as you aren’t running out of money), I see many CEOs actually wanting to shield and keep underperforming VPs of Sales. Not fire them. Why? Because they just don’t have a better idea.
- Do a lot of VCs talk behind closed doors about firing a VP of Sales when a startup underperforms? Yes, absolutely. The VP of Sales job is to deliver … sales. So they are the first to be picked on in closed meetings when sales comes up short.
- But do I see VCs tell CEOs to >fire< a VP of Sales? Almost never. Almost never.
- And I almost always see founders still with a VP of Sales that is underperforming longer than they should. Not firing them for things that “aren’t their fault.”
Sales is hard, and the hardest job of all in sales is the VP Sales / CRO Job. Because the number goes up every single quarter.
But realize no one is out to get you, or sabotage you. Everyone wants you to succeed.
Start off with an honest plan, that you understand and believe in. Then, you can re-forecast once. After that? If you need to re-forecast a second time in your first year — you joined the wrong startup.
That’s on everyone.
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Jason Lemkin, Khareem Sudlow
