Chris Degnan: Why You Should Hire a Head of Sales Sooner Than You Think | E1080

Chris Degnan serves as Snowflake’s Chief Revenue Officer and has been with the company since 2013. Starting as employee #13 and Sales employee #1, Chris built a go-to-market strategy from the ground up, driving sustained high growth and global reach. Under his sales leadership, Snowflake has grown its annual product revenue from $0 to over $1 billion. Prior to Snowflake, Chris served in Sales leadership roles at EMC and Aveksa, and worked in enterprise sales at Informatica and Covalent Technologies (acquired by VMware).
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Timestamps:
(04:20) Breaking into Sales and Joining Snowflake
(08:05) Advice for Younger Self and Sales Strategy Development
(12:56) Customer Education and Sales Playbook Dynamics
(15:13) Hiring Strategies and Metrics in Sales
(18:50) Sales Communication and Leadership Techniques
(22:23) Forecasting and Challenges in Enterprise Sales
(30:40) Building and Managing Sales Teams
(34:04) Trends in Sales Methods and Spending Insights
(38:20) Sales Rep Development and Security
(41:50) Empathetic Leadership and Organizational Structure Decisions
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In Today’s Episode with Chris Degnen We Discuss:
1. From SDR To World Leading CRO:
How did Chris first make his way into the world of sales?
What does he know now that he wishes he had known when he started in sales?
What are the single biggest mistakes young sales people make today scaling their careers?
2. The Secret to Hitting Quota in Sales:
Why does Chris believe all reps need to do 8 customer calls per week?
How do the best sales reps approach sales prospecting today?
Is cold outbound dead? How does Chris advise his teams on cold calls and emails?
What are the best reasons reps should say no to customers?
Should reps be discounting today? What is an acceptable level?
3. Sales and Product: The Most Important Relationship:
Why does Chris believe sales and product is the most important relationship?
What can leaders do to ensure sales and product communicate effectively?
How does Chris use sales calls today both with his sales team and with product?
What are the single biggest reasons comms between sales and product breaks?
4. Mastering Sales Leadership:
How does Chris approach sales forecasting? What works? What does not work?
Does Chris celebrate when quota is hit? How do you find the balance between pushing further and harder but also celebrating the wins?
How do the best sales leaders train and develop their talent? What do the worst do?
5. Customer Success is BS: Professional Services for the Win:
Why does Chris believe that customer succeed is BS and you should get rid of it?
Why are professional services so much better?
How should the org be structured then when removing CS and adding professional services?
Who is then responsible for upsell?
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[@paramvora372]

What a fantastic conversation!