AMA: Loom VP, Revenue, Nick Feeney on Establishing the Sales Function

This isn’t a one size fits all approach. Every leader should bring a different focus to their 30-60-90 day plan based on their leadership style, the stage in which the company is at, industry/market dynamics, immediate challenges/goals, etc. That said, the high level framework below is something I’ve used at several companies which has proven to be quite successful:  Days 1-30: Listen, Learn, Connect Establish presence and connection with team Roll out User Manuals: How to guides for working eff ...Read More

With most of these questions, there isn't a one size fits all. Consider things like: Company stage Growth objectives GTM strategy Customer segmentation Self serve vs. sales led Compensation modeling AI has, of course, been a hot topic lately, begging the question of which roles will become obsolete. Personally, I think there will always need to be a human element. This AMA is a great example. If you wanted these answers you could find a generic response in Chat GPT vs. reading my response, but y ...Read More

You have to have a glutton for punishment moving from structure to no structure, take it from me, but it can be such a rewarding and fulfilling experience to build something from 0→1. Throughout my career, I wouldn’t say there have been many surprises, moreso ‘opportunities’ to put a positive spin on it. Systems & Reporting: We forget how easy we have it being at a larger organization where you have countless resources for technologies that have already been vetted and rolled out, and full f ...Read More

There isn't a one size fits all approach, however, this framework is a good place to start in order to deeply understand your customers. I like to position each obstacle as a "how might we" question in order to solve: Assess & Define Customer Lifecycle: What are the behaviors of our most successful customers? What did their customer journey look like? How were they onboarded? What are the behaviors of customers who expanded? How might we scale the successes and learn from the failures?  Awar ...Read More

Sales and Customer Success shouldn't be two separate islands. These groups have to be incredibly synced in order to best serve your customer base. This is why I recommend a business hire a revenue leader who oversees both customer acquisition and customer retention. That way, you have an executive who isn't selfishly focused on one area of the business. Roles & Responsibilities + Compensation Incentivization: Be sure to clearly define roles and swimlanes between AEs & CSMs Recommend AEs ...Read More

Excellent revenue leaders turn into outstanding revenue leaders based on how and who they hire. Your number one job as a leader is to hire the right people, followed by supporting them. If you only hire A+ talent, your team will only need you for strategy vs. blocking/tackling personnel and process issues. Some things to consider: Define the sales culture: Talent density: Slow down to speed up. We only hire A+ talent. Those who embody the innate skillsets that are difficult to teach (i.e. humili ...Read More