Carta CRO Jeff Perry on Data, Segmentation, and Team Collaboration

Summary

Scaling a business is a multifaceted challenge that requires strategic planning, data-driven decision making, and effective leadership. By carefully structuring your sales organization, fostering ownership and responsibility among team members, leveraging data for decision making, and maintaining a balanced sales effort, you can drive sustainable growth. 

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Key Takeaways and Calls to Action

In this episode, Mark sat down with Jeff Perry, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Carta, cap table software that helps private companies manage their equity. They help investors, employees, and founders understand their equity ownership and stay informed about their investment portfolio. Overall, Carta's platform aims to simplify and optimize equity management for private companies and their stakeholders.

Before joining Carta about six years ago, Jeff spent nearly four years at DocuSign as VP of Commercial Sales, and about 10.5 years at Oracle, where he advanced to VP of Sales. So it goes without saying, he brings a wealth of knowledge on growing and managing a sales team.

Here are the key takeaways from Jerry's interview.

Structuring Your Sales Team: Account Ownership vs. Product Ownership

One of the pivotal points discussed was the design of the sales organization. Companies often face the dilemma of whether sales reps should own the entire customer account, enabling them to sell a suite of products, or if they should specialize in specific products and sell them across multiple accounts.

• Account Ownership: In this model, sales reps build deeper relationships with customers and can cross-sell multiple products. Jeff highlighted the benefit of nurturing long-term relationships and understanding the full spectrum of customer needs, but also noted the risk of reps being spread too thin across various product lines.
• Product Ownership: This alternative focuses reps on specific products, allowing them to develop deeper expertise. It makes it easier to onboard new sales reps and scale product knowledge. However, it can lead to fragmented customer relationships if multiple reps are engaging with the same account for different products.

Carta has chosen a hybrid approach where the new business team sells their main product, cap table software, to educate new customers. This creates an entry point for selling other products. By starting with a core offering, they establish trust and interest. They later introduce product specialists to handle specific needs or as new products mature, allowing for specialization without losing the benefits of relationship building.

Actionable Takeaway: Evaluate your product complexity and customer relationship dynamics. Consider a hybrid model that leverages both account ownership for relationship building and product specialization for deep expertise.

Navigating Multi-Product Sales in Scaling Organizations

Scaling organizations often grapple with the complexities of introducing new products. Perry highlighted a strategic sequence for new product development:

• Initial Phase: Have a dedicated team owning accounts to lay the groundwork.
• Transition Phase: Introduce product specialists as new offerings mature.
• Mature Phase: Move towards a setup where reps can independently handle products if feasible.

This approach ensures that customers receive high-quality information and support throughout their journey with the company.

Actionable Takeaway: Plan your sales strategy for new products in phases, ensuring you have the right mix of account managers and product specialists at each stage.

Data-Driven Organizational Design

Jeff emphasized the importance of using data to inform sales strategies. At Carta, they segment their market based on company size, industry, and geography. By analyzing data, they tailor their organizational structure to better align with customer needs and market conditions.

Mark also discussed the importance of aligning frontline behaviors with the company’s overall strategy and understanding buyer behaviors. The right organizational design can significantly impact how effectively a team can execute the company’s strategy.

Actionable Takeaway: Utilize data to inform your organizational design. Segment your market thoughtfully and ensure your sales team’s structure is aligned with both company strategy and buyer behaviors.

Building Ownership and Responsibility in Teams

Creating a sense of ownership and responsibility among team members is crucial, especially in a scaling environment. Jeff stressed the importance of assessing candidates not just on their skills, but also on their personal motivations during the hiring process. This ensures that each team member is aligned with the company’s goals and invested in its success.

Actionable Takeaway: Invest time in understanding both the skills and motivations of your team members. Foster a culture of ownership and responsibility through transparent expectations and support.

Effective Leadership and Team Collaboration

Leadership is about more than expertise in every domain. Jeff underscored the importance of team collaboration and leveraging individual strengths. Leaders should focus on being effective teachers, coaches, and mentors. This includes promoting internal hires who already understand the company culture and have institutional knowledge.

Jeff also discussed the importance of balancing internal promotions with strategic external hires who can bring fresh perspectives. External hires need to quickly learn the product and integrate into the team, which requires a solid onboarding process and support from existing team members.

Actionable Takeaway: Encourage team collaboration and leverage individual strengths. Focus on nurturing internal talent while also being open to strategic external hires to bring new perspectives.

Tactical Adjustments for Scaling Success

Throughout his career, Jeff has made several tactical adjustments to drive growth. At Carta, he implemented segmentation based on company size, industry, and geography, and emphasized the importance of using data for decision-making. This structured approach allows for more targeted and effective strategies.

He also discussed the practice of observing low-hanging fruit and prioritizing basic changes early on in a new leadership role. Identifying quick wins can boost team morale and provide immediate improvements that pave the way for more significant changes.

Actionable Takeaway: Make informed, data-driven decisions to structure your sales strategy. Prioritize quick wins when stepping into a new role to build momentum.

Sustaining Growth through New Product Features

In response to customer feedback and market signals, Carta has expanded its product line. They utilized data on HR systems and cap tables to develop new features, encouraging cross-selling to existing customers. This agile approach to product development ensures the company remains responsive to customer needs and market trends.

Actionable Takeaway: Listen to your customers and leverage market signals to guide new product development. Use data to support the creation of features that address real needs and encourage cross-selling opportunities.

Balancing Inbound and Outbound Efforts

Jeff shared insights on balancing inbound and outbound sales efforts. While inbound efforts can generate leads, he emphasized the importance of holding individual salespeople accountable for prospecting. This dual approach ensures a steady flow of leads while empowering reps to take control of their success.

Actionable Takeaway: Balance your inbound and outbound sales efforts. Hold your sales team accountable for consistent prospecting to drive growth.

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Note: The insights shared in this podcast were initially distilled through advanced AI summarization technologies, with subsequent refinements made by the writer and our editorial team to ensure clarity and engagement.

About "The Science of Scaling" Podcast

Every week during a season, host Mark Roberge—co-founder and Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital and a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School—interviews some of the tech industries most successful and renown leaders and managers in the areas of sales growth and Go-to-Market strategy. This is a HubSpot for Startups original podcast, and part of HubSpot's Podcast network. It's available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere you get podcasts.