Sophie Buonassisi is the Vice President of Marketing at GTMfund, overseeing GTMnow - the media arm of the GTMfund brand - and the internal community. She's passionate about empowering go-to-market leaders and founders with access to insight through GTMnow's channels, like this podcast, the newsletter, and more. Before joining the GTMfund team, she built and scaled GTM at a predictive conversion optimization company. She enjoys advising SaaS companies as they build out and optimize their marketing and overall GTM strategies.

What you will learn

• How to be proactive with your references
• The need for speed throughout your interview process
• Showcasing skill and character effectively

Highlights

(3:45) Who's Sophie and how she ended up at GTMfund

(6:31) How Sophie stood out during an application process of 400+ people

(11:15) How to be proactive about finding a new role when you haven't identified what that role is exactly

(17:21) Knowing how to navigate the interview process systematically

(22:41) How to leverage your community to endorse you

(26:49) How to effectively nail a take home assignment

(32:30) The importance of understanding your future employer deeply

(35:35) How to hit the ground running before your start date

(40:05) Top tips for landing page conversion optimization

Links and Resources

Sophie's Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi

Our Sponsor

Today's episode is sponsored by Demandbase, Demandbase helps B2B companies hit their revenue goals using fewer resources. How? By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase. They combine your sales and marketing data with our validated B2B data and AI to create Account Intelligence that informs every step of your buyer's journey. They deliver accurate company, contact, technographic, engagement, and intent data right where you work every day – CRM, collaboration tools, browsers, and more. Start spotting opportunities earlier and orchestrate smarter sales and marketing motions with Demandbase. See this live in action: https://www.demandbase.com/product-tour/sales-intelligence/

The GTM Podcast

Don't miss The GTM Podcast dropping every Tuesday discussing true stories and experiences including trials and tribulations in the Go-To-Market world.

And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

Zach Lawryk is currently the Head of Global Solutions Consulting at Rippling, previously the VP of Solutions Consulting at Slack, Director of Sales Engineering at Box, and really began his career in tech at Salesforce as a Sales Engineer in 2005.

What you will learn

• The importance of building long term relationships at work
• The beginning of SaaS SE's
• How the SE/SC role will evolve with AI
• Knowing when to bring in SE's as a founder

Highlights

(3:41) How Zach has successfully landed at power house companies and how to identify those companies

(8:16) Zach's snowball effect of building relationships in the workplace

(11:10) The energy you put out always comes back to you

(19:30) When the sales engineer role got pioneered

(21:43) The SE/SC role evolving with AI

(29:11) AI experiments that Rippling is currently running

(34:49) When to invest in solution engineers

(37:30) Benchmark for the bump in win rate after bringing in SC/SE's

(42:07) Gauging the complexity high water marker

(44:35) Practicing transparency with the value you provide

(48:07) The power of video content that Rippling is currently leveraging

Links and Resources

Zach's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zlawryk/

Our Sponsor

Today's episode is sponsored by Demandbase, Demandbase helps B2B companies hit their revenue goals using fewer resources. How? By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase. They combine your sales and marketing data with our validated B2B data and AI to create Account Intelligence that informs every step of your buyer's journey. They deliver accurate company, contact, technographic, engagement, and intent data right where you work every day – CRM, collaboration tools, browsers, and more. Start spotting opportunities earlier and orchestrate smarter sales and marketing motions with Demandbase. See this live in action: https://www.demandbase.com/product-tour/sales-intelligence/

The GTM Podcast

Don't miss The GTM Podcast dropping every Tuesday discussing true stories and experiences including trials and tribulations in the Go-To-Market world.

And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.

This week we have a special 2 guest episode, with the best hiring guru's in the game, Chuck Brotman & David Teichner.

Chuck is the co-founder of Blueprint Expansion, a GTM roles recruiting firm that has helped over 50 VC-backed companies make amazing Sales, Marketing, & Customer Success hires. Prior to starting Blueprint in 2020, he worked for over fifteen years in various sales and sales management roles, building teams across presales, partnerships, SMB, Mid-Market, & Enterprise Sales. Chuck lives in the Bay Area with his wife and has two daughters, a junior at UCLA and a freshman at UC Santa Barbara.

David has 25 years under his belt as a serial entrepreneur. Built and exited companies in MarTech, FinTech and Media. He's invested and advised for over a dozen companies, and launched AccelerateHC seven years ago to help companies think through the organization they need and ultimately help them recruit high performing talent.

What you will learn

• Understanding your business goals before expanding your team
• Utilizing a 'White Board' exercise throughout the interview process
• How to hire the most ethereal talent in an oversaturated market
• Knowing which role to hire for when budgets are tight
• How to avoid making a bad hire at the early stages

Highlights

(1:35) How Chuck initially started his career in recruiting

(4:40) How David got drawn into recruiting

(9:10) Generalists vs Specialists for Seed/SeriesA startups, which should you pick?

(14:00) How to decrease the chance of making a bad hire at the early stage

(21:00) The importance of implementing a strong process when hiring talent

(22:38) Maximum number of skills/behaviours you can test for during an interview process

(25:27) Optimal length for an interview process

(30:05) How to test for ethereal factors that you can't put on paper in an interview

(35:10) When budgets are tight, who do you opt in for, another AE or a sales leader

(38:29) How to navigate the 'lead' roles / player coaches

(40:50) Hot Take: The "Hire slow and Fire fast" mentality no longer serves us

(41:45) Hiring people for their titles and hot logo's on their resume does not guarantee success

Links and Resources

If you're looking for any help with your hiring process, fill out This 3 Question Typeform and we'll connect you directly with Chuck and David

If you're a talented go-to-marketer on the job hunt, fill out This Short Typeform to help get placed in your next perfect home!

Our Sponsor

Today's episode is sponsored by DemandBase, Demandbase helps B2B companies hit their revenue goals using fewer resources. How? By using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase. They combine your sales and marketing data with our validated B2B data and AI to create Account Intelligence that informs every step of your buyer's journey. They deliver accurate company, contact, technographic, engagement, and intent data right where you work every day - CRM, collaboration tools, browsers, and more. Start spotting opportunities earlier and orchestrate smarter sales and marketing motions with Demandbase. See this live in action: https://www.demandbase.com/product-tour/sales-intelligence/

The GTM Podcast

Don't miss The GTM Podcast dropping every Tuesday discussing true stories and experiences including trials and tribulations in the Go-To-Market world.

And…monthly bonus podcast episodes dropping the first Thursday of every month.