Vince Thompson of MiddleShift & Mo Ali of ThisWeekIn

[vankula]

Awesome episode Mark. Super interesting as an online media sales person (formerly at Google) and now as an entrepreneur. The best organizations keep the execs tied into the sales process and close to product/company feedback. I know you love integrated marketing (This Week In) and we started an online game (like a video contest) where users compete by creating videos around a brand msg - the value prop is that it is fun for the players and the brand gets help messaging - The Big Playoff

[btrenda1]

Think you've made some generalizations here about senior revenue leaders... not all of us are living hand to mouth and incapable of building companies from early stage to fruition. in fact, some of us are more than happy to give up our $500k cash comp packages in order to build up an early stage company to a big exit-- smart, capable people would rather increase the risk/ reward profile-- especially when you can mitigate risk through your own performance.

[kevingaither]

20:00. Mark uses the technique called "TORC." Threat of Reference Check. This is a key component during the interview process to get the candidate to tell the truth. Great work Mark.

[kmamassis]

i think it's time you changed the table of the show.

[theikmarket]

this is the reason why I switched from TWIST to Mark's show. There's a lot less noise and a lot more actionable info. Wish Jason changes his style up just a little bit

[daimyoyo]

I always wondered what Moe 3000® looked like.

[outboxsolutions]

Great discussion,

If you have a product or service that solves an unresolved market problem, you need to "market" the product.

What most start up's do is hit the road as I discuss in my blog, trying to sell their way to fund the business .

The quickest way to scale, for particularly tech companies, is to hire sales, add sales as a competency . However do not do so until you clearly understand the problem(s) you solve.

Mark Allen Roberts

[StartupMonkeyDotcom]

Yay Mark! So glad to hear you push back on looking for a VP as your first sales hire. Too many VCs (& boards) get wrapped up in hiring higher up on the food chain than needed or they get all warm and squishy when candidates flaunt their Roll-o-Dex.

I take issue with your guest's representation on what sales people should do in an early stage company. The first sales guy in needs to have a pretty tight agenda on what the product does and what the company needs to have validated by the market.