Vince Thompson of MiddleShift & Mo Ali of ThisWeekIn

This week Mark delves into the world of sales in the current state of startups and business tech. He welcomes accomplished sales manager Vince Thompson, formerly of AOL and Facebook, to talk about his new venture with MiddleShift. Also welcomed to the studio is This Week In's own Mo Alo, who has been the sole reason why This Week In still runs to this day.




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00:02 Mark introduces our Sales episode with guests Vince Thompson and Mo Ali
04:45 Mark asks why Mo is wearing a Eagles jersey on the show. Mo lost a bet
05:15 Mo works on telesales at ThisWeekIn. For how long?
07:00 What is Thompson's Middleshift?
10:00 Selling eyeballs & selling audience
12:30 Making the money that you sell
14:18 Your first hire should be someone who's hungry and willing to
work. No VP's
15:00 Don't punch above your weight class
16:00 Determining a sales guy from a bad one
19:00 Never wanting to join a club that doesn't want them as a member
20:15 Mark's secret sales interview trick
23:00 Make sure to listen more than you talk
24:00 Selling a startup today.
27:30 Identifying your strengths and finding the path to ROI
29:30 What is a CPM buy?
30:00 Assistly Sponsor Ad
36:00 Sales people only care about money
38:00 Cashflow isn't high...what's the answer?
41:00 Suster: Paying a little upfront and then withholding until they get paid
42:00 The simpler the comp plan, the easier it is to see the shenanigans
44:00 The problem with the ""waterfall method""
45:00 Sales people don't want to be locked in an office
47:00 Group pipeline calls and how effective they are
51:00 One more tip from Suster on the sales world
53:00 Moneytip: Call early or call late to skip the secretary
58:00 Vince Thompson's book, ""Ignited""
64:04 Using LinkedIn to get ahead
66:00 Suster tells Jason Calacanis that Mo should get a lunch expense account
73:00 Staying on top of who is in the sales pipeline
76:00 Mark: "Don't hire sales people too quickly, don't hire big
people. Be smart, think quickly.""

• Category

  • News
  • Science & Tech

• Starring:

  • Mark Suster

• Directed by:

  • Ian Hinck
  • Kenny Chen
  • Ben Wilbur
  • Branden Lymer

• Produced by:

  • Sam Osborn

[69xXLEGENDXx69Troll]

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[Chris 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.

[Kevin Gaither]

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.

[Kostis Mamassis]

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.