Jason M. LemkinCEO, SaaStr · Co-Founder of SaaStr AI, SaaStr Fund, Adobe Sign

The Secret to Becoming an Exceptional Sales VP: Focus on Sales Only!

5 Jul 2024 · 1 min

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0:40

Jason M. Lemkin argues (spoken in a YouTube video) that exceptional VPs of Sales should focus solely on sales and not take on additional functions like customer success or marketing. He emphasizes that the best VPs are "closers," that combining roles dilutes effectiveness, and that sales is a very hard, tiring job not suited to everyone long-term. This segment is presented as the penultimate point in a sequence of mistakes first-time VPs make.

Chapters

Okay, penultimate point on the mistakes that first time VPs of sales maker all penultimate point. And I know a lot of people are going to challenge me on this, but I am so right. The best VPs of sales do not own anything other than sales. Okay? The best VPs of sales do not want to be head of sales and customer success. They certainly don't want to be own sales and marketing. They don't want to own sales and something else. Because the best VPs of sales are closers. Trust me, you're going to hear challenges. But the folks that don't like this, the folks that frankly don't want to be a VP of sales anymore, It's a hard job. Sales is a very, very hard job. And it's tiring. And not everyone can do it for year after year and even decade after decades.