AJ Bruno
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- Sales leaders and operations are afraid to take away anything from salespeople
- They complicate their commission plans
- Companies get new funding and start to change things up
- "Million dollar home page"
- Every pixel cost a dollar and he made $1,000,000 in a week in 2003
- Then Calm.com
- ControlTheBuzz.com
- Then he started Trend Kite, a PR company
- Was based in Austin, TX
- Grew it to $30 million in 3.5 years and about 150 people
- His sales reps always had questions about their comp plans
- So he created the commission plan software he needed
Related episodes and posts
- Sold Trend Kite to PR News Wire
- About 500 customers now
- HubSpot Ventures is an investor
- 70 staff
- Half in Austin, some in Philly, and remote
- Lessons learned
- Build for the end-user
- Build for retention
- End-user delight was something he thought about
- He thought about the brand
Build for the end user. Build for retention."
- There's a lot of noise in the world today
- His job is to provide a path for his staff
- His role is to provide security for his staff
- Economics major
- His uncle told him to get into sales
- Kobayashi Maru
- Crushed his first quota
- Didn't sell anything the next three quarters
- He learned to stick to the script and he grew
- Create the sales methodology
- Create the pattern match
- His job is to provide a framework for success for his staff.
- We're not lazy, we're just delaying adulthood
- WOW and shoutouts: Wins of the Week