84 minutes of enterprise sales alpha | Jen Abel

Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:00): So we’re going to do something really unique with this conversation and basically go through the enterprise sales’ lifecycle step by step. Let’s set this up.

Jen Abel (00:00:08): Let’s start with, “How do I even get the first meeting?” We are in this flood-the-zone moment of everyone trying to break into the enterprise, but what exactly are you solving for them as a problem that’s level one, but most importantly, alpha? And it needs to be different.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:22): Step two is basically running the intro call.

Jen Abel (00:00:25): This is the most important call out of all of them. This is what I like to do. Super informal. Don’t show them a demo. Don’t show them slides. Focus on them. Have a one-on-one dialogue for 30 minutes. The whole game is to slow down to go fast. And by the way, do not bring a recorder to this call.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:45): What are the benchmarks for how often do you get through each of these stages?

Jen Abel (00:00:48): The win rate for enterprise is usually around 30 to 35%. If your win rate is higher than that, your price is too low.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:55): What are some signs that your salesperson is not doing a great job?

Jen Abel (00:00:59): The most successful salespeople are not trained salespeople. Fastest way to commoditize yourself is to go into some sales script like, “Budget authority need timing.” That should be in the back of your brain. You never actually ask those questions.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:01:10): What percentage do you think are just doing it wrong?

Jen Abel (00:01:13): 90%.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:01:14): Wow.

Jen Abel (00:01:15): It’s literally so fun, people read these sales books, go to these sales trainings. They try and take someone else’s game and run with it and it never works that way.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:01:23): Most people think the sales process is five steps and we’re already in step 10 and we’re not even done.

Jen Abel (00:01:28): The worst thing you can do in the sales process is-

Lenny Rachitsky (00:01:34): Today, my guest is Jen Abel. This is her third time on the podcast. For those that don’t know Jen, she’s co-founder of Jellyfish, GM of Enterprise Sales at State Affairs, and most importantly, is the person that I’ve learned the most from about the art and science of enterprise sales. In our first conversation, we went deep on founder-led sales. In our second conversation, we focused on the $1 million to $10 million enterprise sales playbook. And in this conversation, we do something I’ve never seen anyone do on another podcast, we go step by step through the full enterprise sales cycle. Most people think this is a five-step process. It turns out it’s closer to 15 steps. Most people ignore a bunch of these steps that you’ll hear about.

(00:02:13): We go through everything that you need to know at each step to significantly increase the odds that you close your deals. This episode is incredibly tactical and specific. You will learn a ton. I did for sure. Like I say in the episode, I always get so energized and just excited to sell something after talking to Jen. You’ll feel the same way after this conversation. I’m so thankful to Jen for sharing so much alpha with us. Before we get into it, don’t forget to check out lennysproductpass.com for a free year of the hottest and most beautifully crafted AI products in the world available exclusively to Lenny’s newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Jen Abel.

(00:02:53): Jen, thank you so much for being here. Welcome back to the podcast, a very rare third visit to the podcast. How does it feel?

Jen Abel (00:03:01): Round three, super excited to be here, Lenny.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:03:04): I’m even more excited. So we’re going to do something really unique with this conversation. I’ve never done anything like this before. We’re going to basically go through the enterprise sales lifecycle step by step. You’ll talk about this, but many people think it’s like five steps. You talk about how there’s actually something like 15 steps. A lot of people ignore a lot of these steps. And the idea is I want to create a very concrete and tactical playbook for how to do enterprise sales. We’ve had conversations-

Jen Abel (00:03:34): Give away my secrets.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:03:36): That’s the goal. Just suck them all out. Make everybody amazing at sales. It will be great.

Jen Abel (00:03:36): Awesome.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:03:44): And this touches on just why I think the podcast is really helpful to people and just the Valley vibe, even though you don’t live in the Valley. Just there’s so much win, win, win in helping people learn these things. It may feel like, “Why is she giving away all these things?” But maybe actually, let me ask you that. Just why do you share these things?

Jen Abel (00:04:02): Well, it’s so interesting because there’s so much art to this that, even if you gave someone a 15-step playbook, there’s so much of a feeling that you have to go off of. Sales is one on one, right? You’re dealing with a variable, which is another individual. And if you ran the same flow every single time, it’s going to probably not hit one out of every four times because everyone’s different. Some people like to joke, some people like the small talk opener. Others want to jump right into it. Some are technical. Some are not technical. So everybody’s so different that, even if I gave, even as we go through all these 15 steps while it’s 80% of it, the other 20% is obviously the art of how you make someone feel, “Do they feel heard? Did you make it fun? Did you tell a good story?”

(00:04:49): That’s also a huge part of this. Too much to cover today, so we’ll stick to the roadmap of how to close these deals. But I think the interesting thing about enterprise sales is, even if you sell a $100,000 solution, it is the same exact process to sell a million-dollar solution. So that’s why it’s an interesting process because the enterprise organizations are more sensitive to the process you take them through from a sales motion than they almost are with demoing the product.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:05:28): Amazing. And I’ll just give a plug for, if people want to continue learning, your Twitter feed is just the best. You share all this stuff constantly. And I think you talk about there’s rational reasons to share this stuff, but I think it feels like there’s just like, “I just need to get this stuff out. People need to-”

Jen Abel (00:05:44): It’s like a diary and it also helps me keep it in my mind too.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:05:46): Right.

Jen Abel (00:05:46): It’s like my own education. Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:05:48): I know exactly what you mean. That’s why I started writing. I was just like, “I just want to remember this stuff myself. I’m just going to share it and crystallize it.” Okay, so before we get into the steps, let’s set this up. What are some things people should know? What’s the case study, what we’re going to be using here?

Jen Abel (00:06:03): Yeah. Let’s use a company like SpaceX, right? Recently has seen massive news pressings. Everyone’s probably targeting them, right? So it’s going to be a hard logo to go in and win. They are a technical organization, but I think what we do is target a nontechnical team. So we’re going to really get into the nuance of this. So let’s do SpaceX. Why don’t we pick legal? Let’s have some fun with legal. Interesting thing about legal, it’s the largest budget line item in the enterprise budget, right? Sometimes three to four times other budgets. And it’s forever. There’s always more money for legal.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:06:55): That’s why there’s so many legal AI startups. I get it now.

Jen Abel (00:06:56): 100%.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:06:58): Amazing. And I’ll just add, the reason I love to have you on this podcast is I’ve left both of our previous conversations so just fired up about selling. I have nothing to sell, but I’m always feeling like, “I want to sell something now. I feel like I’ve learned all these things. It feels so fun doing sales after talking to you.”

Jen Abel (00:07:19): You’re a master. You’re actually a master at this. Sales is marketing. Marketing is sales to some extent, right?

Lenny Rachitsky (00:07:22): All right.

Jen Abel (00:07:22): And you do that better than a lot of people.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:07:25): I feel like you’re using some sales technique on me to make me feel good about myself. Okay, anything else before we get into step one of the sales enterprise-

Jen Abel (00:07:32): No. I think this is good.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:07:33): … sales cycle?

Jen Abel (00:07:35): SpaceX and targeting the legal function.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:07:37): And then a 100k, let’s say deal, and to your point, it’s the same process whether it’s 100k, a million. And I will add a plug for a previous episode, you talk about why you want to be at least 100k something as a deal to be a real enterprise company that will survive because the ROI and just the whole economics of that stuff, but we won’t get into that. This episode is brought to you by our seasons presenting sponsor WorkOS. What do OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Replit, Sierra, Clay and hundreds of other winning companies all have in common? They are all powered by WorkOS. If you’re building a product for the enterprise, you felt the pain of integrating single sign-on, SCIM, RBAC, audit logs and other features required by large companies.

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(00:09:12): Okay. Step one, where does it start? How do you start selling someone on your product?

Jen Abel (00:09:18): It’s a great question. So I think let’s start with how do I even get the first meeting, how do I even engage with these people. There’s so much nuance as you target, as we’re using the case study of SpaceX today. You have the top of the rung, which is the general counsel, the head of legal, the chief legal officer. They all have slightly different titles, but they all carry the same weight, which is like, “Who’s the lead of the team?” And then underneath that, you have a bunch of people that carry a VP title, carry a director title, maybe just say lawyer on their LinkedIn.

(00:09:56): So you have to do the work to figure out, “What is my entry point?” and there’s only two entry points, starting at the very, very tippy top, meaning going direct to the decisionmaker, the chief legal officer, or finding the individual that would be maybe one step removed, okay? Other people would argue with this. I personally would not be targeting anybody else. It is the executive themselves or an N minus one, okay? So let’s talk about why. In order for an enterprise deal to move forward, you need to have this extremely compressed storyline that lands immediately to the objective that they want to solve for at the organization.

(00:10:45): It has to go beyond just an AI mandate. I think every company today has an AI mandate and I know everyone is an AI tool, but what exactly are you solving for them as a problem? That’s one, that’s level one, but most importantly, the alpha, “What does this executive uncover and unlock by bringing in a net-new tool?” Because bringing in a net-new tool is risky. No one wants it. So if we’re targeting the chief legal officer and the N minus one, you get two to three sentences max, okay? That might be through an email LinkedIn, that might be through a phone call, that might be through an event or that might be through some marketing capability.

(00:11:30): Most C-level executives don’t respond to marketing. They might see your brand, they’re not going to respond to a marketing campaign, okay? They will respond one on one. And the best individual to one on one to a corporate executive is the founder. Even if you’re a series B, series C, right? The founder should be ecstatic to want to get in front of the chief legal officer at SpaceX. I think any founder that is building something really meaningful knows the important role of that. Second is you can get your AE or enterprise sales lead to target the N minus one and you do what you call this …

(00:12:12): I call it the pincher model because you’re going after two different people and trying to get them together. It’s actually called the pincer model, which is start at the very, very top, find that floor and work in between that, okay? So these are the two layers you want to be targeting in landing that meeting, because if you go any further than that, you risk, they’re not going to be able to communicate your storyline. It’s a game of telephone, right? And now, you’re learning from someone that is not near the budget or the executive discussions, which is super risky because now you’re learning about user value, not executive value. And a $100,000 deal needs a executive sponsor to sign off on it, to allocate the budget and this is why you need to start at these two layers only.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:13:06): Wow. There’s going to be fractals of questions and things to dig into with each of these steps. This is amazing. I love just how specific and tactical you’re with all of these things. I’m going to try to summarize a couple of these tips and then I have a follow-up question. Okay, so tip one is go after either the execs. So in this case, it’d be general counsel, head of legal person or N minus one. Love the way of describing it, maybe a VP. You want to pitch them two or three sentences in a text or an email or at a conference. And the key is to focus on the alpha, what your product will unlock for them. Love that. And it sounds like they’re still like a, “Here’s the problem we solve for you, but here’s really the alpha we unlock.”

Jen Abel (00:13:48): Correct. Because for an executive to bring something in and be the sponsor and share this and disseminate this down their command, they need to stand behind something beyond, “Hey, we’re going to alleviate the time it takes to do X activity.” That’s not big enough. They’re like a founder too of their own business unit. You got to sell the vision. And what are these people going to … How are they going to get to the next stage with their influence? Get more budget, get more people, however they want to define that.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:14:23): Yeah. So it sounds like they want to win, and to win, you need something unfair advantage with what you’re pitching.

Jen Abel (00:14:32): That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. Yup.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:14:33): Okay. And then this pincer … I love it. So they do here is, for the exec, say, chief legal officer, general counsel, founder needs to reach out. And then this AE reaches out to the N minus one contact and you do this. You go from both directions. And I imagine the goal is one of them at least responds.

Jen Abel (00:14:50): That’s correct. And then because you’re only one step removed, they’ll usually loop in that next person or the founder could say, “Hey, I’m going to loop in my so-and-so colleague. Who on your team should we also include?” or an enterprise executive could say, “Hey, I’m going to bring in my founder. Could we see if your boss might want to be a part of this too?” It’s that parity of role.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:15:17): Yeah. And they might be like, “Wait, I’ve heard of that. I think I heard that name before because I got this other email.”

Jen Abel (00:15:22): Exactly.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:15:22): “I may not remember.”

Jen Abel (00:15:22): Exactly.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:15:24): Okay, two questions. How do you find this N minus one person? Any just tricks? Is it just sitting on LinkedIn, figuring it out? And then two, is any channel recommendations these days?

Jen Abel (00:15:24): Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:15:33): What’s the best way to try to contact these people?

Jen Abel (00:15:37): You can spar with OpenAI and Anthropic to let them do the quick scan of like, “Hey, I’m looking to target the chief legal officer of SpaceX and their deputy. Who are possible people I should be targeting?” and then go off that and do your own gut check and search from there. But usually, they’ll give you the proper names. Now here’s the interesting thing about this. Everyone is probably also targeting those people, okay? And this is why you need to be … And we talked about this in other episodes, it needs to feel so different and it needs to be about alpha.

(00:16:09): And if you don’t have executive value, meaning you cannot get an executive excited by your value proposition, then you probably shouldn’t be moving up into the enterprise doing a top-down strategy.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:16:20): Got it. Okay. And then in terms of trying to reach out to them, any tips? Any tools there to figure out their number, whatever?

Jen Abel (00:16:28): They’re also unique. Cold calling works. Again, it depends on the role. You’re not going to cold call a highly technical person, but a nontechnical person, it works. Email, LinkedIn, Twitter.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:16:40): Are there tools to find these emails and things? Is there something you recommend?

Jen Abel (00:16:44): Yeah, there’s a ton of tools that do enrichment. I’ll try LinkedIn first and say, “Hey, I shot you a note on LinkedIn. I just want to make sure you got it.” Most people don’t check that on a daily basis. But yeah, you have Lemlist and all sorts of these enrichment tools that can give you the email, but I think the number one thing is, assume they’re getting hit with hundreds of emails, how are you going to message your storyline to stand out? And that’s not easy to do and that’s really why I think having, going back to our first episode, why founder-led sales is so important to figure that piece out.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:17:23): So that was my next question is, what are some examples of two to three sentences, if you have some in your head, maybe even from your current job that you think are good examples of this two-to-three sentence pitch?

Jen Abel (00:17:34): Yeah, I think it comes down to what is the differentiator to what you’re offering, not even what do you do 10x better, because to them, it still sounds like a commodity. How are you rethinking the business model? How can you help them rethink the way that they’re structuring their team? We are in this flood-the-zone moment of everyone trying to break into the enterprise and the number one thing that breaks into the enterprise is like, “Oh, the way I’m modeling my business unit, here’s how I should be thinking about it in the age of AI.” And it needs to be different. It can’t just be like, “Oh, we’ll help you reduce the number of resources here.”

(00:18:10): No, no, no. How are they going to show needle-moving impact to their COO, CEO? If they were to bring it to the board meeting, what would they say about the product, “This product will allow me to do what?” That’s the litmus test.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:18:26): Is this a pitch that you iterate on over time?

Jen Abel (00:18:28): Yes.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:18:28): Because you’re probably getting some percentage of people responding.

Jen Abel (00:18:32): Yup.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:18:32): Okay. So the advice is like, “Keep trying to reframe this.”

Jen Abel (00:18:34): That’s exactly right.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:18:35): Awesome. Okay. Anything else on the first reach out before we get to the next step?

Jen Abel (00:18:40): No, I think that’s good.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:18:40): Okay. Okay, let’s do it. I saw you shaking your head before you said it in case people are confused. Okay. Step two. Step two is basically running the intro call.

Jen Abel (00:18:48): Yes. Okay. This is the most important call out of all of them, okay? Because you are setting the tone with how they think about you, how they respect you in your role and your craft. And the information they will tell you on the first call, they will clam up moving forward because it starts to feel like a sales process. So all of the information edge you can gain as a seller is on this first call, okay? So keep it … And this is what I like to do, super informal. Don’t show them anything. Don’t show them a demo. Don’t show them slides. Focus on them. Have a one-on-one dialogue for 30 minutes, okay?

(00:19:35): Now again, if they’re bringing in a C-suite executive, you better have your founder join that call as well. I don’t know any founder that wouldn’t want to be in the room with a Fortune 100 C-suite executive. So make sure you bring in your founder if you have that person on. But let’s say you had the N minus one, you had the VP up. Okay, super brief, “Hey,” and this is how I typically open, “Hey, I’m going to keep this super informal. I don’t even know if we need a full 30 minutes.” Put them on the back for like, “Oh, this person’s not trying to take up my time.” “All I would like to do is swap intros. And if it makes sense, we can always get on another call and go much, much deeper, but I just want to better understand who you are and I’d love to share what we are doing and why I specifically reached out to you.”

(00:20:15): So I say, “Would you like to go first?” Always let them go first. Give yourself the edge, right? Because the more information you are receiving before you speak, the more you can frame it and tighten it to what they specifically care about. So-

Lenny Rachitsky (00:20:29): And they also aren’t sitting there now listening to a pitch.

Jen Abel (00:20:31): Yeah, exactly. Now they’re talking. Now they’re conversing. Now it’s like, “Okay, now it’s fun. Now this person’s not pitching me. I’m in a conversation and a dialogue.” Okay, so now you’re talking to them and they usually do a very brief open. They’re like, “Hey,” we didn’t get a chance to look up the chief legal officers at SpaceX. Obviously, this is just a case, but whoever that person’s name is, “I oversee the legal team and blah, blah, blah.” “Okay, okay, great.” They usually don’t give you much. So they say, “Okay, interesting. How are you thinking about … Do you guys have an AI mandate going on at the organization? How are you thinking about the existing way you guys are doing work? What are you looking for going into 2027? Does anything need to change?”

(00:21:12): Ask, “Does anything need to change?” Because again, what they’re going to usually default to is what conversations have happened above them and have been transcended down. So the change is usually dictated from the top, which is great, “So what needs to change going into 2027 that you did in 2026 or maybe not at all?” And that’s when they start to open up. And again, you don’t want to be too pointed of anchoring them towards your product, because again, the more they speak, you can start to pull on the strings that matter. So they could say something along the lines of, I’m making this up at this point, but, “We are really looking to figure out how to bring more of this work in-house and rely far less on external law firms because now we have more tools and capabilities.”

(00:22:03): “Okay, is there a measurement to that right now? What does that look like internally in terms of if you’ve done that successfully in 2027?” And then they’ll say … You’re trying to understand how mature is this thought, right? Okay, so now they’re going in and they say they can’t really answer that fully. “Okay, why is that important now? Why not wait another year? You guys have so much going on. You just had this massive IPO. What’s causing the team to want to reshape this or rework the way that they’re managing internally?” And that’s usually the moment of where they start to really guide you in terms of how they want to structure their team.

(00:22:48): So now you’re getting all of this information about where they want to go, right? Now when you talk about what you do, now you’re the vehicle to get them there, right? And so I try and spend maybe 10 minutes, the back 10 minutes explaining what we do and just keep asking them questions. Be like, “Oh, that’s so interesting. What an exciting role to be in.” Be like, okay, full disclosure … And by the way, I take a step back to that. Do not bring a recorder to this call. Do not record the call. They will not be open. They will not be vulnerable. They might assume it’s being recorded because I think everyone operates under that assumption right now, but for the benefit of yourself, do not have a recorder present.

(00:23:32): Just be, “Off the record between the two of us talking right now of what you just shared, what really matters or what do you want to own or what’s the chronological …” Keep digging, digging deep, because the more you dig, the deeper you go, the more information they give, okay? Now you can’t sit there and just pepper them with questions. This is that art piece of, “How open is this person?” Some people are poker faces, some people are not. You will be able to go much deeper with some and not deeper than others. You just have to improv, okay?

(00:24:06): But after you now have that intel and you can now understand, “Okay, here’s the frame I’m going to take,” now you can give them the pitch, okay? I will confirm every single conversation I have, the storyline that I tell looks slightly different. I do not have a scripted pitch or frame for any call because it feels artificial. They feel it. It feels like you’re putting them into a square box. The best thing you can do is listen actively and then feel confident enough to craft the pitch around what they just shared for you.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:24:41): That last part seems really hard to-

Jen Abel (00:24:44): Yeah, it’s very hard.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:24:44): … adjust and make up like, “Here’s what you’re focusing on and here’s how a product is going to solve that problem for you.” So that’s where that art and skill comes in.

Jen Abel (00:24:52): That’s right. In enterprise sales, it’s so, so hard to hire for, because the more someone is trained in sales, the less natural it feels. I know this is counterintuitive and we spoke about this on another call. The most successful salespeople are not trained salespeople. That’s why founders are so good at this. They don’t give themselves enough credit. What are they not good at? Probably following this process. What are they great at? Pulling out information, pulling on strings, getting people excited by vision. No one can do that better than they can.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:25:27): What percentage of the time are you just like, “Okay, this isn’t actually going to help you that much”? So just what [inaudible 00:25:32] … Okay, you’re nodding, that happens.

Jen Abel (00:25:35): I would say, two to three out of every four calls, there’s something real. One-

Lenny Rachitsky (00:25:39): There’s something real?

Jen Abel (00:25:42): Yeah, there’s something real. One out of every four calls, I’m like, “Listen, based off of the maturity of where you guys are and where we are, it’s too much of a gap. I’d love to revisit this in a year once you guys have a chance to solve for X, Y or Z.” That’s such a great question about the qualification. Most people are not going to be qualified, not because necessarily you’re talking to the wrong person, because if you’re an enterprise executive or enterprise account executive, your job is to know who to talk to, okay? And your job is also to quickly disqualify someone. And it’s probably one in every four calls simply because of maturity.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:26:22): Cool. So you don’t have to have this intense pressure to nail it on every call and, “Here’s the pitch.” Okay, awesome. What I also want to comment on is this idea of getting them to share a bunch. It may feel tricky, like you’re tricking them to sharing all this, but really they have problems they want to solve and you’re there to help them solve a problem. And so why would they not want to just like, “Okay, here’s what we need help with. Here’s the problem. Here’s our priority”?

Jen Abel (00:26:48): Their job is to buy solutions to these problems, right? That’s why they have budgets, right? So that’s why the fastest way to commoditize yourself is to go into some sales script like, “Budget authority need timing.” That should be in the back of your brain. You never actually ask those questions.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:27:05): Cool. Okay. So the core lesson here is focus on learning and extracting their priorities. And what I felt is you pushed them to get more real and really pressure test. How big of a deal are these? Why is this important?

Jen Abel (00:27:21): Because you want them to ask you those questions because that’s when you know you’re building a relationship. I had a client last week say to me, “What’s the biggest learning your team has had this year? Every product needs to get better. Every product has a bug. Every product isn’t able to do X or Y as well as they said.” And I’m like, “That’s a really good …” I’m like, “That’s so funny. We just had a conversation about that.” She was like, “Thank you for sharing.” They just want to know you’re vulnerable because then it just feels less like sales.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:27:52): I imagine priorities for a lot of companies these days is saving token costs. I know, classically, you don’t want to focus on lowering costs as a sales pitch, “This is the cheaper option.” Thoughts on if that just comes up a bunch like legal, “We just need to save costs.”

Jen Abel (00:28:06): Yeah. So in pricing, their job is to … There’s usually going to be two motions, “I need the lowest cost way to do X because it’s low on the totem pole and I really don’t care.” If it’s 60% of the way there, no one’s getting fired over it, I’d rather just save budget. Or you’re solving a problem that you can charge 250, 500k land because it is a high risk. If you’re dealing with legal, there’s high risk to it, right? Missing information, being delayed on something, not having people understand the importance of some new regulation or law, not being buttoned up. So I think every organization looks differently, right? Marketing and sales, it’s very clear that numbers drive them. For legal, it’s probably they need to stomp out risk.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:29:12): Awesome. So yeah, basically this comes back to the idea of alpha and upside. The more you can be in that bucket, the more you can charge.

Jen Abel (00:29:19): That’s exactly right.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:29:20): Easier everything gets. Okay. Anything else before we get to step three?

Jen Abel (00:29:24): No, I think for step one, that is the most important meeting and I feel like people just spend so much time talking about themselves and miss all the competitive advantage to win the deal.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:29:35): Yeah. Your point about how as a buyer, it’s so low pressure at that point, you’re just exploring and so I could see why people come into it like, “Cool, let’s learn. Let’s see,” versus you’re in the funnel like, “Oh, I got to actually make a decision. I’m going to have to let them down if I don’t want this.” It’s like dating.

Jen Abel (00:29:52): Yeah. Their openness to share more, start to clam up a little bit more, but we’ll talk about how to make sure that doesn’t happen too.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:29:58): Amazing. Okay, great. Okay, great foreshadowing. Okay, so step three is writing a follow-up intro call.

Jen Abel (00:30:05): Yes. Okay. So usually right now, the stages that most people have is intro, demo, proposal, contracting, close won or close loss. There’s five stages. They’re very basic. People usually go from an intro call straight to a demo, okay? The demo is your carrot in the process. Everyone wants to see this amazing thing you just spoke about, okay? So your job is to make sure that when you do that demo, the formal demo, you have the right people on the call. Because if you don’t, one, you lost your leverage to organize that group and rally them, but more importantly, you never want it to feel like one person’s baby, right?

(00:30:49): If you’re selling to that director or that VP, you need to make sure that that executive feels like it’s part of their baby and they’re helping craft it and they have their fingerprints on it. And vice versa, you want the C-suite. They want the actual users to feel like that they were bought in on this too. Okay, so you want to make this to be … And this is the tricky part. There’s going to be someone that’s going to champion it and get the deal done, but you got to make it feel like a group effort. Okay, so the person that you had the intro call with, that’s who you built the rapport with. That’s your champion at this point, whether it’s the C-suite executive or one step removed.

(00:31:27): I say champion. Most champions are one step removed, but let’s just say the C-suite executive has delegated this now to the champion to navigate. Okay, for that demo call, now before you do the demo, get on another call with them, “Hey, I had so much fun on our first call. I think that there is a great opportunity to get to support you guys.” This call should be 15 minutes by the way, okay? “I’d love to do a demo, but before we do the demo, I want to make sure we have the right people in the room and I’m demoing the right things. Can you help me understand from the conversation we had earlier, and as I’m walking you through, now I’m walking you through the product, what do you think would resonate with the team?”

(00:32:08): Now you’re collecting more intel, okay? Now it starts to feel like, “Oh, great.” Now they get to put their fingerprints on this. So it’s like, “Okay, when we demo to this group,” at this point I want this question to be asked, “can you ask this question in the meeting because I want them to understand the values?” And they’ll be like, “I’m actually going to ask this question because it’s going to resonate more.” So now you’re building this demo alongside this internal executive and none of your competitors are doing this.

(00:32:39): No other startup you’re competing with is taking these extra steps. You now have the alpha of the intel they’re giving you from these conversations. And now they feel part of this journey, okay? Now they trust you. So it’s like, okay, so now you’re spending 15 minutes trying to figure out, “Okay …” or 30, right? Sometimes they won’t give you that much more time, but ask for 30, probably do 15 and say, “Here are the five different things we can go into. From our first conversation, it sounds like these two things matter, but let me show you all five.” And then they might say, “Okay, I want you to do those two that we spoke about, but I also want you to show this because this is also part of our mandate and this will make it feel holistic.”

(00:33:18): Okay, so now you just mapped out the storyline with an internal partner on their end and now you have the names of the right people. Now you’re going … To close that call, “Great. Is there a time we can look at everyone’s calendar and put this on the calendar?” Make the meeting an hour. The demo should be an hour, okay? Now you can ask, “Before this meeting, do we want to do a pre-demo to maybe someone else on your team that would be excited by this before you race to the group demo or should we just do the group demo?” They know their organization better than anyone else and how pressing this need is.

(00:33:55): Now if they’re less mature in knowing if they want something like this, they probably want to bring in someone else before a big group. If they’re like, “No, no, no, this is something we want to really move into,” they probably are ready to go into a group. So you just need to figure out where they are on that maturity arc of their decision. Okay, so now you have … Do we want to assume they checked off pre-demo or do we want to do group demo?

Lenny Rachitsky (00:34:19): How often does that pre-demo happen?

Jen Abel (00:34:21): I try and push for it because again it’s just more intel.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:34:24): Yeah. So let’s say, let’s assume there’s a pre-demo.

Jen Abel (00:34:26): Okay, so now you have a new colleague on the phone and you could say, “Hey, for five minutes, I’m just going to catch you up on the things that I just learned from so-and-so. What can you add to that? What do you think?” Do you see how you’re just collecting more and more intel along the way? So now you’re building the business case for them. Now they feel like they’re buying, not being sold to. So now you have two or three people at this point already excited for the big group demo.

(00:34:56): The worst thing you can do in the sales process when you move into demo is just go into one straight demo with no prep, or worse, a enterprise organization might reach out to you because they’re going through a due diligence process to say, “Hey, we’d love to see what you guys have built. Will you present this to four or five people?” Don’t do it. You’re either a checkbox and you want to remove yourself from being a checkbox, or two, you’re about to demo your product with no competitive intel. You just lost the deal at that point.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:35:32): Oh, man.

Jen Abel (00:35:32): The enterprise deals are won on, “This feels so close to who we are. It feels like it was built specifically for me.” That’s the whole game.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:35:41): Amazing. I love just how much alpha, not only you’re sharing with us. It feels like the theme of this is alpha, just like the alpha we’re getting from this conversation. It also feels like a lot of this process is you getting alpha from the team. I don’t know if alpha’s the right word, but let’s just say-

Jen Abel (00:35:57): No, no, it is. It’s information edge. Yeah, it’s the information edge that whoever I’m up against is not getting. And you have to assume, in the enterprise, you’re always up against something. You’re up against not doing anything at all or you’re up against a competitor who does some or an incumbent, most likely the incumbent. But it’s so crazy to me how many people just spew out a pitch with no … But you also have to make an informal and fun. People also buy from people they like, right?

Lenny Rachitsky (00:36:29): I love how so far at least it feels very doable, not that difficult. Feels like I could do this.

Jen Abel (00:36:35): You absolutely could.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:36:37): And it doesn’t feel like it takes that much time to do any of these steps so far. It’s like a call, learn some stuff, think about it. Is there any time buckets that aren’t obvious of where you spend a bunch of time on your own thinking about something?

Jen Abel (00:36:51): Yeah. So I spend so much time thinking about read in between the lines of what they were saying. And that’s when I will follow up. Those pre-run calls before a big demo, I’m clarifying all those questions like, “Hey, I know you said this. Did I interpret that correctly? Is that the priority?” And then again, they’ll go deeper. The more you infer the questions you ask, it’s almost like you just have to keep prompting. It’s like prompting humans at this point, right? Go deeper and deeper and deeper and the answers you’re going to get are just going to get so much more refined. The whole game is to slow down to go fast. All of this should be within a 90-day sales cycle based off of their maturity.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:37:41): So some people listening to this may sound like a lot of work. I imagine that this is what separates companies and products that win deals versus not. You could have a better product, you could have a better price, a lot of things, but just not executing in this way through the sales process is probably shooting yourself in the foot.

Jen Abel (00:38:00): Or you’re stuck at you just sold the enterprise on a $15,000 solution, which goes … How do you expand that? The whole game is expansion. If you’re not going from 100k or 250k to 350 or 500 the following year, it’s not an enterprise motion.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:38:17): Okay. So just to quickly summarize we’re at, step one, landing the meeting, then running the intro call. Then there’s this follow-up intro call, which you pointed out as often ignored and a big opportunity to improve the demo. I love the way you described the demo. It’s this carrot that you’re holding that you can use a little bit to extract more. And then there’s step four, is prepping the pitch and framing the demo. Is there more to share there?

Jen Abel (00:38:43): No, I think we’re at the point where it’s like, okay, now you’re running a big demo, right?

Lenny Rachitsky (00:38:47): Okay, cool. Yeah, step five.

Jen Abel (00:38:50): Now you have all of the people involved in the demo. You might have somebody that’s involved from their AI team that’s going to support some rollout. You might have somebody … You want all of the people involved in this decision at that table for the demo. That’s how important it is to not rush it, okay? So now you’re running the demo. Before that demo on one of those calls, who are all these people? What do they care about and what should I avoid? The person that you’ve now built this relationship with can give you all of the intel. At this point, they want this to go forward. Now this is a great star for them of, “I found this amazing tool. It’s going to solve our problems and now I get to put my name on it alongside one or two other people,” right?

(00:39:39): So for that demo, just make sure you know exactly who’s involved, what these people care about and what does a successful demo look like for them. I just ask them, be like, “Hey, people do demos all the time. What looks good? 30 minutes of a discussion, maybe 10 minutes of showing, 10 minutes of discussion, 40 minutes of in the product? You tell me what the organization likes.” And on that demo, there’s going to be people that were not a part of any of these calls, okay? Your job is to take a step back and restart with, “Here’s who we are. Here’s why we are doing what we are doing,” and it’s fully in their frame. You now have all the context to put this in their frame.

(00:40:18): So now for these net-new people, they’re like, “Holy shit, this was built for us.” Sorry for my French. Now they’re leaning in, being like, “Okay, all right, this is very aligned with what we need.”

Lenny Rachitsky (00:40:30): Because they have no idea you’ve talked to all these people.

Jen Abel (00:40:32): No idea you’ve talked to all these people.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:40:33): Learn what their challenges are and priorities.

Jen Abel (00:40:35): They’re leaning in, being like, “This feels different.” Now this is also the whole part of it’s being different. Not only is your product different, not only is your pitch different, the way you’re going through the sales process is different. So it’s like, “Wow, these guys are good. Okay. All right.” So now you could let them talk, let these net-new people talk. Be like, “Hey, I know we haven’t had a chance to speak. What do you want to get out of the demo today? I want to make sure I focus for you.” Now you’re leaning a little bit more into these net-new people so they feel the love, okay?

(00:41:06): And then when you demo the product, 80% of the value comes from 20% of the product. And you have learned on these previous calls what that 20% is. Do not demo everything unless there is some reason to. Because now all of a sudden, this tight frame, this tight narrative you’ve just crafted and spent all this time with just gets thrown out the door because it’s like, “Oh, well, I wouldn’t use that. I wouldn’t use that. Well, everything she just shared, that’s really only over here,” and you could just blow the whole thing up. And the amount of times enterprises are like, “Hey, I don’t know if we want to spend this much money for half the tool that we wouldn’t use half the tool.” Now all of a sudden you’ve just unraveled all the work you’ve just done.

(00:41:53): Enterprise sales is super, super, super tight project management. It’s super, super tight narrative and framing. Owning that frame. Owning that frame to exactly who these people are. And that’s why this role is so hard because it’s a lot of improv and it’s a lot of leaning in and it’s a lot of reading in between the lines. But it’s stuff that is doable. It’s just psychology.

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(00:42:56): And just recently, they launched Command, a conversational interface built directly into Mercury, which acts as your financial operator. I’ve been using Command to transfer money around to figure out what categories I’ve been spending the most money in, analyze my cash flows. And just today, I used it to find out how much I’ve made from a specific sponsor over the past year. I just ask, “How much have I made from X over the past year?” 10 seconds later, I have an answer. It is so freaking cool. Visit mercury.com to learn more and apply online in minutes. Mercury is a FinTech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column NA. Members FDIC.

(00:43:35): How do you deal with someone that’s just taking things off track or just talking too long? I imagine that’s just a skill and an art, but just any tips there.

Jen Abel (00:43:43): The good news is is that most senior people, like the people that you’re doing your outreach to, it’s very hard to get to that title if you’re verbose and long-winded and take things off track. So that’s the good thing about going after executives is those people are really dialed in. No one takes a meeting off track at an executive level. Now of course, there’s some times where there’s people that meander. You could say, “I love this conversation. Can we park it because I actually want to spend another call just dedicated to that?” And if that needs to happen, then of course you can run with it.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:44:20): Awesome. So there’s two people that might be leading this. Might be the founder if you’re still doing founder-led sales, could be the AE, maybe a VP of sales.

Jen Abel (00:44:28): VP of sales. Yup.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:44:30): Okay. Say you’re not the founder and you’re the VP of sales or an AE leading this. As a founder, what are some signs that your salesperson is not doing a great job up to this point? What are just smells of like, “Hmm, I should [inaudible 00:44:47] this person”?

Jen Abel (00:44:48): I would say, what is the timeline from intro called to demo? How many conversations have happened between those two buckets of when people advance stages in the sales pipeline? Can the salesperson articulate exactly what they are going to be demoing, why they’re going to be demoing it and how they’re going to open it? The demo looks different every single time. Every single time. I don’t think I’ve ever run a demo and it looks the same. This is when everyone comes back to, “Okay, what’s the scaled playbook? What’s the scaled approach with this?”

(00:45:26): When you’re selling $100,000 minimum, again, it’s the same effort as selling a million dollars, so it could be selling a million-dollar deal, it’s hard. You’re cracking some of the largest logos that every single startup goes after. You’ve got to be different. You’ve got to take a different approach. It is not cram the pitch down their throat and hope that they want to buy something.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:45:53): Feels like a job AI will not replace anytime soon from what we’re hearing here.

Jen Abel (00:45:55): No. Yeah, I’m not worried about AI replace … Because there’s so much about it that’s just human, right? Like, “Do you vibe with this person?” I’ve definitely taken intro calls with a person probably did not appreciate with how I ran it and that’s okay. It happens.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:46:14): It’s such a point I’ve never heard before, this idea of when you’re demoing, demo as narrow a slice of the product as you can that addresses their priorities and needs. Because to your point, they may feel like, “Why do we need all this stuff? We just want this one problem,” and that’s shooting yourself in the foot.

Jen Abel (00:46:31): Or let them guide you like, “Can it also do this?” and you’d be like, “Oh, it’s so funny you say that, we just released this.” And now all of a sudden, it feels like it’s again built for them. They want to feel like it was built for them and that it’s different.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:46:44): And then get alpha.

Jen Abel (00:46:45): And get alpha.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:46:47): Okay. So step six, you call the post-demo discussion. Also, something you say everyone ignores. Talk about that.

Jen Abel (00:46:54): Okay. So as soon as the demo closes, you are texting the woman or the gentleman or whomever that has helped guide you to this point, “How do you think that went? Can I call you in five minutes? I want a fresh debrief.” They will give you and be like raw reaction, “I know you haven’t spoken to anyone. What do you think? How do you think that went? Do you think we need to go deeper with anyone?” Before anyone solidifies everything that’s said like, “Do you think we lost somebody? Where do you think we did well? Is there someone we need to spend more time with?”

(00:47:32): There’s always someone in the organization that’s going to kill a deal. There’s always somebody. You need to protect that as much as possible and make sure everyone is aligned and excited by what this is and again the more intel you collect on these people. Because again, if for some reason someone goes quiet for two weeks or three weeks, you can now prompt with, “Hey, I know you guys are still in the process of thinking through if this makes sense. Do you think it’s worthy if I found 15 or 20 minutes with said individual to just hear their thoughts and maybe we can approach this a little bit more closely with how they would want to see it?”

Lenny Rachitsky (00:48:16): So you’re just always looking for ways this might explode and not work. And this person that you’re working with, would you call them … What was the term you used for them?

Jen Abel (00:48:16): A champion.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:48:25): A champion.

Jen Abel (00:48:25): The champion. Yeah, because a champion can also be an executive, right?

Lenny Rachitsky (00:48:30): Yeah. And they’re excited at this point in theory, very excited for this to work out. They’re on your side. They’re not trying to … Yeah.

Jen Abel (00:48:38): And I define champion as who’s the individual that really wants this to come to life that was there from day one, not necessarily the person that … The C-suite executive could be the one shepherding this well, but they need to make sure that the people below them are brought in.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:48:53): Okay. Anything else around the demo or the post-demo discussion before we move on to the next step?

Jen Abel (00:48:57): No, I think we’re good.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:48:59): Okay. So the next step, you call identifying pilot, move-forward process.

Jen Abel (00:49:05): The best thing you can do, assuming that you’ve built an incredible solution, right? If you’re now this far in, you usually have something that allow them … Now you can control the timeline above, “Hey, I want you guys to go in for two to three days.” These specific users. Do not put your C-level executive into the product. They’re not the user, okay? “Who are the users of this? I want them to experience the magic and the power of what this is,” okay? Don’t charge. You could charge them for a pilot if it’s an extended period of time, but I’d rather forego the money and do a two to three-day pilot so that at least I can control the sales cycle a bit more, okay?

(00:49:45): But again if they ask for a month and there’s a good reason for it, do charge for that. But I’d rather go in for two to three days and let them see if they can get the value from it. If they can. Sometimes I understand that there needs to be some level of configuration and extensive onboarding that needs to happen, but is there a sandbox where they can assess the value even if it’s not on their own data?

Lenny Rachitsky (00:50:07): So this isn’t yet the pilot, this is just prepping for the actual pilot.

Jen Abel (00:50:10): Correct. So there’s two different pilots you can run. A pilot that does not require their data to be in the product to get the value or a pilot that you want to charge for because they need to see some level of integration on their end for the whole product to actually work, right? I understand that those are two very technical things. Let’s talk about something that they can get in two to three days and it’s pretty much of a light lift. Time box it to two or three days. Don’t make it two weeks, okay? I’ve done this enough times to say people will go in usually for half a day and get what they need out of it, okay? Shorten your sales cycle by two weeks by doing 48 or 72 hours.

(00:50:51): Now if you need something a bit more integrated and it’s a far more technical solution, what I’d highly recommend is do it for a month or two months, charge them for it and then use that fee that you charge them for and credit it back to them if they move forward, okay? If they’re willing to pay, that is a huge, huge signal, especially if you’re about to put in all this work. They have no problem paying for it. It’s usually probably going to come out as services anyway because they’re not buying technology, they’re buying the services to go through it. And also make it a credit on the backend. Start the relationship up shift. Start the relationship off on a good foot.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:51:32): I’m definitely feeling the feeling I feel when we chat is like, “I just want to find something to sell.” This is really-

Jen Abel (00:51:38): It’s so fun.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:51:38): … fun, yeah.

Jen Abel (00:51:40): It’s literally so fun. I think people read these sales books, go to these sales trainings and they try and take someone else’s game and run with it and it never works that way. No one taught me this. I was just like, “Okay, if I collect more intel than the competitive set, that will be my special sauce.”

Lenny Rachitsky (00:52:00): And it’s more fun that way. You’re building a relationship more. You’re chatting more often. You’re not trying to just-

Jen Abel (00:52:06): Yeah, speed bump.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:52:07): It feels more real. Yeah. Okay, a couple questions here. One is this idea of the two to three-day pilot. How do you convince them, “You only get two to three days,” because that feels tough?

Jen Abel (00:52:16): So I would say, “Here, this is what we typically do. Who are the three or four people we want to put in and assess the value from a user perspective?” Make sure it’s your person, assuming that it’s no … or the person closest to the … Don’t put your C-suite executive in it. They’re not going to go into the product and then two or three other people, okay? And I want you to say, “We’re going to do two or three days. I’m going to onboard you each differently. We’re going to do two or three different onboard sessions,” before those two or three days. And I want you to go in and I want you to do these three specific tasks. Be very, very thoughtful and explicit and descriptive with what you want them to do, okay?

(00:52:57): “Here’s how we’re going to measure success.” Define that with them. Co-author that. And that’s no different than the thing that’s a little bit longer where you require that integration and build out. Co-author it with them. What does success look like? What are the specific things they should be doing? They should not just be logging in and meandering. That puts the work back on them. Your job in sales is to take all the work off their plate, 99% of it.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:53:27): And help them discover the magic really easily.

Jen Abel (00:53:29): Help them discover the magic and also continue to … You might have one of those users that’s like, “Oh, I didn’t like it.” “Great. In that three-stage process, what didn’t you like? What wasn’t clear? What wasn’t obvious? Where did you get lost?” The tighter it is, less people get lost, the more grounded it feels and the more consistent the experience is. You don’t want people having different experiences.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:53:53): Okay. So just to make it clear the steps involved here because we’ve gone through, I think, three around the scene.

Jen Abel (00:53:58): So much, yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:54:00): We’ve gone through so much. So we’re on step nine. So there’s step seven, which is identifying the pilot, move-forward process. A lot of people ignore just who that person is and what the steps are. Then there’s prep for the pilot and then there’s run the pilot.

Jen Abel (00:54:12): Run the pilot, exactly.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:54:13): We’ve talked through all these things.

Jen Abel (00:54:14): Now-

Lenny Rachitsky (00:54:15): Is there anything else … Yeah.

Jen Abel (00:54:16): For prep for the pilot, the one thing I want to say is, “Okay, before we put everyone in,” let’s work backwards of, “If this is successful, how do we get this deal through?” Okay.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:54:29): Ahead of time. Before doing the pilot.

Jen Abel (00:54:30): Ahead of that. Yes, ahead of it. I should have clarified that. This is all before the people’s pilots start. This is in the pre-pilot stage. Okay, assuming, fingers crossed, a successful pilot, which I feel confident is going to be, one is, “When do we want to get signatures on these papers?” Let’s work backwards from there. “Do we think we can get this closed by the end of next month?” “Yes, I do.” “Great. Who needs to be involved in that? Do you have a procurement lead that we should be educated in this process?” And they might say, “Let’s wait until after the pilot.” Totally,” but push them a little bit. Again, you’re project managing it.

(00:55:06): “Is there a security lead we should be working with to run due diligence on the product? Is there someone in legal or is there a way for me to draft the paper to make this make sense?” Now, the one thing I’m going to take a step back on is you would’ve already gone through pricing discussions with them post-demo, okay? Try to hold out on talking about pricing until post-demo because they might assume, “Oh, this is three times what I’m spending,” and not know why it’s three times. Because there’s all these other people that might not have been involved in those initial discussions. Talk through pricing post-pilot once everyone’s excited.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:55:43): Post-pilot or post-demo?

Jen Abel (00:55:45): Right, post-demo. I apologize.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:55:46): Okay, cool. So you basically just tell them, “We’ll figure out pricing once we understand what you’re looking for.”

Jen Abel (00:55:52): Yeah. This is in the pre-pilot stage, talk about pricing, okay? Now, if they’re this far along, if they’re really concerned about pricing, they would’ve brought it up by now. So these are the little cues like, “Okay, I think I could probably push them a little bit here or go a little bit further.” Two is, if they ask and they push, give them a ballpark. Well, it depends, but let’s say it’s somewhere between 150 and 250 and there’s a lot of dependence on that, right? So you can give them a ballpark. But work with your champion and say, “Listen, here’s what the price is. I know you know why we price it this way. Before you put this in front of anybody, how are you going to make the case? Where are you going to cut? How are you going to defend it? How can I build out a slide to defend this for you and show you the ROI?”

(00:56:49): They will tell you. You don’t have to go blind into it. And then say, “Okay.” And if they push back and they’re like, “Listen, I don’t know if I can go to bat for this.” Be like, “I hear you. Let’s work on this together. What do you feel comfortable going to bat with? And can we do a step up for year two to get to the actual full value of what we know we charge?”

Lenny Rachitsky (00:57:10): And do you include this slide or the price in the demo or is that a post-demo conversation?

Jen Abel (00:57:15): If they push you to do it, give a ballpark, but do pricing one on one with the individual you’ve been working with because they will help … They might say, “Okay, I think we’re all aligned.” This is what’s usually going to happen. There’s three answers. “We’re all aligned,” “I’m not too concerned about this,” “I don’t know if I feel comfortable going to bat with this number.” That’s when you say, “Okay, I hear you. Let’s take a step back. Let’s figure out how to make this work.” Don’t say you’re going to discount. Don’t throw out numbers. Be like, “I need your help to tell me how to make this work.”

(00:57:52): Now, this is the one part where you want to put it on them because they might come back and say, “Is there any way we can cut 20k?” and you’re like, “Oh, I would’ve gone much lower than that,” right? You don’t want to negotiate with yourself, but work with them. You’ve gotten to this point, you’ve shown so many people, everyone’s excited. This is when you know you can win them over through the co-authorship. And remember, you can always do the full value in year two and sign a two-year deal.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:58:21): Awesome. Expand. Okay. So in the pilot step, how many people do you give access to the pilot? Any advice there?

Jen Abel (00:58:30): Three to four.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:58:32): Okay, so very small.

Jen Abel (00:58:33): Very small, very tight. Who are the power users? Who are the people that are going to be in on a daily level? You don’t want everyone in there. You want it to feel like they’re buying into it too, not the same people and the same … But you do want that one individual that’s been giving you all this intel to be part of the pilot because you want them to get you prepped for everything.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:58:52): So before we get to the next step, which is post-pilot discussion and session, I imagine many products, especially today, just take a lot of integration work and data ingestion and all that stuff, this whole FDE emergence. Thoughts there if your product is just like, “Wow, it’s going to take us a month to even get you onboarded.”

Jen Abel (00:59:14): And that’s when we talked about those two different pilots, there’s like, “Hey, we can show you the value in two to three days,” or it’s the, “Hey, we have to show you the value in 30 days.” For the 30-day value, charge and credit it back to them, but know that your sales cycle is going to probably be a month longer because of that. But that’s okay because you’re probably charging more anyway.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:59:33): Got it. And just do the work to integrate enough to make it magical.

Jen Abel (00:59:36): Your price should be predicated on your sales cycle, right? If you can get a deal done in 90 days for 100k, do that all the time, right? If it takes nine months to get a deal done, you probably should be charging 250-300k.

Lenny Rachitsky (00:59:48): What are your thoughts on forward-deployed engineers as a part of this process, just as a role?

Jen Abel (00:59:52): My opinions sway back and forth like, “Is a forward-deployed engineer there because the product’s super hard to navigate or is it there because you’re taking the work off their plate?” I think people use them … I’m all about it if it’s taking the work off their plate and accelerating and controlling the situation all day, every day. “But are you using a forward-deployed engineer because your product’s so gnarly and hard to do, like they can’t do it on their own?”

Lenny Rachitsky (01:00:23): It’s a bad sign.

Jen Abel (01:00:24): Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:00:25): Yeah. I feel like the original idea of forward-deployed engineer, and the Palantir guys talk about this, the original idea was they work inside of your company building custom software for you to solve your problems and then they figure out how to make that a broad product they can sell to other people.

Jen Abel (01:00:42): Totally. And I think that an FDE is great for an expansion for a land. Okay, if you’re talking about a Palantir where it’s much more complex to … I understand why they did that, but they’re also charging multimillion dollar deals-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:00:57): That’s right.

Jen Abel (01:00:58): … right? So the business model structure supports that. If you’re selling a $100,000 deal and you’re pulling a forward-deployed … Your economics, it’s going to get messy.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:01:08): Just like you will not make money if you have a full-time engineer salesperson sitting here working on this.

Jen Abel (01:01:13): Totally. And I think I also know there’s a lot of folks in account management whose job is to service and expand and upsell and they just take on the title of FDE, so they’re just another salesperson.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:01:26): Yeah, just a nice … Yeah, it’s a cool title. I think the Palantir people called FDEs at most companies sparkling sales engineers.

Jen Abel (01:01:32): That’s awesome.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:01:33): Yeah. Okay. Anything else on the up-to-the-pilot step before we get to the post-pilot session?

Jen Abel (01:01:39): Yeah, I think, because now you’ve talked about the timeline to, “If this is successful, what does that look like?” again, you want to run this before you put everyone in it because you might want to push out the pilot. If they’re like, “Hey, listen, this is probably going to be another quarter.” Well, put the people in the pilot now because now you’ve lost all the … You need the momentum to continue and you need the steps to happen, so use that, “Hey, if this is a successful pilot, how far out are we from a commitment from you guys?”

Lenny Rachitsky (01:02:05): Oh, I see, commitment. So there’s the commitment, which is equivalent to rolling it out to the company.

Jen Abel (01:02:11): That’s exactly right.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:02:11): If they’re not ready in a month to roll this out, if this is a huge success, then wait on doing the pilot.

Jen Abel (01:02:15): Wait, correct. Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:02:17): Awesome. Because you’re saying you may lose that momentum and they’re like-

Jen Abel (01:02:20): Yeah, you’ve already exhausted all the stages. You don’t want to do that. You want the stages to align with how they’re thinking, but you want to project management as tightly as you can.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:02:30): I love that.

Jen Abel (01:02:31): And sometimes it’s out of your control, but yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:02:33): Yeah, and it’s not like you can push them to deploy it broadly. That’s a thing that is probably very hard to shift. So yeah, so understanding that and working with that seems really important. Okay, so step 10. And again, as you pointed out at the beginning, most people think the sales process is five steps and we’re already in step 10. We’re not even done. And you made this point actually before we started recording that you haven’t touched on that I think is important to share this idea of that these five steps emerged out of a CRM pipeline check thing. Talk a bit about that.

Jen Abel (01:03:05): Yeah, so everyone knows the traditional five steps, intro, demo, proposal, contracting and then close won or close loss. Those are the typical … Maybe there’s some variation of that. That’s not how you run the sales … Those are buckets to understand how to understand a weighted forecast, right? A proposal or something mid-funnel might be weighted at 50% of the deal value for the pipeline. Something in contracting might be weighted at 80% and something in intro might be weighted at 10%. That’s what those stages are for. That’s not the stages you take a client through. Those are just the broad buckets.

(01:03:50): And I think a lot of people use those buckets to say, “Okay, there’s about five different meetings that need to happen,” when it’s like, “No, there’s three meetings, maybe up to five meetings in each of those buckets that are critical to get the deal done.” Now, we’re still speaking at it at a very macro level. Obviously selling a million dollar deal, you want to have more of those upfront meetings and you want to make sure you know who the executive sponsor is and all that. You always want to know who the executive sponsor is, but for a 100k deal, you probably can accelerate it a little faster, again, ensuring that they’re qualified.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:04:23): I know you’ve worked with a lot of founders and salespeople over the years. What percentage do you think are just doing it wrong in that way and treating it like this five-step process?

Jen Abel (01:04:33): 90%.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:04:34): Wow.

Jen Abel (01:04:35): Yeah. Because enterprise sales, it’s mirroring their buying process. It’s trying to control their buying process. It’s not plopping these people into your sales process.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:04:48): Amazing. Okay. Let’s keep going. Step 10, post-pilot session.

Jen Abel (01:04:53): Yes. You can send a survey, they might want to send a survey, get the intel or one on one to each of these users and say, “Hey,” or let your champion … I mean, there’s a few ways you can do this or you can have your champion internally discuss and say, “Hey, how was that?” okay? You need to make sure that you are mirroring their experience, right? From a technical perspective, how much time did they spend in the product? Did they run into any bugs? What were they using the most of? Because you need to be prepared of going into that call to say, “Hey, I know we gave everyone those three things, but most people only spent it on two. Why?” And that might be okay.

(01:05:37): But you don’t want them to be like, “Oh, well, we wish it did this.” “Well, yeah, but no one spent time on that. We do do that, but no one spent time on that.” So you just need to control also that you’re capturing what they did in those pilots and making sure that you’re syncing up or you could go to your champion and be like, “Hey, I know so-and-so logged in for 15 minutes today. They didn’t get past step one.” Don’t tell them what they’re doing, you shouldn’t even be that, but like, “They didn’t get past step one. Can you check in on them and making sure they’re having a good experience?”

(01:06:09): Use your champion to … Again, they’ve invested so much time into you. Guide them with where they should be focused as well. Because at the end of the day, getting a deal done at the enterprise, it is set up to have as much friction as possible, right? There’s a people that will kill the deal, then you got to deal with procurement, then you got to deal with legal, then you got to deal with finding the executive sponsor, which usually comes in the very top of the funnel, but there’s so much friction to get a deal done. The project management and the individual on the inside, that’s your key.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:06:44): So funny. So many ways it could all fall apart. What I was going to say is it feels like many people would naturally … They want to avoid confrontation. They won’t want to say, “We don’t want this.” They’re going to probably be like, “It’s fine. It’s good. It’s good. Yeah, everything’s great.”

Jen Abel (01:07:02): Just like VCs.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:07:04): That’s right. That’s right. And so it feels like a lot of this process is to pull out, “Okay, here’s the concern. Here’s the problem.” Are there any other signs of, okay, they’re actually not interested and like, “This is not going well and I need to really …”?

Jen Abel (01:07:19): This is why your internal champion is so important. When they go quiet on you, that’s when you know. That’s why this individual … And listen, this individual is going to do you … If they’ve spent enough time with you, they will call you and be like, “Listen, if I’m reading the tea leaves, we should sit on this for a minute. Let’s repick this back up.” That’s why having someone on the inside is so, so, so critical.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:07:39): And yeah, the easier approach is just to stop responding and just hope that the salesperson understands very little, “Not excited.” Oh, man. Okay. What are the benchmarks for how often do you get through each of these stages? You mentioned a few, just from demo to the stage.

Jen Abel (01:07:57): Usually once something is qualified, meaning you’re speaking to the right person, they are excited by the alpha, they admit that there’s change that needs to happen. Notice I didn’t say problem, but change. People get so fixated on problems, which are important. They are important, but everyone speaks to the same problem and then it commoditizes you, which is why I don’t like to overly emphasize it. The win rate for enterprise, a good healthy win rate is actually probably going to surprise you. It’s not 50%. Meaning of all sales qualified leads or opportunities, a healthy win rate is usually around 30 to 35%.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:08:38): From qualified lead-

Jen Abel (01:08:40): Qualified-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:08:40): … to signed contract.

Jen Abel (01:08:41): Meaning you speak to a hundred, you’re closing anywhere between 30 to 35, maybe slightly less. Maybe 25 to 30. That seems high actually. Yeah, somewhere between 25 and 35%. Why? If your win rate is higher than that, your price is too low. There’s a lot of part of the market that’s just not an immaturity perspective to take you on and that’s healthy. Those are all the chasms.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:09:12): And the implication here is it’s better off keeping your price high than winning more often.

Jen Abel (01:09:15): Yes, because the market talks too. Well, the worst thing you can do is charge somebody’s friend 50 and somebody else 500k. They talk. The market talks. You have to assume that.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:09:29): Yeah, I’m in a lot of WhatsApp groups with founders and they do exactly that. They’re like, “What kind of deal do you get for this product?”

Jen Abel (01:09:33): Yeah, that’s exactly right. So assume the market talks, especially at the corporate executive level. And someone might just not be ready yet and that’s okay. The amount of deals that boomerang a year later of the ones that have lost, that’s probably another 25%. So it is totally normal and natural for deals to not advance, right? But to a healthy win rate in the enterprise is typically, I would say between 25 and 35%.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:10:05): Okay, that is incredibly helpful to people, a, I know … How about key stages along the way, just percentage drop off, up and-

Jen Abel (01:10:14): So it’s usually from qualified lead to you’re coming out of demo, it’s probably you’d lose half.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:10:28): Out of demo?

Jen Abel (01:10:28): Out of demo. Yeah, and then-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:10:29): Post-demo, not first.

Jen Abel (01:10:30): Yeah, it’d get you to 30%.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:10:32): So from demo to, what was that step that you-

Jen Abel (01:10:35): From demo to … The more you move down, the less those numbers, the less-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:10:40): I see.

Jen Abel (01:10:41): … wider those numbers. So let’s say if you speak to … And you’re doing a really good job targeting the right people. Maybe 50% of those people move to a qualified lead or 50 to 75% move to qualify lead. Of that, then another half move to demo, and then from there, another quarter advance beyond that. Once you’re in the bottom of funnel, you usually don’t lose too much from there if you’re doing good deal qualification.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:11:13): So say you’re at the pilot stage, what percentage should you expect drop off?

Jen Abel (01:11:13): 80/20-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:11:17): 80% succeed post-pilot?

Jen Abel (01:11:20): Correct. Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:11:20): Okay. Amazing.

Jen Abel (01:11:21): I find that. Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:11:23): Okay. So if you’re below that, something’s wrong with your pilot.

Jen Abel (01:11:25): Yeah, or you’re not qualifying clearly or-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:11:27): I see. You’re almost doing too good a job convincing them this is the thing for them.

Jen Abel (01:11:31): Correct, and the product’s not there. Correct. So yeah, that’s where … And again, smart buyers always want to do a pilot, so just have a part of your process.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:11:40): Okay. There’s four more steps to go before you’re done, before the money’s wired. Okay, so step 11, papering prep, setting timeline for procurement.

Jen Abel (01:11:50): Yes. So you have now spoken pre-pilot about the timeline of which we’re reverse engineering. Now you’re going to document in an email, so that that champion that you’re working with can forward that to procurement to say, “Hey, here’s what we agreed to. Here’s the pricing that’s predicated on us getting this signed by this date.” Give them something. “Here’s the kicker they’re going to give us if we get to this date.” There’s always got to be a reason to create urgency. And then what you want to do is say, “Here’s our paper.” Send a Word document. Do not send a PDF because they’re going to always redline. Always.

(01:12:29): Send a Word document of your paper and ask the question, “Do you want to use our paper, here’s a Word doc version, or do you want to lift from it? And do you want to use your paper?” It might be a lot faster to use their paper. That’s why you give them the option. And that’s why the timing is in there because they might say, “Well, in order for us to hit that time, we got to use our paper.”

Lenny Rachitsky (01:12:49): And it’s not Google Docs, it’s Word doc like Microsoft Office.

Jen Abel (01:12:52): Microsoft Word, yeah. Most of these people can’t access Google Docs, but yes.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:12:56): And so this says post-pilot, feels like it’s gone well. You’re saying the next step is, “Here’s the contract,” basically. Get that to procurement that early.

Jen Abel (01:13:07): Again, your internal champion is you’re working from N minus one from the executive sponsor or it’s the executive sponsor themselves. You wouldn’t have made it … They’re not going to put their team into a pilot if it doesn’t have likes.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:13:21): And an implication here is procurement is a way that your deal might still die even if people internally love your product.

Jen Abel (01:13:28): Correct. If you get sent to … So here’s something interesting that a lot of people don’t realize. People will use procurement as the excuse to not want to give you the bad feedback, “Oh, I got to go talk … Oh, procurement. It’s lost in procurement or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Very easy to blame procurement. Usually, procurement is a 30-day process, doing the back and forth on the legal, the papering. Procurement’s job is not to kill the deal, it’s just to make sure that it is aligned with how they need to buy. That’s their job. Procurement is the only person that can get you paid. Do not start any work until you go through procurement.

(01:14:12): Business unit leaders can’t just pay you. That needs to come from the finance team who pulls from the budget. So be very careful. Don’t start any work until obviously the papers are signed.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:14:26): Start work meaning implementing, rolling out to-

Jen Abel (01:14:26): Right.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:14:28): … people, onboarding? Got it, got it, got it. Okay, amazing. Okay, so that’s step 11, papering, prep, setting timeline for procurement, getting on board with, “What is it going to take to sign by this date? Here’s a little gift you’ll get if you do it by this date, free month or whatever.” Okay. Step 12, papering review.

Jen Abel (01:14:45): Yes. The best thing you can do is they’re going to send you back redlines. No question. If the redlines are extensive, go ahead and accept the things that are easy. If the redlines are extensive, see if you can get legal on a call live and just talk to them. That will accelerate your sales cycle.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:15:06): Versus a bunch of back-and-forth emails?

Jen Abel (01:15:07): Versus a bunch of back and forth. Get them on a call, be like, “Hey, we’re 80% of the way there. I have a few questions based off of your redline. Can we jump on a live call and just go through them?” Focus on the things that are going to impact the business and push in on those. Let the other stuff go if it’s not super important. Obviously, have a lawyer look at it from your side. You’re dealing with a commercial legal team. Have a lawyer look at their redlines.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:15:36): I imagine most companies have legal counsel.

Jen Abel (01:15:38): Yes, I would hope. I would hope so. Yes.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:15:41): Okay, cool. So paper review, so that’s reviewing basically. It’s interesting to call the paper. Is there a more technical term for that like the-

Jen Abel (01:15:49): Contract. I say paper.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:15:49): Contract.

Jen Abel (01:15:50): That’s like corporal language paper.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:15:52): So interesting. Okay, papering review. Okay. Step 13, papering procurement process.

Jen Abel (01:15:57): Yes. So this is where … We talked about this. We merged that conversation. This is when you are getting the procurement lead and that legal lead on a live call to work through the questions or the things you cannot accept. Now remember, if they give you their paper, there’s going to be a lot in there that you’re going to need to-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:16:19): Redline.

Jen Abel (01:16:19): … redline. They’re expecting that. They’re just giving you the kitchen sink, right? If they ask for $10 million of liability insurance, as a smaller company, you can push back and be like, “Listen, your exposure with what we’re doing is not that high,” or maybe it might be and you need that. But they’re going to give you the kitchen sink, know that it’s all negotiable, but-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:16:39): Don’t be afraid.

Jen Abel (01:16:41): … pick your battles. Pick your battles.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:16:42): Yeah. Don’t be afraid the deal will fall apart if you see something in there initially.

Jen Abel (01:16:44): Yeah, no, no. At this point, the deal will not fall apart. You just need to work closely with them to make sure they understand where you’re coming from. That’s more what it is.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:16:52): Okay. And the final step, signature. Ta-da. Anything special other than signing?

Jen Abel (01:16:58): No, this is the really exciting point, which is just figuring out who the signatory is before it goes routed for signature, so that make sure your internal client knows, you know, because sometimes it’s the CFO. It’s not the executive sponsor. And you just want to make sure everyone knows who that individual is, because if there’s a delay, you just want to make sure they get pinged.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:17:22): Damn, we did it, Jen. We did it. We got through all the steps. We just signed a massive contract. Congratulations. Let’s go. Steak dinner, champagne. I don’t know what salespeople do when they close a deal. Ding a bell. There’s bells often.

Jen Abel (01:17:34): You know what we do? Okay, what’s the next one? That’s it. Because you are in sales, you’re only as good as your pipeline.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:17:47): So fun. It must be the best feeling after all this-

Jen Abel (01:17:49): It is, but then you’re like, “Oh, now …” Literally, the feels is like five minutes and you’re back to work.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:17:56): Yeah. And I imagine part of this is also, “How do we expand this deal?”

Jen Abel (01:18:00): 100%.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:18:02): Is there anything there, just real quick, just how to start thinking about where this goes once the deal is signed?

Jen Abel (01:18:07): Yeah. And this is where I think the expansion comes in. You either know the products that they can expand into. You’ve been through this journey before and that’s pretty straightforward. But if you are early in the journey and you’re closing your first 10 enterprise customers, you need the founder involved once these people are in to understand, “What part of the product is custom to what these people need and do we want to build out? Do we want to charge for services?” Again, here’s the other thing too, services, and I know every company is an ARR recurring revenue focus, but services is still the largest line item in budgets.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:18:47): And so you’re saying it’s okay to offer services-

Jen Abel (01:18:50): It’s okay to offer-

Lenny Rachitsky (01:18:51): … as a part of this?

Jen Abel (01:18:51): Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:18:53): Yeah. This has come up a number of times, I think with Jason, also, Lemkin and you just like the increasing … There’s a rise in services being a part of software companies.

Jen Abel (01:19:03): [inaudible 01:19:03] how to buy. So they know how to buy. They’re so used to it. Consultants, lawyers, you name it. There’s always budget for services.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:19:16): Yeah. We talked about this last time, so we won’t get too deep into it. Something else I wanted to ask you at the end here, say you’re a buyer and say you’re talking to Jen and you’re just not sure this is a fit, you don’t want to disappoint, you don’t want to drag you along. What are some things that people buying software products, working with a salesperson, how should they communicate? What should they be saying to avoid disappointment?

Jen Abel (01:19:41): Yeah, I would say, as soon as humanly possible, explain why the timing’s not right. It usually comes down to timing or why they’re not mature enough to be able to be in a position to … It’s interesting. Your organization and the team has to be structured in a way to bring on the technology. There’s a maturity you have to go through. I know we talked about this before where sometimes it’s easier to sell the service first and then do the technology and counsel them towards the technology. But if your sales maturity in the enterprise is further down the road, you want to start with selling the technology versus the services.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:20:20): And if you talk about how it’s not the right timing or not mature, I imagine the salesperson will try to prod you and push you to see if maybe you’re not … So it’s okay to just tell them what you think, “It’s not the right time.”

Jen Abel (01:20:32): But you know what you can get. I’ve had clients say to me, “Hey, I don’t know if we’re in a position to do this,” and I’ve straight up said to them, “You are a liability not closing this gap.” And sometimes they just need to be like … Again, you need to know if you’re in a position to be able to say that, “But listen, I know you need this. I know you need this. I’m not accepting no as an answer. How do we figure this out together?” Because again, use the intel they’ve given you towards that.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:21:03): And interestingly, you’re talking to a lot of their competitors and you would think you have insight into, “Okay, here’s what everyone else is doing in this space.”

Jen Abel (01:21:11): No, exactly, or like, “Hey, listen, on our first two calls, you told me how important this is. Did that change?” “No, we’re just in a weird spot.” I’d be like, “Okay, listen, here’s what we’re going to do. Let’s start it a little bit smaller. Let’s get in. You admitted that this is something that you guys need. I know that we are going to crush it for you. I don’t want X to get in the way of that. “And then obviously, there’s going to be the cases where it’s like, “It’s just not the right time.” They might be going through an acquisition and bringing on net-new vendors is just not a priority right now and you just have to respect that too.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:21:54): I love how this whole process, a lot of listeners of these podcasts are product managers, product people, it just feels very product-y and product manager-y in terms of the organization and the step by step and just staying on top of all these little things. It’s so interesting how you don’t think sales and product management are at all alike, but they’re so similar and it’s just like you being human, the way a PM tries to understand what your pain points are, “We’re here to solve them.” Yeah, unexpected. We did it, Jen. We did it. We’re going through it all. Is there anything else? Anything else we haven’t touched on? Anything else you want to, I don’t know, leave listeners with before we wrap up?

Jen Abel (01:22:33): We gave them a lot.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:22:34): We did, which was the goal, Just the right amount. I’m excited for … Oh, I was going to say, I love that AI … I don’t think it came up maybe one time in this conversation. Very rare these days in podcasts, which I love.

Jen Abel (01:22:49): Well, it’s interesting. So many people will create AI reports that they can send to their clients or AI imagery or, I don’t know, you name your flavor. And it’s like anyone can do that. It just feels salesy.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:23:11): “What’s your alpha?”

Jen Abel (01:23:11): Exactly.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:23:11): They always come back to that.

Jen Abel (01:23:11): Exactly.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:23:12): And I know you talked about this last time like, “Just craft your own email and text. Don’t use the boilerplate, don’t use your AI.”

Jen Abel (01:23:21): Those living and breathing, I swear to God that people can read you saying the email out loud.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:23:28): Yeah. Okay, Jen.

Jen Abel (01:23:33): This was awesome.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:23:33): This was amazing. Everything I want it to be. This is going to be … I’m excited for the, not to talk about AI, but just AI summary of this, especially that’s just going to be like, “Step one, two, three, four.”

Jen Abel (01:23:42): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:23:44): Final questions. Anything you want to plug? Anywhere you want to point people to? And how can listeners be useful to you?

Jen Abel (01:23:51): Let me know if anyone has questions. I’m more than happy to go deeper into this. I would say, here’s a plug. If anyone is interested in enterprise sales, we are actively hiring and I will teach you everything I know.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:24:07): Wow. And this is at State Affairs.

Jen Abel (01:24:08): This is at State Affairs.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:24:10): Holy shit. What an opportunity. So there’s multiple roles, not just one.

Jen Abel (01:24:14): Multiple roles. Yeah.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:24:15): Wow. You’ll be paid to learn from Jen directly.

Jen Abel (01:24:18): Yes, I will teach you everything I know.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:24:21): Whoa. Okay, cool. We’ll link to the job descriptions in the description if you want to check that out.

Jen Abel (01:24:27): Awesome.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:24:27): Amazing. Jen, thank you so much for being here.

Jen Abel (01:24:29): Lenny, this was awesome.

Lenny Rachitsky (01:24:31): So awesome. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.