How to Close Your First Million Dollar Deal

Perplexity is attempting something no one thought possible: Challenging Google for search dominance.  Dmitri Shevelenko was advising five different orgs, before fully signing on to Perplexity. What energy and pull he found from this vision? And he unpacks how Perplexity successfully transitioned from founder selling to professional sales. Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: ⁠⁠https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling⁠⁠ The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

Imagine passing $5 million with three customers. That is whale hunting. Going after big customers with big deals from day one isn't advisable. But sometimes it's the only path. Today, Ed Calnan (Co-Founder and Fmr. CRO, Seismic) walks us through how to get big account's attention, get through procurement, get through security, all solve for all the things that kill the startups that try this path. Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: ⁠https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling⁠ The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

Companies with a very tightly defined ICP that is operationalized on the frontline spend 50% less on sales and marketing. They have CAC payback periods that are 24% shorter than the mean, and those ICP customers have a 425% higher expansion rate in the first 12 months compared to those that are not. Today Dan Sperring (Founder, AlignICP) explores how product success is often determined by specific use cases rather than customer demographics, and challenges the common startup approach of targeting broad markets too early. Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠⁠⁠⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

The amount of personalization is off the charts. The amount of time and money you're willing to invest is enormous. Because it's a million dollar deal. I'll walk you through how to navigate complex Decision Making Units, adapt your entire sales playbook for enterprise deals, and implement advanced qualification frameworks that go way beyond the basics. I'll also reveal what the best enterprise sellers consistently tell me is their number one reason for winning deals. Whether you're trying to move upmarket or sharpen your enterprise sales approach, these frameworks will help you transform your business. Happy scaling, everyone! The Science of Scaling YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ScienceofScaling Grab our guide to transform your sales approach: https://clickhubspot.com/zrjp

What if I told you to build the sales team that doesn't talk about price or packaging? That doesn't even do discovery or qualification on budget or authority on the first call? You'd think I'm crazy. Chris Merritt (Founding CRO, Cloudflare) built a sales team that's a peer to its very technical buyer, whose first and only objective is to answer the buyer's questions. He actually looked at the company's blog as inspiration on the type of salespeople he would hire and the type of sales culture he will build. Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

We all know Zoom. The company that helped society get through the global pandemic. But before they even had a dollar in revenue, Greg Holmes was the first sales hire and built the team. When Greg left the company, Zoom was valued at $140 billion. He credits his ability to build the foundational team in finding go-to-market fit as a key ingredient to that success. The team to accelerated finding how to build the methodology to support go-to-market fit. Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling

Start the GTM section of your investor pitch deck with three words: Predictable, Scalable, Revenue. I don't know why it works so well. It seems so intuitive, but like every investor's like, "I love this guy! That's what I want." Yeah, , we all want that, but the question is how do you get there? So many startups get that wrong. They think it's a sales deck. They think it's a pitch deck. And in fact, that hurts the GTM system. So with the help of Ron Gabrisko (CRO, Databricks) we unpack how to build an effective sales playbook. Links Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠⁠⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠⁠⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

Index on impact, not work. Care about the impact people have, not the work they're doing. It's something too many sales leaders forget. Loren Padelford, who transformed Shopify Plus from zero to $1 billion in revenue in just seven years, is proudly a non-traditional sales leader. He positioned Shopify Plus as "anti-enterprise," instead looking beyond the current Fortune 500; saying "we want to build the next one." Loren also reflects on the personal toll that constant grind culture had on his personal life and relationships. Something I encourage every sales leader to hear and reflect on themselves. Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

You're a CRO at a $4B company with 2,000 sellers. You've made it. Then comes an unexpected call: Want to lead sales at a 40-person team doing $25M? Most would laugh. Not Lauren Nemeth. As Twilio's sales leader, she saw something bigger in Pinecone - a chance to shape how AI transforms enterprise selling. From hiring algorithms to handling objections, she recognized that AI wouldn't just change tech sales - it would rewrite the entire playbook. Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

"I have an amazing idea for a startup." That goes through the mind of every entrepreneur. Step #1: Raise venture capital to fund it. Wrong. People are always shocked to hear that more wealth is created in non venture-backed startups than in venture-backed ones. But it's the VC backed ones that make the front page of TechCrunch. Today we're unpacking the blueprint to bootstrap an amazing company with Henry Shuck of ZoomInfo. And since Henry knows arguably the most in the world in the field of prospecting, we get into how AI will reshape it. Will it all be done by agents? Will humans have any role? Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown