In the world of SaaS, building a scalable go-to-market strategy is critical for sustainable growth.
On our recent Scale with Stride podcast episode, we had the privilege of speaking with Quentin Packard, whose impressive career includes taking Splunk's observability business from $30 million to over $300 million in revenue.
Quentin shared his comprehensive framework for building and scaling successful sales organizations through what he calls his "four pillars."
Quentin's journey is particularly noteworthy because he didn't follow a traditional sales career path. Starting in operations, he worked his way through various roles including SDR before eventually becoming a global sales leader. This diverse background has shaped his holistic approach to building high-performing teams.
"It all begins with having a very clear understanding for what stage you're in as a business,"
Quentin explains, highlighting how context matters tremendously when developing your go-to-market strategy.
Pillar 1: Recruitment
The first pillar of Quentin's framework focuses on recruitment.
He emphasizes the importance of allocating specific time for recruiting activities - revealing that he blocks off nearly 80% of his Thursdays solely for sourcing candidates, networking, and interviewing.
"Great people, connected, working together, make great products, make great experiences for customers," he notes. Quentin advocates for the "bar raiser" technique borrowed from Amazon's playbook - involving someone from outside your immediate team who has no urgency bias to serve as an objective evaluator of cultural fit and potential impact.
When assessing candidates, Quentin looks beyond traditional metrics to evaluate characteristics like "skill, will, coachability, and adaptability." Perhaps most importantly, he considers whether a candidate's experience matches the company's current stage. Someone who succeeded in a pre-IPO environment might struggle in a Series A startup, and vice versa. This stage-appropriate hiring approach is something many companies overlook to their detriment.
Pillar 2: Onboarding
The second pillar addresses onboarding, where Quentin has developed a highly structured 90-day process. Rather than overwhelming new hires with information, his approach sequences learning materials and introduces new team members to key stakeholders at appropriate intervals.
"One of the mistakes with onboarding is you overwhelm someone and say, 'Hey, here's the thousand-page manual, read it,'" Quentin observes. Instead, his process helps new team members understand exactly "what they should be doing by when, who they should be talking to, what they should be reading."
Pillar 3: Pipeline Generation
Pipeline generation forms Quentin's third pillar, which he declares is "oxygen" for any sales organization.
His approach includes daily prospecting sprints at strategic times (early morning, before lunch, end of day), combined with regular feedback sessions where the team shares both successes and failures. "Every day is a PG day," Quentin emphasizes, advocating for a balanced approach where pipeline comes from multiple sources - reps, SDRs, marketing, and partnerships. This diversity of sources creates resilience and sustainability.
Pillar 4: Performance Management and Predictable Revenue
The final pillar revolves around performance management and predictable revenue.
Quentin stresses the importance of setting clear expectations upfront and maintaining regular operational cadences to review progress. "The worst thing you can do about performance expectations and building predictable revenue is not setting those expectations, and then people are surprised," he notes.
His "no surprise rule" ensures that even when difficult decisions about performance must be made, they never come as a shock to team members.
Throughout our conversation, a consistent theme emerged that transcends all four pillars: the importance of cultivating a "we, not I" culture.
"If you want to build something legendary, you need to surround yourself with great people, you need to empower them, you need to listen to understand, and then you need to galvanize and challenge them to work better together,"
Quentin advises. This collaborative, servant leadership approach has been central to his success across organizations.
For leaders looking to scale their go-to-market strategy, Quentin's framework provides a comprehensive roadmap. By focusing on recruitment, onboarding, pipeline generation, and performance management - all underpinned by a collaborative culture - sales organizations can achieve sustainable, predictable growth even in challenging markets.
The above is a summary of our conversation on the Scale with Strive Podcast with Quentin Packard, SVP of Sales at Conduktor. Connect with Quentin here.
Watch the full podcast here
Don't let SaaS sales Recruitment challenges hold back your growth.
Invest in a SaaS sales Recruitment agency and accelerate your path to success.
Reach out to a member of the team here, or see more about how we can support your growth here.
