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Revenue Builders
Why Sales Leaders Must Re-Earn the Role as Companies Scale featuring Chris Degnan
00:10:39
Today’s minisode features Chris Degnan, former CRO of Snowflake. In this clip, Chris explains what it really takes to grow with a company as it scales, and why earning your role does not stop once the title changes.
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- [00:05]
John McMahon
Welcome to the Revenue Builders Podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by five time CRO John McMahon and Force Management co founder John Kaplan, the show takes guests in the barrel behind the scenes with the people who've been there, done that and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers best practices for scaling and growing your business while sharing the pitfalls to avoid. Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast with John McMahon and John Kaplan. Today's small episode features Chris Degnan. He's the former CRO of Snowflake. He was led Snowflake to that huge ipo. We talked to him when he was still there and in this clip, Chris explains what it really takes to grow with a company as it scales and why earning your role doesn't stop once the title changes. If you're a sales leader navigating rapid growth or wondering how to evolve without losing your edge, this is a perspective worth listening to. Let's dive in.
- [01:11]
John Kaplan
I want to talk about a little bit we've talked about thus far. Kind of a couple of stages, Chris, a startup phase where you were kind of shadow cto and really what I think I heard you say was your responsibility was as much about gathering requirements and understanding what customers, what they're dealing with, what they're struggling with and then bringing that back and being a great translator to your technical teams. And then you moved into this kind of okay, we have an understanding of this where we now have some product fit and, or some product viability. Now we're starting to identify ideal customer profiles. I don't want this to get lost in the conversation. Couple of things that are amazing to me. Number one, that's typically different people like and it's very rarely that you go get a former grinder. I don't think you're, I can't characterize you as former. You're a grinder today like you were a grinder back in the, in the early days. But it's really rare that you get somebody that comes from like a background that's a scale and at scale at EMC and then Vexa or wherever and then to be able to come back. Can you give us a couple of lenses for. Let's say our audience were listening. What does it really take? A lot of people say yeah, I can do that, I can go back and Johnny and I laugh about it. We call it the laptop effect. When guys say they can go from scale and then they can go into these startup companies and then they call us and they complain about Man, I didn't, I didn't get my laptop or you know, they didn't get my 401k set up right or whatever Johnny and I are, we're not laughing at them, but we're like, look, you know, that was part of the discussion of what it really takes to go into these environments. So sorry I'm doing such a long setup on this, but I'd love our listeners to hear a couple of things. Number one, what was it in you and what decisions would you make being honest with yourself that says I can do this and I'm going to do it for these reasons? It's not going backwards, but it's going into a different environment that I'm in. And then number two, if you're the hiring manager, if you're an executive, if you're a board member, if you're an investor, what would questions would you really ask somebody to say are they number one capable of doing that? And number two, is it going to give him energy? Does it make sense?
- [03:45]
Chris Degnan
It does, yeah. I mean I think it, you know, And I think McMahon does an incredible job in interviewing people to find out their, their, who they are as a human. And yeah, you know, I, you know, and just to share a personal bit of myself is that, you know, I, I, you know, grew up initially, you know, fairly well off going up, sitting at the front row of the, the Celtics games and to, to having nothing like having my house almost taken by the irs, my parents going through this awful divorce and you know, a lot of other stuff. And, and you know, people in general will say, you know, that they can blame other things in their life for their failures. And you know, when I was young, because this was when I was probably 13, 14 years old, I said I want, I, I'm like, dude, I'm not gonna let this define me. I'm not gonna let that, that. So, so I think from, from my upbringing, you know, I started riding my bike to Star Market in Sudbury, Massachusetts to, to get, to bag groceries and then to go and you know, get a better paying job. I became a cashier and then I said, oh, I can be at baybank, you know, like in, in Sudbury. So, so like I just think, you know, I had him, I, I've had this mentality and I have the mentality to this day is you have to earn your keep every single day and nothing is hand handed to you. And I think the, the biggest issue, you know, cannily of, of people that, that have come from big companies is that they have administrat like I have now. I have everyone kind of doing everything for me and, and I think, you know what I, what I have the biggest thing that kind of the, the thing that I worry about the most is fear of failure. And so, you know, when I came to Snowflake, I wasn't the VP of sales, I was the director of sales. And you know, Mike Spicer told me I'd never be the VP of sales, let alone the CRO. And you know, I've just, I've taken the mentality that I have a. I have to earn my job every day, every, you know, month, quarter. And I still keep that same philosophy. There's different things that you have to do as you become a big, you know, as the company grew. And I think the other thing is, you know, I think being super open to feedback is like, you know, I don't know everything and I'm going to like, people are going to punch me in the mouth and tell me I'm screwing something up and I'm going to be like, okay, I'm going to go fix that. And I think John would tell you like, he'd be like, hey buddy, you're going to, you're going to. If this, if you don't fix this, it's going to get fixed another way. And I think John certainly was part of the board discussions where, you know, Spizer was, was certainly pushing to replace me and bring in a, you know, a more senior person, you know. And you know, I was fortunate to have Bob Muglia, you know, support me to be the Chief Revenue Officer. And even to this day, Bob, Bob jokes and says as soon as Bob, you know, moved on from, from Snowflake, he thought for certain Frank Slootman would fire me. So, you know, look, I'm always afraid that I'm gonna get, someone's gonna take something from me and I'm, and I'm always gonna try to, you know, do my best to, to, you know, grind and, and keep my job and, and that's how I am as a human.
- [07:08]
John Kaplan
I've hear very powerfully. I've heard you say you believe that you have a 90 day employment contract is really how you view your job. And I want to hit you with something. I want you to contemplate it for a second. Most people that think that way, it's. The good part of it is it's awesome that you know, you're, you've had unbelievable success. The largest IPO in the history of technology is. I mean, it's just fantastic. But you now, with all the success, you still believe you have a 90 day employment contract. There's a saying that says you have to work as much on the business as in the business. And what I find with the grinders as they grow is, and they identify with the grinding piece is sometimes they really struggle with working on the business. And that's probably why Spicer and some of those people, it's very rare that somebody will stay as a CRO or stay as the leader of sales through these, through these different, through these different segments. How do you balance your comfort zone of the grinding in the business and the forecast and the number and the scale and the recruitment and all that stuff and how do you balance it with working on the business now that it's a, a huge company?
- [08:33]
Chris Degnan
Well, I, you know, I'll give credit, a ton of credit to Frank Slootman on helping me mentally get to this spot because in a lot of ways Snowflake, you know, is my baby from the go to market standpoint and I, I care very deeply about the company and I'm very passionate about it. And I think, you know, Frank noticed and, and I think part of what kept, made him keep, keep me in the job was because I was so in the business. Like I knew the customers and the customers that I have to this day, really good relationships. But I think. So he made this comment to me and he said, chris, you're a deal hound. And he said that's great. And that got us to where, you know, we need, we needed to be, but it's not going to get us to where we want to go. And so you've got to hire people and, and you've got to trust that they're going to do their job. And if you start doing their job for them, they're not, they don't belong here. And, and, and he always, he talks about passengers and drivers and he goes, you're a driver but you need to hire other drivers and hold them accountable. And, and so I think, I think that's been the key. You know, you Never trust anyone 100 but I think if you find yourself, especially at the scale we're at now, if I find myself that I'm doing someone else's job that works for me, then that's, it's a problem for them. You got to do it. But, but they're, they don't. That's not going to end good for them.
- [10:13]
John McMahon
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe. Rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by Force Management, where we help companies improve sales performance, executing the growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out forcemanagement.com for more information.