SaaStr 066: Why CEO's Should Lead From The Heart, Walk The Sales Floor, Pay The Sales Team Well & Why Sometimes, You Have To Go Slow To Go Fast with Jeff Fernandez, Founder & CEO @ Grovo

Jeff Fernandez is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Grovo, the enterprise learning solution that allows you to educate and empower your employees. At Grovo, Jeff oversees sales, investor relations, and the building of Grovo’s award-winning culture. Prior to founding Grovo in 2010, Jeff served as product manager at Clickable (acquired by Syncapse). From 2006 until 2009, he led business development and sales for Doostang (acquired by Universum Global), an online career networking community. Jeff is also a bit of a rockstar off the field getting the highest honours from Harvard penning his thesis on human performance and then playing semi pro football for the New York Rebels in 2008. I would also like to say a massive thank you to Greg Sands @ Costanoa Venture Capital for the intro to Jeff today.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How Jeff came to found Grovo? What was the a-ha moment for him?
• Jeff is renowned to ‘lead from the heart’. What are the advantages of this as a CEO? How does this affect the company, the culture? What are the inherent challenges?
• Question from Greg Sands: Jeff likes to ‘work the sales floor’, how does that work? What does Jeff actually do? What have been Jeff’s observations having seen the sales floor up close?
• How does Jeff look to structure the compensation for his sales team? How does this vary with time and stage?
• What does Jeff mean when he says ‘sometimes you have to go slow to go fast’? How does that play out in his management style?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Jeff’s biggest productivity tips?
2. Biggest challenge for Jeff in being CEO @ Grovo?
3. What does Jeff know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Jeff Fernandez