Contradicting the "praise in public, criticize in private" mantra, ElevenLabs' VP of Sales publicly calls out underperforming reps during group pipeline reviews. He believes this direct feedback creates pressure, drives improvement, and allows the entire team to learn from individual mistakes.
At ElevenLabs, top-performing account executives refuse salary increases, preferring equity instead. A higher base salary would increase their 20x quota, making it harder to reach the lucrative 1.5x and 2x commission accelerators for overperformance. This is a powerful, non-obvious incentive alignment.
To maintain momentum and ensure rapid onboarding, ElevenLabs sets the expectation for new sales hires to sign their first contract—regardless of size—within their first two weeks. This forces them to learn the product quickly, get on calls immediately, and demonstrate a bias for action from day one.
Carles Reina instructs his team to forecast deals at the lowest possible value (e.g., forecast a potential $500k deal at $24k). This forces reps to build a much larger pipeline to meet their quotas and prevents inflated expectations with investors, creating a culture of under-promising and over-delivering.
To maximize expansion revenue, ElevenLabs compensates both the original Account Executive and the Customer Success Manager for any upsell within the first 12 months. This dual-incentive structure keeps the AE engaged post-sale and aligns both roles towards aggressively growing the account.
At ElevenLabs, closing an inbound deal isn't the end of the sales motion; it's the beginning. Once the initial MSA is signed, the sales team immediately launches an outbound effort, using the internal credibility of the first deal to target every other relevant team within that new customer's organization.
Contrary to waiting for a playbook, ElevenLabs hired its VP of Sales at zero revenue. The right hire is a scrappy operator willing to experiment and get their hands dirty. This allows the founder to transition out of founder-led sales sooner and focus on other critical areas like product.
Carles Reina argues that being a good salesperson makes you a better early-stage investor, not the other way around. Core sales skills like qualifying leads, reading people, and having a gut feeling for an opportunity are directly applicable to assessing pre-seed founders and their ventures.
Carles Reina gets worried when his sales team spends multiple days in the office. He believes effective salespeople must be on the road, meeting customers face-to-face. An office-bound sales team is a sign they aren't engaging with the market enough, even in a remote-first culture.
VP of Sales Carles Reina sets a sales quota of 20 times a rep's base salary (e.g., $2M quota for $100k base), far above the 6-10x industry standard. Reps who don't hit their quota are let go, creating a high-performance culture where over 80% succeed.
ElevenLabs' VP of Sales dismisses early traction as true product-market fit (PMF). He argues a company only has PMF after generating over $10 million in revenue from one specific Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Until then, sales should be treated as an ongoing experiment across different verticals and personas.