Scaling Namely to $70 Million ARR w/ Colin Specter

Hello and welcome back to the Collin Cadmus Podcast. Today I’m joined by Colin Specter.

Colin graduated from UC Santa Barbara and then started his career in event management, where he got a taste of sales, customer service, and leading over 100 employees for nearly 7 years. In 2012 Colin pivoted into medical sales and then landed his first B2B SaaS role in 2014 as an SDR at Namely.

Quickly becoming the top SDR in company history, Colin received promotions to Account Executive, Regional Sales Manager, and Director of Sales, where he helped grow the company from $100k to $70M ARR.

After Namely, Colin became the VP of Sales at Orum in 2019, and recently received a promotion to Senior Vice President of Revenue just 3 months ago.

Like myself, Colin’s career didn’t start in B2B SaaS, but we seemed to follow similar paths by stumbling our way into the industry and applying what we learned beforehand to move up quickly and start building and leading teams.

In a world where average tenures are quite low for sales leaders, Colin has made beating the average look easy, so I’m excited to dive in and get his thoughts.

Before we get started, if you’re watching on YouTube, please take a moment to subscribe to the channel, like the video, and leave us a comment if you have questions. If you’re joining us from Spotify or Apple Podcasts, please drop us a review and let us know what you think of the episode. This stuff really helps to grow the audience.

Without further adieu, let’s dive in and learn first-hand what Colin thinks has contributed to his success and get his thoughts on all that’s changing in the world of B2B sales.

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TOPICS:

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:41 Average Quota Attainment

00:08:31 VP Sales Average Tenure

00:20:15 Growth-at-all-Costs

00:27:47 AI in Sales

00:35:10 B2B Outbound Sales

00:41:36 Modern Sales Efficiency

00:42:51 Choosing an Employer

00:45:24 Advice for Salespeople

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QUESTIONS:

1. What do you think is the reason for low sales quota attainment?

2. What do you think is the reason for low VP Sales average tenure?

3. What’s happening to the Growth-at-all-Costs model?

4. What’s your take on AI in sales over the next 5-10 years?

5. What do you think works for B2B outbound today?

6. What (if anything) are you changing strategically at Orum to become more efficient?

7. How do you choose winning startups to work for?

8. What advice do you have for young salespeople just getting started today?

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LINKS:

Orum: https://www.orum.com

Colin on X: https://x.com/c_specter

Collin on X: https://x.com/collincadmus

Modern Outbound System: https://www.collincadmus.com/the-modern-outbound-system

Sales Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/sales-coaching

Founder Coaching: https://www.collincadmus.com/founder-coaching

Collin Cadmus Podcast: https://www.collincadmus.com/podcasts/collin-cadmus-podcast

Revenue Growth Blog: https://www.collincadmus.com/blog

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Sit back, relax, enjoy the episode, and thank you for listening, viewing, and subscribing.

Available on: YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.