From Hiring to High-Performance: How Rocketlane’s VP of Sales Builds Winning Teams

Krissy Manzano: Hey y’all. I’m here in Lehigh, Utah, right next to Salt Lake City with Kenny Scan. He is a VP of Global Sales at Rocket Lane. And today, wanna learn a little bit about you, your leadership, and why Rocket Lane and what you all are doing in the market, and any tips you have for candidates that are in SaaS right now that are.

In sales looking for roles. So welcome. Yeah, 

Kenny Scannell: thanks for having me. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, for sure. So, kind of your leadership journey, what’s attracted you specifically to Rocket Lane? You’ve had some pretty big hits on your resume and this is a, you know, startup for sure, and it’s growing, but you know what, what’s your vision for the sales org and what’s attracted you to this company?

Kenny Scannell: Yeah, the one thing I tell people is think about the story that you’re gonna create. When you’re deciding your next opportunity, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of some amazing companies, been along some big journeys. Uh, and along the way I have been a part of some earlier journeys. Um, even at Zoom, I helped launch Zoom events.

Took them from zero to 27 million. And so the, that Startup Grind has always been within me. Um, on 24 is another example. Help get them from eight to 200 million in IPO. And that’s when I’ve had the most fun across my career. Yeah. As I was seeking out this next opportunity. I wanted to find somewhere that I can go and grow and scale and, and build my story, help develop people along the way and do it in an organization where you have a great executive leadership team of just great human beings.

And, yeah, no, no corporate politics to be honest. And, uh, obviously an amazing product market fit. So, uh, super excited to be here. It’s been a fun journey so far. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, I mean, it’s been awesome, just even for. For us at Blueprint to, to kind of ride on your coattails, right? Of just like this incredible company.

So, um, and, and what they’re doing is just so unique, um, from a growth perspective in the market. When it comes like building a team, right? Especially in this market where buyers are more fickle, they’re more nervous. What are some key traits, um, that will make someone successful at Sales and Rocket Lane?

Kenny Scannell: Yeah, I’d say a lot of the same core competencies you would expect across most orgs, but I think there’s some specific nuances that are a little bit tighter to our sale. I’d say our sale is a combination of value selling and challenger. Um, so the type of reps that we’re looking for, and the reps that are most successful, I mean, they have the grit, they have the grind.

They’re gonna run through all to be successful, of course. Um, they have that natural curiosity, and if you think about how to, that equates to a discovery conversation. They’re asking the, the deeper questions. They’re, they’re naturally curious. And I, I’d say that the third is they’re, they’re true consultants.

You know, the one thing I tell our sales team all the time is. You all are not salespeople, you all, you all are consultants. And if we come in with that mentality and we’re constantly looking to help solve, solve their problems, and uh, we’ve instituted some interesting things along the sales process that’s helped us along the way.

So people that fit within that mold are the ones who are most successful here. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Well, and I thank like, to your point on consultants, like. The word I think of from like an additional soft skills like empathy. Yeah. Right. Like if you don’t have empathy, you cannot understand someone’s problems and what they’re going through, therefore you can’t consult.

Yeah. You’re just gonna be pitching. And I think that’s the biggest issue I see with salespeople today where they’re failing at the presentation stage and all these things because you just see that they don’t understand Yeah. The ICP they’re selling to and they don’t want to. Right. And so 

Kenny Scannell: one thing we’ll add there.

So we, we go through a presentation like most companies do. As the final step. And one thing, one really small nuance I I see across candidates that are oftentimes unsuccessful in the final stage is empathy. And it’s exactly what you’re talking about. So we go through these mock scenarios and we throw some extreme situations out there.

And, uh, you know, I’ll, I’ll say things as the buyer that, hey, if we can’t solve to somebody, get fired. And, you know, you say things like that and you kind of gauge their reaction to see, I. How they adapt, how they react to that, what their empathy is, and the reps who just kind of move on and go to the next question that’s already in their head are the ones that aren’t as successful.

The ones that take time to really have the conversation lead with empathy and get to the root of the problems are the ones who are most successful. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, absolutely. For market trends, what shifts are you seeing in B2B SaaS that every seller should be paying attention to right now? 

Kenny Scannell: Well, hopefully everyone has the same answer.

It, it’s ai hands down. Uh, the one thing I continue to push with my team is we’re past the point of gen AI being what AI is, and I think that’s exciting. I mean, it’s table stakes that people should be using. Um, chat, GBT or llama or whatever solution we’re using today. I mean, there, the efficiencies you gain from that are, are tremendous.

There’s a lot of solutions out there, um, in people’s tech stacks that go well beyond that today. Yeah. And, uh, I think there’s so many creative things you could do now with ai. You know, I’ll, I’ll give one example. So if you think about the process of building a, a solid account plan. Like, if I go back to the days when I was building account plans or running Strat teams, I mean it, it could take a couple days to build like a solid account plan for like a massive enterprise company.

If you think about how that equates today, um, I can put in you name a company and say Microsoft, and hey, build me an account plan. Tell me who my key stakeholders are. You know, help Matt tell me everything I need to know about Microsoft. You know, you’re able to build these things much, much quicker today.

And that’s just one example of. Taking potentially a couple days if you’re going through, you know, one account and you’re doing this for 10 accounts where I can copy and paste 10 accounts into chat, GPT as an example, and they can spit out account plans on each one. And you put into Google Doc and you have this collaboration space for, uh, ae, BDR, partner, team marketing, et cetera.

Uh, so I mean that’s just, that’s one of many examples, but it’s fascinating to see how quickly it’s evolving and. You and I have talked this, talked about this a little bit too, Chrissy, and like, I think you made a recommendation to, uh, somebody you’re mentoring spends two hours a day just learning AI inside out and Yep.

You know, getting to that point and, you know, again, that goes back to always learning and uh, but AI is changing the game. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, no, a hundred percent agree. And going to like Rocket Lane success. Right. What’s driving that momentum and how do you see it evolving over the next year? Because it really is so unique, like.

I haven’t seen a company like this outside of like one other company, um, that we’re helping, but like in general, typically the companies we work with, like the growth you are having reminds me of 2017, 2018 days. Mm-hmm. What, what do you attribute to that? 

Kenny Scannell: Yeah, I think number one, I’ll, I’ll give our product team all the credit.

You know, we, we’ve only been around for four and a half years, but I’ve only been in. A very, very small handful of conversations where a prospect says you can’t do X, Y, Z, or your, your product doesn’t do this and that. And that’s really refreshing. I mean, you would think for being the disruptor in the market that we’re still like trying to catch up in a lot of different areas and like, that’s not the case here.

And it’s, it’s been amazing. That’s the big reason why I’m here. Um, so I think from a product perspective, we think about. Approaching PSA and project management differently than a lot of the players in the space. It’s a unique space where you’ve had, you have some legacy players that have been doing it for well over a decade, and then you have some newer disruptors and we’re seeing a lot of success, um, for, you know, I talk about the product, but it’s also the people we’re bringing on, uh, the process.

The quick move up market, you know, that’s, uh, these are all big contributing factors. Uh, we started off focused more on SMB and mid-market and we’ve acquired 500 plus customers already, and that’s without PLG motion. So that’s, I’d say they were in [00:08:00] rare air, you know, from that standpoint. But now we’re starting to see the traction going to market into the upper part of mid market, lower enterprise.

We just closed a, a company that has 32,000 people, and so we’re starting to see this major traction and. I think it, it goes back to the having the confidence, the experience, and uh, the willingness to, to dig in the trenches with, uh, with these prospects. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. How do you explain what Rocket Lane does? Like the simplest terms, but also exciting?

Kenny Scannell: Yeah. Um, I’d say we’re an an all in one PSA and project management solution, and we go across multiple parts of the customer lifecycle journey. So. Our biggest use case is gonna be an onboarding implementations, but it transitions onto a CSM and you can even argue that we could, should be doing more pre-sales.

So that’s, that’s unique in the space because a lot of players are either one or the other. So you, I’m not gonna name names, but there’s some legacy competitors that have been in the space for a while and. They handle [00:09:00] the, the pro, the professional services automation part really well. Uh, but they don’t handle the project management side of it well.

Yeah. So oftentimes customers will have to buy one of each. And if you think about that experience, having two separate solutions that don’t always talk to each other, it’s like you said, never fun. So, uh, and then you have the other side that focuses more on project management. You know, I’ll name some names there.

It’s like. Smartsheet Monday. I wouldn’t say we’re truly direct competitors with them. We’re, um, we come across them on, on some of these PSA deals. So it’s about finding your, finding your niche within your ICP doesn’t mean we’re gonna live here forever. Have you seen companies like Amazon go from being a bookstore into what they are today and, um, so yeah, I think the.

The opportunities are endless with ai, but you know, hopefully that gives you some insight there. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, no, for sure. And just so people can better understand your leadership style, maybe where you’re different than other VPs of sales, how do you know, what’s your philosophy and how do you keep your sales team motivated and growing?

Like what’s kind of your approach? 

Kenny Scannell: Yeah, I think I had somebody from a VC tell me a few years ago that generally, uh, VPs of sales or CROs. Fall in like one of two buckets and they’re either the rah, rah, inspirational person or they’re super analytical. They kind of fall in one of one of the two. I consider myself to have, you know, good experience in both.

And so my leadership style here at Rocket Lane and throughout my career has been very much focused on empowerment, inspiration development. And you know, the thing I take the most pride in across my career is seeing people grow and seeing how. People I’ve worked with are now in, you know, large, large scale company executive roles.

That’s where I get the most pride. So if you think about that, how that pertains to my day to day, it just, I wanna make sure that people are constantly developing learning, I’m empowering them. And, uh, we have a fun culture where people are inspired and they’re learning from each other. And I think culture goes in different directions.

I think we’re mostly past the days of going to the happy hours. Dating myself back to the San Francisco days. I wanna make sure this is a fun place that people are learning. That’s, that’s the data in a nutshell. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. No, and, and one thing I would probably speak on that’s, that’s different that I’ve seen firsthand is you are not afraid to have hard conversations.

Yeah. But typically, I. Where most VPs in CROs fall short is they’re just willing to have those hard conversations with their team. They’re not willing to fight for their team and have those hard conversations. Yeah. With the C-suite or with their boss. Can you definitely do that? You don’t ever shy away, even if it’s, you know, no one likes to have these conversations.

Right. But if you think something is not correct, or maybe a number’s too high, something you will go to bat. You’ll bring your case. You’ll bring that analytic information. Right. And I think that’s something, that’s a huge thing that’s missing, right? Yeah. Um, of being able to have hard conversations, you know, on both sides of the spectrum.

Kenny Scannell: Yeah. Yeah. You bring up a really good point. I mean, when you talk about a leader having hard conversations, most people have the tendency to lean towards hard conversations with her team, and that equates to performance management. And that’s obviously part of it. But I think what you’re alluding to is having the tough conversations up the ladder as well, and, and.

You know, my advice to people is if you truly feel strongly about something and you’re getting, um, a strong recommendation from up the ladder, don’t be the type of leader that will just say yes, just to play the corporate game and, you know, stand up for your people and, and do what’s right as a leader.

That’s what makes people a leader, not a manager. Um, so I, I’ve seen this a couple times across my career and, um. I, I had a situation where somebody wanted me to fire somebody. This happened a couple times throughout the last 15, 16 years of leadership. And in both cases I really stood by that person and obviously I had the data and I had uh, everything to back it up.

Um, but it’s amazing to fast forward now and like one one of these reps, um, has been a perennial AE of the year at this company. Another is, you know, manager of the year at another company. And this goes back some, some years, but you know, I, I think you bring up a really important thing. I think people, uh, people forget and being a leader, you have to be selfless.

And that’s it in a nutshell. 

Krissy Manzano: Totally. Last but not least, why should people consider joining Rocket Lane? And let me preface this right, what candidates here and have seen all the time. Startup comes to them. 

Kenny Scannell: Mm-hmm. 

Krissy Manzano: We’re on a rocket ship. Yeah. Right. We’re crushing it. We have this huge addressable market look at our investors.

Look what we’ve already done with founder led sales. Look what we’ve already done. We have product market fit. They get brought over and things are not as they were displayed, and they are laid off instantly. Mm-hmm. In a really unethical. Way, you know, a lot of times, um, and candidates have seen this happen, you know, for the past four years, it is something that is more common than not, right?

Mm-hmm. So we talk about all this great success with Rocket Link, but why should people consider coming here knowing that some of the conversation that we’re having, they’re probably hearing from other companies Yeah. Right? That, that will more, more than likely fail or be laying off those people. 

Kenny Scannell: Yep. So, to talk about Rocket Lean specifically.

I mean, we’re in a very, very healthy cash position. We could turn the clock and be, uh, turn the knob and be profitable tomorrow if we wanted to. But most importantly, we’re on a super fast growth journey and we’re growing responsibly. Where if you think back to the early 2020s, and I’m not gonna name names, but you guys can figure out who some of these companies are that had valuations of 8 billion plus and hired thousands of people, and then sold for parts a couple years down the road.

I mean, there’s. A lot of cases like that. So we are not that, we’re very thoughtful around how we grow. Uh, we, we wanna prove concepts before we place big bets. So whether that means getting into a new geo, um, focusing on a different vertical, that’s a big part of our focus. I, I think the, the team that we’ve surrounded ourself with at Rocket Lane, I mean the, the three founders have already been successful.

They’ve been there, done that. They’ve already sold, um. A company to FreshWorks that that product is now a fresh chat. So we have it in our DNA across the rest of our executive leadership team. Everyone from Rower, CMO, uh, Brett, our head of Cs. I mean, we’ve all been there, done that and operated at a very high level.

And again, I think the culture that we’re building, the fast growth up market, these are all obvious things that you would wanna look for when you’re joining a new company. Um, so yeah, it’s. It’s a special place and we have this secret sauce within us, and if you ever get a chance, check out b’s, uh, se our series B rap video.

And that’s, uh, that’s ingrained in our culture is just like this creative, this creative [00:16:00] mindset and it’s, uh, it it carries on throughout the culture across the company. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, absolutely. Just a couple points that you had on that I think are really important. One. These founders are not first time founders.

Yeah. And they’ve had a successful exit. That doesn’t always mean the second time it’s gonna be successful, but it does have some bearing. It’s not, you know, there’s a lot of first time founders out there that are really smart. Mm-hmm. But they do not understand how business operates, especially with sales.

I think for salespeople across the world, they’re probably like Amen right now because they don’t get it. They don’t understand the pay and their first sales hire, they’re trying to hire enterprise sales reps. Right? Yeah. Where they haven’t even proved that they can do that and. One thing I’ll highlight for you all as we went in and, you know, have done some of this hiring, you know, we did start off, um, at one point looking for an enterprise rep and then we pulled back and pivoted because I think you all recognized, hey, we’re getting up in that lower enterprise, that higher mid-market.

You know, we don’t really know exactly what that plan is for enterprise and so to make sure someone’s successful and we really do that and place our bets appropriately. Mm-hmm. Let’s start here. And I just thought that was really. Thoughtful and smart and strategic, and it’s something I don’t see a lot of people do, right.

They’re like, I wanna grow, so I wanna hire someone mm-hmm. Who closes, you know, million dollar deals, right? I, I had someone share that with me the other day, um, and they’re like a little over 2 million a RR, right? And so there’s just so much misalignment with like, the type of selling, and I think you all are so aligned.

In that you’re smart, you’re strategic, you don’t move fast for the sake of moving fast. Mm-hmm. So, um, you know, and you also a great leadership team, which, you know, that stuff all has trickle down effects. 

Kenny Scannell: Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. 

Krissy Manzano: Well, thanks for being on today. I hope, um, people get to, you know, experience Rocket Lane, check them out, you know, they’re hiring like crazy.

You can go to Rocket Lane’s website or our website and apply, um, and. You know, if you have any questions, just reach out. But great chatting with you today. Yeah, likewise. 

Kenny Scannell: Thanks for having me. Great. Thanks. Bye. Appreciate it.