Outcome-Based Selling: How Rich Liu scaled sales at Facebook, Mulesoft, and TripActions

Explicit content warning

07/31/23 • 61 min

Rich Liu, CRO of Everlaw, recounts stories from his time leading early sales at Facebook in 2010, taking the plunge into B2B SaaS at MuleSoft, and selling a corporate travel platform during the pandemic.

Rich Liu’s philosophy to scaling sales at 5 unicorn companies has been surprisingly simple: build the sales process to help the customer achieve their business outcomes.

In this episode, Alex and Rich talk about:

The early days of sales at Facebook, including selling ads through the 2012 presidential election, the threat of mobile, and Facebook’s “black eye” IPO
How he transformed MuleSoft's sales model from a technical sale to an outcome-based sale
How he hired a sales team at scale after MuleSoft was acquired by Salesforce
Selling to economic buyers through the pandemic at TripActions
Selling in a down market at Everlaw

Rich Liu’s philosophy to scaling sales at 5 unicorn companies has been surprisingly simple: build the sales process to help the customer achieve their business outcomes.

In this episode, Alex and Rich talk about:

The early days of sales at Facebook, including selling ads through the 2012 presidential election, the threat of mobile, and Facebook’s “black eye” IPO
How he transformed MuleSoft's sales model from a technical sale to an outcome-based sale
How he hired a sales team at scale after MuleSoft was acquired by Salesforce
Selling to economic buyers through the pandemic at TripActions
Selling in a down market at Everlaw

Previous Episode

Talkin' Sales in a Pickup Truck: How Ben Braverman grew Flexport to a $2B run rate

Ben Braverman, Chief Business Officer of Hadrian and former CRO of Flexport, shares how he grew Flexport to an $8 billion valuation.

Flexport is a freight forwarder. They help book, track, and deliver freight shipments. So not only did Flexport’s sales team have to cope with the usual challenges of growing a SaaS company, they also had to handle the real-world logistical challenges that come from working with factories, customs agencies, and 747s. Alex and Ben became friends when Flexport invested in our company: Dock.

In this episode, Alex and Ben talk about:

The importance of solving complete problems for your customers
Why Flexport started with the long tail of SMB customers
Why Ben scaled the sales team slowly
What makes a great SMB vs. mid-market vs. key accounts sales rep
Flexport’s selling squads
How they ramped up new sellers
The double-edged sword of succeeding as a first-time revenue leader
His new role at Hadrian, the future of space manufacturing, and “space lasers”
He’s also our first-ever guest to call in from a pickup truck in Wyoming.

Next Episode

From First Hire to IPO: Bryan Rutcofsky on scaling sales to $100M at Yext

Bryan Rutcofsky, Co-Founder and CRO of Marqii, shares how he grew sales at Yext to over 140 team members and $100 million in revenue.

Inflated job titles are a bit of a cliche at startups. You see a lot of C-suite and VP-level roles that probably shouldn’t have been handed out.

But when Bryan Rutcofsky grew sales at Yext to 140 team members and over $100 million in revenue, he certainly earned the Senior VP title.

When Bryan joined Yext, they were called GymTicket.com — a local listings website that sold leads to gyms. They later expanded into other categories, like veterinarians and TV repairmen, before wrapping everything into one website: Yext.

By the time Bryan left Yext in 2017, they were listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In today’s episode, Bryan shares: