Perfecting a Bottoms Up & Top Down Sales Motion w/ Chris Merritt (Founding CRO, Cloudflare)

04/09/25 • 29 min

1 Listener

What if I told you to build the sales team that doesn't talk about price or packaging? That doesn't even do discovery or qualification on budget or authority on the first call?

You'd think I'm crazy.

Chris Merritt (Founding CRO, Cloudflare) built a sales team that's a peer to its very technical buyer, whose first and only objective is to answer the buyer's questions.

He actually looked at the company's blog as inspiration on the type of salespeople he would hire and the type of sales culture he will build.

Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling

The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

What if I told you to build the sales team that doesn't talk about price or packaging? That doesn't even do discovery or qualification on budget or authority on the first call?

You'd think I'm crazy.

Chris Merritt (Founding CRO, Cloudflare) built a sales team that's a peer to its very technical buyer, whose first and only objective is to answer the buyer's questions.

He actually looked at the company's blog as inspiration on the type of salespeople he would hire and the type of sales culture he will build.

Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling

The Science of Scaling is a HubSpot Media podcast // ⁠Learn more about HubSpot for Startups⁠ // Produced by Matthew Brown

Previous Episode

Create a Billion Dollar Sales Culture w/ Greg Holmes (CRO, Zoom)

We all know Zoom. The company that helped society get through the global pandemic. But before they even had a dollar in revenue, Greg Holmes was the first sales hire and built the team.

When Greg left the company, Zoom was valued at $140 billion.

He credits his ability to build the foundational team in finding go-to-market fit as a key ingredient to that success. The team to accelerated finding how to build the methodology to support go-to-market fit.

Get our Database! Real Playbooks from Billion-Dollar Companies: https://clickhubspot.com/scienceofscaling

Next Episode

How to Close Your First Million Dollar Deal

1 Recommendations

The amount of personalization is off the charts. The amount of time and money you're willing to invest is enormous. Because it's a million dollar deal.

I'll walk you through how to navigate complex Decision Making Units, adapt your entire sales playbook for enterprise deals, and implement advanced qualification frameworks that go way beyond the basics.

I'll also reveal what the best enterprise sellers consistently tell me is their number one reason for winning deals.

Whether you're trying to move upmarket or sharpen your enterprise sales approach, these frameworks will help you transform your business. Happy scaling, everyone!

The Science of Scaling YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ScienceofScaling

Grab our guide to transform your sales approach: https://clickhubspot.com/zrjp