Mar 8, 2021
Chris sits down with Jim Benton.
Jim Benton, CEO of Chorus.ai, is a revenue-generating visionary;
translating customer needs into innovative solutions. As Co-Founder
of ClearSlide and later as CEO of Apollo, Jim helped create the
Sales Engagement category. From Evite to AdBrite to ClearSlide, Jim
has expanded new categories and scaled revenue teams to grow from
zero to tens of millions in high-margin SaaS revenue. Beginning his
career as a practitioner, Jim credits his success to a highly
successful and methodical SMB + Enterprise sales motion. He is
still part of YC-Backed Apollo’s board.
On this episode:
- Jim explains how sales was his path to entrepreneurship.
- Learn about the origins of ClearSlide and how Jim learned to pitch the concept effectively.
- Discover how Jim and his team built and leveraged their network.
Key Takeaways:
- You must know how to start building and scaling teams.
- With a start-up, you must be comfortable making things happen, picking up the phone, finding ways to teach yourself and learn.
- Get comfortable delegating.
- Make sure your steps are in alignment with your company vision.
Tweetable Quotes:
- “I always have believed that people can achieve anything if they just know what they want.”
- “If you're aligned and setting bold goals, then
really it's about execution from there and understanding what's
blocking us and having the right time to talk through it. It's a
lot easier to challenge and push people to do the best work.”
“It's not about the metrics. It's not actually how we did on the items. As I always tell the team, it's how we communicated and came together to see eye-to-eye on actually, where we stand.”