Shaunt Voskanian: Curiosity and prescriptiveness drive success in enterprise tech sales, Figma’s shift to outbound sales enhances customer engagement, and the future of pricing models remains uncertain | 20VC

Key Takeaways

• Curiosity combined with prescriptiveness is crucial for success in enterprise tech sales.
• Balancing curiosity with actionable insights is essential for meeting customer needs effectively.
• Figma transitioned from a self-service model to a predominantly outbound sales approach.
• Initial growth at Figma was driven by customers adopting the product independently.
• Figma focuses on proactive customer education rather than traditional support.
• The current focus at Figma is on getting existing users to adopt new products.
• Seat-based pricing is still relevant, though its future remains uncertain.
• Businesses replacing labor with software should consider outcomes-based pricing models.
• SDRs need to be accountable for their own pipeline generation.
• Specialization in sales teams enhances their effectiveness and performance.
• Figma’s sales strategy emphasizes outbound efforts, especially in mid-market segments.
• Existing customers are a focal point for Figma’s outbound sales strategy.
• Proactive customer education helps Figma drive product adoption.
• Figma’s shift to a multi-product strategy involves encouraging existing users to explore new offerings.

Guest intro

Shaunt Voskanian is the Chief Revenue Officer at Figma, where he has scaled the sales organization to over 1 billion dollars in annual recurring revenue and built a team of more than 400 people. Prior to joining Figma in October 2021, he served as Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Datadog, where he similarly scaled the revenue organization to 1 billion dollars in ARR. His career also includes significant roles at Oracle and Google, giving him deep expertise in enterprise sales strategy and revenue leadership across high-growth technology companies.

The importance of curiosity and prescriptiveness in sales

• Curiosity and prescriptiveness are essential skills for success in enterprise tech sales.

• I do think it’s a skill and to be honest with you I believe right now more than anything else if you wanna be great in enterprise tech sales it’s it’s not just about being curious it’s about being prescriptive.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• Sales professionals must balance curiosity with providing insights to meet customer needs effectively.

• You have to mix curiosity in along the way and I think that’s the art of it is you have to be able to do both at the same time or else you’re not gonna be successful.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• Understanding customer needs while delivering valuable insights is crucial.
• A nuanced approach to sales can give a competitive edge in the market.
• Customer engagement dynamics are vital for successful sales strategies.
• The dual approach enhances customer relationship management.

Figma’s evolving sales strategy

• Figma’s sales strategy evolved from self-service to predominantly outbound.

• If you look at what most of our sales reps are doing especially kind of mid market plus it’s very sales led… what the sales team is doing at figma is majority outbound today.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• Initial growth was driven by a self-service model with independent product adoption.

• Most of our customers even today at some point they started by going online with a credit card someone bought a couple of licenses started sharing links internally.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• The transition reflects a shift in market approach and customer engagement.
• Outbound sales efforts focus on existing customers.
• The strategy highlights Figma’s proactive approach to market penetration.
• Understanding Figma’s sales evolution is crucial for grasping their growth trajectory.

Proactive customer success at Figma

• Figma’s approach to customer success emphasizes proactive education.

• Our job is how do we go and proactively educate the customer on the more that they can be doing.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• This strategy differs from traditional customer support models.
• Proactive education helps drive product adoption and customer engagement.
• Figma focuses on getting existing users to adopt new products.

• I would say right now it’s probably a little bit more in the using new products side and it could be the same people using those new products.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• The approach aligns with Figma’s multi-product strategy.
• Understanding this strategy is key to comprehending Figma’s customer engagement efforts.

The future of pricing models in software

• Seat-based pricing is not dead yet, but predicting its future is challenging.

• I think it is hard to predict the future on this one honestly… there’s nothing that we’ve seen in our business yet that suggests that’s dead.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• Businesses replacing labor with software need outcomes-based or consumption-based pricing models.

• If you sell seats and you’re replacing labor, you’re in a tough spot.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• Different pricing models align with varying business operations and customer needs.
• Strategic considerations are crucial when choosing pricing models.
• The evolution of pricing models reflects broader industry trends.
• Understanding these trends is essential for software businesses navigating pricing strategies.

Accountability and specialization in sales teams

• SDRs must be responsible for their own pipeline generation.

• A’s have to be responsible for their own pg like full stop that is consistently true anywhere I’ve been and I firmly believe in it.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• Accountability in sales roles is crucial for effective strategies.
• Focusing sales teams on specific segments enhances their effectiveness.

• The best sales teams are the ones that are like really really focused and specialized so if you’re asking a rep to do 14 different things it’s too hard for them to be good at all of those things.

  — Shaunt Voskanian

• Specialization leads to better sales outcomes.
• Understanding the role of SDRs is key to optimizing sales team performance.
• Strategic focus and specialization are vital for high-performing sales teams.