Base salaries can range from 180,000 euros to 290,000 euros, according to recruiter Martina van Hettinga.
Tom Werner
Chief revenue and sales officers are C-suite executives who are in charge of sales and marketing.
Insider spoke to two people in the roles about the key skills one needs and what the jobs entail.
They both said that practical sales experience is the most important thing for the positions.
This is an edited, translated version of an article that originally appeared on September 1, 2022.
Insider spoke to a chief sales officer and a chief revenue officer about what the roles involve and the key hard and soft skills an applicant needs to land the jobs.
Simon Vogt is a cofounder and the chief sales officer, or CSO, of &Charge, an electric-mobility startup.
He said that there isn’t much of a difference between what he does now and what he did as a salesman at a car dealership when he was 18. “Just like at the car dealership, my job now is a people business,” he told Insider.
“I’ve always liked working with people,” Sascha Koppe, the chief revenue officer, or CRO, of 1Komma5°, a climate-technology startup, said.
“Sales jobs came naturally to me as I’m a communicative person.”
Koppe moved to Tesla after his studies to work as an event promoter. He went on to become a director of sales and then general manager at Sonnen, a German energy company, before ending up at 1Komma5°.
Koppe and Vogt both said that an applicant can learn the skills required to be a good salesperson and that practical sales experience was crucial. They also agreed that personality is more important in this role than any other C-suite position.
These are the key skills that said applicants need to land the roles.
Openness
“You have to be able to openly approach other people,” Vogt said.
Admittedly, this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea; you can’t force cold calls on an introverted person, he said, adding that “common sense helps tremendously in sales, too.”
Perseverance
“In sales, you can’t be afraid to fail, because there will be little failures every day,” Koppe said. “You’re not going to inspire every customer and you’re not always going to succeed right from the beginning.
“Persistence is a very decisive factor.” An applicant needs to have the will, the ambition, and the motivation to really fight until they reach their goals, Koppe added.
Commitment and passion
“First and foremost, I think, has to be passion. You have to like, even love, what you do,” Koppe said. “In sales, we go above and beyond; we don’t just clock off at 5 p.m. I’m fighting for a cause, and I’m doing everything I can to achieve it by the end of the day.”
Vogt said ambition was even more important than motivation. He said applicants could “trigger motivation” with things like money, but ambition is what makes people go “the extra mile.”
The hard skills an applicant needs for the roles
Both Koppe and Vogt agreed that there are a few “basics” that applicants can learn, including certain market analyses and negotiation tactics.
Vogt said that every CSO and CRO should learn skills in SEO, search-engine advertising, and sponsored content.
He added that it’s best to learn these skills in a practical environment. “Startups in particular offer a lot of opportunities to develop yourself in a wide variety of areas and to find out your true strengths,” he said.
“That’s why I would advise anyone just starting out in their career to look past the biggest salary and instead go to the best company that offers you the opportunity to take on responsibility quickly.”
Koppe said that the best way for applicants to develop their skills in the field is through work experience where they can practice selling, he said.
Koppe studied international business during his time at university, but he said he didn’t think his studies were important to succees in his chosen career.
A basic knowledge of business and law is helpful, however, he added.
What the jobs involve
Martina van Hettinga is a managing partner at I-Potentials, an “executive search boutique” that specializes in helping scale-ups and larger digital companies fill C-suite positions.
She told Insider that CROs focus on sales, marketing, and customer service. “This makes sense because the customer-centric approach seeks to avoid silos and to allow revenue-relevant areas to be strategically and operationally aligned toward a common goal,” she said.
She added that while the role of CRO appears most often in technology companies, such as those in the SaaS industry, more and more companies across a variety of industries are introducing the role.
Speaking about his own job, Koppe said that he has “a clear responsibility: revenues must grow according to budget and, above all, margins have to be right.”
“I’m always called upon when there are discrepancies. To prevent this from happening, I’m primarily responsible for all pre-sales activities. For example, finding sales leads, which is a process that we’re constantly optimizing,” he said.
Koppe said that he’s also in charge of the marketing team, a common role for CROs in startups.
“I’m also constantly in contact with the product team and the development team to develop further unique selling points,” he added.
The duties are somewhat different in companies that decide to appoint a chief commercial officer, or CCO, van Hettinga said.
“In some cases, the CCO is synonymous with the CRO. However, as the title suggests, the CCO covers more commercial areas like finance and operations or HR.”
Salaries
“Regardless of the title, revenue board roles in sales, marketing, or growth are compensated much like CEOs and COOs,” van Hettinga said.
I-Potentials carried out a salary study of 1,122 startup executives between 2010 and 2021. The study found that base salaries in the roles can range from 180,000 euros to 290,000 euros.
The study also showed that it was common for up to 50% of the salaries to be made up of variable components, including things like cash bonuses and company shares.