Is your SaaS team aligned—or just busy? In this episode of SaaS Fuel, Jeff Mains sits down with Jolly Nanda, GTM advisor and sales strategy expert, to discuss how SaaS founders can build scalable growth by aligning product, marketing, and sales from day one.
Jolly shares insights from scaling teams at SAP, Adobe, and Atlassian, and breaks down what early-stage SaaS leaders can do today to build healthy sales pipelines, improve forecasting accuracy, and foster a culture of truth-telling inside the funnel.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
If you're tired of hero sales and pipeline guesswork, this episode gives you a clear framework to build process-driven, revenue-responsible teams.
00:00 – The sales number isn't the whole story
04:10 – Early-stage GTM red flags
05:30 – Product, marketing, and sales: 1 team, not 3
06:42 – Sales culture vs sales process
08:18 – Why incentives don’t fix a broken system
10:01 – How to build a truth culture in sales
11:47 – Why PLG doesn’t mean anti-sales
13:40 – Building alignment between product and revenue teams
15:19 – The right kind of friction in sales and onboarding
17:02 – Discovery before demo (and why that order matters)
19:14 – “Hero sales” vs. scalable sales
21:00 – Why most pipeline data is not accurate
22:48 – Trust is a byproduct of process
24:12 – 4 elements of good pipeline hygiene
26:00 – Sales managers: stop being scorekeepers
28:09 – Real forecasting starts with sales call truth
29:20 – The connection between missed targets and broken process
30:32 – How to change sales culture without killing morale
32:00 – Leading indicators vs lagging indicators in GTM
34:29 – Product-led + sales-led = better customer journey
36:14 – Why you need revenue roles inside product
38:06 – Pricing is part of GTM, not just finance
40:00 – Aligning marketing messaging with sales narratives
41:27 – The next evolution of GTM roles
"Pipeline hygiene isn’t a Salesforce task—it’s a culture of truth." – Jolly Nanda
"If sales, marketing, and product aren’t on the same page, your customer feels it first." – Jolly Nanda
"Don’t fix sales with comp plans. Fix it with better process and culture." – Jolly Nanda
"Product-led growth isn’t the enemy of sales—it’s fuel for it." – Jolly Nanda
"The goal isn’t activity—it’s alignment." – Jeff Mains
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.