How Do You Hire & Retain Top Early Stage Sales Talent?

Transition from Founder led sales

• We typically see Founders closing the first 10-20 deals in a startup before bringing anyone on. As a founder, you have an authentic story, viewpoint and conviction behind why you wanted to solve that problem. If you can’t sell your product/solution, I can almost guarantee that nobody else can do it for you. Before 10-20 deals is likely too premature to hire a sales person and burn valuable cash.

SDRs

• We often see founders want to take the cheaper route and hire an intern or somebody right out of school. This can work, but it can take a long time for someone to ramp up. They need to to learn how to actually work (calendar, writing emails, talking on the phone with conviction to executives etc.) and this can lead to the opposite of what you're looking and need even more hand holding.
• We'd recommend spending the extra $20k and get somebody that’s really good. It will be a significantly better ROI in most cases after you factor in ramp time and the opportunity cost of burnt leads plus your time.

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Account Executives

• Your first 5 AEs should ideally have experience selling into a similar buyer and a similar ACV to reduce ramp up time. The AEs that are best in the early days are ones that have sold a product with very little brand recognition and really had to fight for deals.These are the greatest sellers out there.
• It can be very tempting, but we'd recommend against hiring an AE that comes from large enterprise companies at this stage. It's not that these are "bad" salespeople, however they're used to selling products with brand recognition, inbound leads and a proven process. This is very different to a series A startup

Invest heavily in sales culture and avoid turnover at all cost

Keeping your first core group of sales people is imperative. A couple of thoughts on what you can do help with this:

• Ideally finding a group of people who have worked together before helps. There will be natural camaraderie and the desire to not let each other down.
• For early stage companies keep compensation plans simple
• SDR: Paid $ X number for Meetings Occurred, $ Y number for Meetings Accepted into Pipeline
• AE: X% of ARR on deals won + accelerators
• Your Head of Sales should be close to the ground and get involved with the deals. An ivory tower sales leader will alienate employees.
• Create clear paths and promotional structures with specific targets for each rep. Small pay increases and additional responsibility will keep your team engaged.
• So simple, but celebrate the wins. Set up a Slack channel to recognize your sales team

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“The Account Executives that are best in the early days are ones that have sold a product with very little brand recognition ”

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