Don’t try to hire a sales savior. Just hire to get to the next rung on the Startup Sales Evolution Ladder.

Recently, I spoke with a young entrepreneur about hiring someone to help him grow his company. He was tired. He was awash in things to do, with more tasks being added to his to-do list each day. And he needed help. And I could see he was dreaming of hiring a savior - someone that could do everything he couldn't and more, someone to make all his troubles disappear.

It was at that point I asked him what he needed help most with now. This got the conversation going in a whole new direction. And it helped him look at potential hires in a new light. And I could see that he was no longer dreaming of a savior but of someone who could help him now with specific tasks that would keep his startup moving forward today.

Hire for a purpose, not to be saved.

Like my friend, many startup founders are tired or fearful of the sales process and dream of a sales savior. And many look to employ one in their first sales hire. They want someone to "make sales rain down." Founders look for sales saviors in many places, and they come in different flavors, the outsourced salesperson, the college roommate, or the big company Sales VP.

Let's be clear. There is no such thing as a sales savior. If you want sales to rain down, you must find the right market, develop the proper sales process, and work it, work it, work it. Sales occur because you develop and refine your understanding of who your target customer is, what your value superpower is, and how to best reach your target consistently and repeatably and sell in an economically positive way. This takes time and practice and requires hiring the right talent at the right time.

Everybody associated with a startup at some point gets antsy for growth, founders, investors, employees, and the idea of a savior is enticing – simply sign up someone to do it all. But In a startup, you can't force it. You must hire for a purpose, not to be saved.
 
The SEL

So, when thinking about sales at a startup, it is best to break it down into what actions and tasks need to be addressed now and in the near future and hire for these. Moreover, this becomes easier to do if you recognize the stages that a young company goes through when evolving its sales process and engaging the market. I break it down into six stages:

1. Ideation Selling
2. Founder Selling
3. Renaissance Selling
4. Team Testing Selling
5. Rollout Team Selling
6. Scale Selling

Moreover, I think of this development effort as climbing the sales evolution ladder (SEL) and the six stages as rungs on the ladder. You climb it one step at a time and hire for that rung and the needed results that will move you to the next one.

Working with the SEL framework can bring clarity to what for many is an ambiguous process. It breaks the sales development journey into manageable bits and tasks and describes the type of talent needed for each. This in turn prevents a startup from hiring the wrong sales talent at the wrong time as well as keeps it from trying to scale up when it is not ready. Both activities can kill a young company.

Each rung of the ladder will shape what you do next sales-wise and determine whether you are ready to move up or not. You move up the ladder If the market is responsive to your selling efforts. If it is not, you then have the data to entertain a retooling of your offering or market approach while resources are still available rather than later when they may be exhausted.

Moreover, this model helps you set expectations with your team and investors and new hires. It also keeps you from overextending yourself. The framework makes hiring more purposeful. You hire with a clear intent in mind as opposed to hiring someone hoping sales magic will happen.

You step up the rungs of the ladder until you have reached your goal of developing a repeatable, scalable sales process. How fast you move up the ladder and evolve from rung to rung is dependent on your market, product, and your ability to iterate and evolve.
 
For example, one company I have been advising spent their first two years on rung 2 developing an understanding of their local market and customer. By the end of year two, they were doing $1 million dollars in revenue. They then stepped up to rung 3 and hired a renaissance salesperson and spend the next year and a half advancing their offering and figuring out how someone other than the founder could sell in other markets. At the end of their fourth year, they were generating $2 plus million in revenue and had hired one additional salesperson and had moved to rung 4 on the SEL. At this stage of sales growth, they continued to tweak their go-to-market efforts and pushed the company to $4 million in revenue while adding one additional salesperson.

Then things started accelerating. Ninety days after their last hire, sales data along with process improvements indicated that they were ready to jump to rung 5. And currently, they are in the process of hiring a rollout sales team. Their sales process is still being refined and enhanced for predictability, but they have been able to reliably predict when an investment of time and money in a new sales hire will turn profitable.

This controlled development of their sales model and growth has minimized the company's need for outside capital. Moreover, by year-end, they expect to have the data that will direct their transition to rung 6 where they can push for hyper-growth.

Don’t try to hire a sales savior. Just hire to get to the next rung on the Startup Sales Evolution Ladder.


​Written by Tim Bates

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