thefarm2012 profile picture
thefarm2012 profile picture

thefarm2012

Founder

How to hire a 0 to 1 sales leader to create repeatability?

We are a pre-seed stage startup, about to raise our Seed, who's topline revenue numbers look deceivingly good because we have had a lot of founder led sales. We did hire one non-founder sales person, and one marketing person, but we know we need to hire a real leader to put in place a repeatable growth engine. No one on the team is really qualified to determine what traits we need for a 0 to 1, entrepreneurial salesperson. So I thought I would try asking here.


Some context, if it helps:

  • We have about $170K ARR right now. That should get to about $270K if current contracts in diligence get through compliance
  • We need to get $1.6M in ARR to raise our Series A
  • Our outbound prospecting engine (a semi-automated "sequence" leveraging Apollo and Hubspot) doesn't work
  • Our MQL engine is not yet effective, and has minimal budget behind it
  • Our AVC is $10K
  • We have been focused on one particular use case of the product, but the product is flexible enough already we could go after multiple customer vertical types, some of which have higher AVCs. If prospecting hasn't taken off in the ICP we have been focused on to-date, it suggests we shouldn't put all our eggs in that basket.
  • We have some bigger contracts in the works that could really juice our topline numbers, but there would be a "vanity metrics" problem because we still haven't solved for top of funnel. We aren't having enough meetings. It is only a matter of time before that hurts us.
  • We need a stronger velocity of ideation, and execution around top of funnel experimentation

We really aren't sure what traits we are looking for, or what evaluation / tests we could use during an interview to uncover whether those 0 to 1 traits are there. Would welcome any insight!


Thanks...

👥 Hiring
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11 comments

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Gasty
Notable Contributor
6
War Room Community Manager
Here's my 2 cents: There are 2 kind of leaders out there-

- Growth Leaders: These are usually director+ level folks who keep preaching about engines which are scalable, repeatable, moldable - but are almost never able to run one effectively. They usually have dashboard managers reporting to them who'll keep giving them false perception of work being done (we made 10000 calls, we sent 20000 emails, we generated 7000 MQLs )- which is far from truth.

- Builders: These are mostly managers / senior managers - those needles in the haystack - who work and enjoy working with the foot-soldiers. They're the ones who really know the ground reality - what challenges exist (and not what are reported above). They have issues with delegation because they know that nobody would be able to do as good a job as they would. They're the actual creators.

You need to hunt for the latter, and not make the mistake of hiring a 75+ years experiences former.

Find a builder or creator. Who's ready to work on ground. Forget about engines for a while - they sound fancy - but almost never work.

Get this builder in and see what he does, how he does it. Whatever success they're able to create, you take charge of creating an engine out of it, if at all necessary.

Good Luck!
Filth
Politicker
2
Live Filthy or Die Clean
Every time Agasty comments:
thefarm2012
1
Founder
Super interesting! So you're saying get an experimenter, and don't worry if they can systematize their own success. Other people can do that. What's most important is finding something that works. Finding the foundation for an "engine". Building an actual engine is a separate motion. Intuitively, that makes a lot of sense.
Gasty
Notable Contributor
1
War Room Community Manager
Amen
antiASKHOLE
Tycoon
2
Bravado's Resident Asshole
Hmm @sahil, you have any idea for this?
jefe
Arsonist
1
🍁
.
DungeonsNDemos
Big Shot
2
Rolling 20's all day
Do you know any other startup founders or leaders that are farther down the road than your org?
I would look to leverage my personal network (assuming you can), since this sounds like there is a lot of specifics here.
Pachacuti
Politicker
2
They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy
I know exactly what you’re looking for. And that person is a tough one to find.

So much of entrepreneurial gains are just part of being at the right place at the right time in the market. So even if you find someone who has done that, I would only give it a 50-50 chance of them being able to replicate it successfully.

So I would look for someone who has put into place the foundation of what you were looking to do. And then look for someone who also has the same amount of enthusiasm and passion at the founders have.
TennisandSales
Politicker
2
Head Of Sales
HOW to find this person is something I cant help with but maybe @sahil can.

at this stage in the company you may not have a sales problem. you may have a marketing problem.

Marketing should be creating content that educated the market about your solution.
Sales should be going after specific ICPs or accounts (IMO)

Are you creating a new category or are you creating a new product within an existing category?

I have not been in this spot so I cant speak from true experience but i have been sales person number 3 so ive seen what guy #1 looked like.

if it was ME, i would be sitting with the founder and trying to understand the messaging that they have used that has been most impactful.

Then sitting with customer success or with the customers to understand what part of the product they are actually using the most, what the TRUE benefit is, why they bought in the first place, what there role is the org is, ect ect.

from there I would compile a new messaging and try to replicate the customer, and experiment with new ICP every few months.
thefarm2012
0
Founder
That "experiment with a new ICP" is a critical step, one that we haven't been as structured about taking. thanks for this!
TennisandSales
Politicker
1
Head Of Sales
Yeah and i think it needs to be very measured too. Do t just decide to call 3 ppl from a different ICP.
Pick a time frame, commit and measure what happens, what push back you get what questions they ask you ect

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