Charito

Senior Account Exec

Sales team rapidly scaling

Considering joining a fintech company in hyper growth mode that mentioned in initial interview they expect to grow sales team from 5 to 50 in 2022. Concerned there isn't enough pipeline to support 50 reps. Anyone else been a part of an org that grew the sales team that fast and what was your experience?

📳 SaaS

🗣 Interviewing

27 comments

Sort by:

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

i would 10000% ask how they plan on supporting this growth

from a leadership perspective
from a lead flow
from a territory perspective.

rapidly growing the sales team is almost ALWAYS done at the wrong time.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Yup 100% all of these are really important. Its not unheard of to 10x a GTM team when its time to scale but everything needs to be very tight and ironed out if they are going this route.

Im never a fan of joining someone who's main growth method is headcount though. Ive been apart of those orgs and generally 50% of reps hit their number and territories are small and challenging.

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

There is a feeling that they'll hire fast and fire fast. There are plenty of positives though. Product/market fit is there. CEO seems very solid and has a strong vision for the company.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Product market fit is huge. Hire fast fire fast really scares me. Ive always built my teams with the intent to hire slow and fire fast.

Shotgun approach to hiring ruins culture because you are just bringing in bodies, and firing them when they dont work out. Thats awful for team morale.

bandabanda

Tycoon

Senior AE Mid Market

Hire slow and fire fast - I’ve consistently seen this from credible leaders I follow as the way to go.

E_Money

Big Shot

💰

This.

bandabanda

Tycoon

Senior AE Mid Market

@TennisandSales have to say, I’ve read 5-10 of your comments today so far and it is SOLID stuff. Really respect your input. Put on a CLINIC and I’ll be there.

You and Urass are like fire and gasoline on posts like this 🔥

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

wow. really appreciate that! very kind.

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

Curious what you mean by always done at the wrong time? They are a Series C company, been around since 2014, looking to go public latter part of 2023.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

yeah great question. there are a number of factors.

1. Product market fit is huge. if they are series C then there is a good chance that is established .

2. Market demand - is the TAM big enough to support that many sales people?

I also see companies that go :

" ok sales team of 5, our normal sales cycle is X, avg deal size is Y and close rate is Z. So if we triple head count we triple our revenue"

it just doesn't seem to work that way.

marketing, leadership, internal infrastructure and processes all seem to hold them back.

BUT....maybe your company has all that figured out.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

I have worked for orgs that have done the exact math youre talking about here and its a fucking mess. TAM was too small and product was just OK. Super slippery slope because as you add heads, you take your best reps off your best opportunities unintentionally, reducing their productivity, pissing them off and creating turnover.

I guess in short, make sure the TAM is there. LIke really there. Not some BS number the manager/recruiter gives you.

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

Great points. This company is"upmarket" and enterprise only so that already narrows down buyer pool. TAM is likely F1000. Some of this boils down to do I have faith the company will make the investments and build support in the coming months.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

interesting.

Honestly if you want to be apart of this, having faith the company will figure it out is 100% a necessity because there will be growing pains.

But this could be a really exciting time and a great time to stand out if you are an AE or a sales manager.

Keep us posted on how this all goes.

Id be curious how the onboarding scales with this growth

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

This is all really helpful. I appreciate all your insights.

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

that tells me they are planning for a high churn, sink-or-swim environment. Hire 10 guys, keep 2 after 6months and hope 1 works out long term.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

How are they coming up with 50? 🤔

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

It's a good question and I need to get more specifics. Trying to think of other companies that have sales teams that size in the enterprise fintech space that have plenty of pipeline to support that size team.

Avon

Politicker

Senior Account Executive

Ive worked for two companies that did this. Both fired about 1/3 of the reps hired in that hiring frenzy

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

It's a foolish move on their part to do that but I think they're all about marching toward an IPO and probably can burn through some reps on the way there.

If I had prior relationships with senior management, I'd probably feel O.K. jumping on board now and know that I'm "protected". But, no guarantee of that happening so weighing whether to wait and let them work through some growing pains.

Avon

Politicker

Senior Account Executive

yeah in my experience, it hasn't been great. I was not one of the people to be let go but leads were scarce and it was very clear we were all expendable.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

And this is why we never forget that WE as the candidates holds all of the power in an interview. Never let desperation push you into a bad career position (if you can help it).

Definitely vet the hell out of their 12-18 month strategy and understand what your day to day will look like.

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

Yes! I like this. It's a tight rope act for sure. Express enthusiasm for the role but ask, ask, ask agin for deeper clarification. There's this impatient mindset among sales managers and it's frustrating more of them don't see this line of questioning as a good thing. This is how I'd do discovery bro.

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

One thing I forgot to mention is they are building out a channel/alliance program and they want it to contribute 30+% of revenue in the next year or so. Another variable to evaluate.

thadeuce

Opinionated

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

Sounds like the TAM is about to get smoked unless it’s enormous. Are they running a territory model or ABM? How are they planning on making sure reps make their number with that much growth in headcount? How are inbounds? Are they going to grow the sdr team to keep up with AE demand?

Seems like ABM is essentially a random number generator or slot machine as I like to call it so might want to get some clarification there to see how many accounts you will have and take acv to determine if you think you will be able to hit your number. Territory you would want to ask where they are going to stick you.

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

It's a rush to IPO so a lot of this isn't fully flushed out. They have to go to territory model otherwise we'd be fighting over who owns the account. Can't rely on inbounds for now. It's very much build your own book of business..

thadeuce

Opinionated

SDR (Sales Development Rep)

How big is the TAM, will it support 50 reps at full quota? So you are going to be full cycle, are they enabling you with the best tech stack? Are you confident in your prospecting skills? How is PMF? What is ARR at?

Charito

Fire Starter

Senior Account Exec

PMF is solid. Tech stack is Apollo/Hubspot so it's not the most robust tech stack. I hear a lot of talk about TAM and wish there was a way to independently verify this/make your own assessment. Always seems like this is too broad. The typical F1000 TAM gives me perspective but only tells part of the story.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

Charito

Sales team rapidly scaling

27 comments

Related posts

Scaling AE team

Sales Team Contracting Difficulties?