If you are still the only person selling at your company, the worst thing you can do is start hiring before you have a documented process for people to follow.
In this Ask Jeb, Jeb Blount answers two questions on scaling a sales team the right way, one from Yemi, who is building his first team from scratch, and one from Ramesh, who is trying to figure out how to budget for sales pay and support in a B2B healthcare business.
Jeb walks through the three stages every founder hits when they try to grow a team: the solo seller, the roller coaster, and the building phase, including the $45,000 mistake he made this year by skipping straight to hiring without a process in place. He also breaks down how to think about compensation, why a lower base and higher commission actually raises your cost of sale, and how to calculate what a new sale should cost you as your business grows.
What You'll Learn:
Why documenting your sales process before you scale protects you from expensive turnover
The three phases every founder cycles through when growing a sales team, and which is the most dangerous one
Why you have to block time outside of peak selling hours to build out your system instead of waiting until you are desperate
How bringing in a sales leader to document the process, separate from the founder's own instincts, speeds up the process
How to calculate cost of sale in and use it to guide your compensation strategy
Why a low base salary and high commission structure can actually lower your true cost of sale
Why your margin should determine how much you can afford to pay in commission
How support staff and infrastructure spending shift as a company grows past its early scrappy stage
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