Early salespeople need to be like superheroes.

Sure, they sell, but they also pump up the team with inspirational talks, and if that doesn't work, bring in some donuts.

Everyone loves donuts.

What Should Early Salespeople Do Besides Sales 

• Why Read:

  • Learn how to effectively leverage an early sales team, adapting their responsibilities as the company scales, for optimal performance and customer satisfaction.

• Featuring:

  • Jason M. Lemkin (@jasonlk), Founder at SaaStr

• Link: 

  • “How Much More Should Your Sales Team Do … Than Just Plain Selling?”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Leveraging Sales Teams for More Than Just Selling in the Early Days:

  • Point: In the early stages of a startup, it can be beneficial to have sales reps take on additional responsibilities beyond just closing deals, but it should not be forced upon them.

  • "In the early days, let your reps own more than just the close, but don't force it. Forcing a rep to own onboarding, or post-sales support, that resents or doesn't want to do it is worse than any other alternative. So suggest it, but don't force it, or at least, don't continue to force it if you get resistance."

• Avoiding Reliance on Sales for True Customer Success:

  • Point: Do not rely on the sales team to handle genuine customer success responsibilities, as it is crucial to have dedicated staff for this role.

  • "Don't rely on sales to do true customer success. This is perhaps the biggest mistake. You can't hire "traditional" customer success too early. 1 or 2 folks whose only job is to drive up activation rates, drive down time to go live, drive up NRR and NPS and CSAT, and drive down churn. Sales can't do this."

• Aligning Customer Size with Sales Rep Support:

  • Point: Assign larger customers to sales reps who continue to provide support after the deal closes, while smaller or more transactional deals can be handled by reps who are less involved post-sale.

  • "Route bigger customers to sales reps that continue to help after the deal closes. The ones that disappear? Fine. Give them the smaller deals, the more transactional deals. Don't give them the big ones. They always expect more."

• Transitioning Sales Reps to Customer Success Roles:

  • Point: If a sales rep demonstrates a strong interest in supporting customers more than selling, consider moving them into a customer success role.

  • "If a sales rep really loves supporting customers more than sales (this happens all the time), maybe move them to customer success. This is a pretty common path to staffing an early CS hire or two at startups."

• Recognizing the Ineffectiveness of Secondary Incentives:

  • Point: Small additional incentives or spiffs for sales reps to handle tasks like onboarding or QBRs are often ineffective, as reps will prioritize activities that generate the largest commission checks.

  • "Secondary incentives and spiffs don't work too well here. A small spiff for handling onboarding? Or doing QBRs? It doesn't really work. Sales reps will focus on where they get the biggest commission checks. Small spiffs really only work if they are already aligned with the primary bonus goal."

• Focusing Sales Teams on Selling and Closing as the Company Scales:

  • Point: As the company grows towards $10 million ARR and beyond, sales teams should primarily focus on selling and closing deals, while other teams handle the remaining responsibilities.

  • "In the end, up to the first few million in ARR, do whatever works. But as you scale toward $10m ARR and beyond, don't plan or expect your sales team to do anything but … sell and close. Find others to do the rest. Everyone will be happier."

Tactics from a $2.5B Founder

Why Read: 

• This article provides valuable insights on setting metrics, embracing change, allocating resources, defining culture, hiring strategically, and leading by example, which are crucial for startup founders to learn.

Featuring:

• Logan Bartlett (@loganbartlett), Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures, interviews Steve Kaufer (@kaufer), Co-Founder at Tripadvisor and now CEO co-founder at Give Freely

Link: 

• “Ep 107: Steve Kaufer (Co-Founder, Tripadvisor) - Why He Left & What He’s Building Now“

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Always have success metrics to evaluate if initiatives are working: 

  • "... my version that I occasionally use is ‘you can't manage what you don't measure’… for almost everything, like what's your success metric? How are you going to track it so that you know whether - at the end of the day - it worked or not?"

• Embrace change and be willing to adapt, especially when things are going well: 

  • "Invest in change when things are going well… on the way down as revenue was declining, change was forced upon us and it was not pretty. We could have been a lot more efficient when we were growing, but you know, who cared we were growing. Get more efficient every quarter because you can, not because you need to."

• Allocate 10-20% of resources to long-term bets that may not pay off immediately but could be critical in the future: 

  • "You should always be taking 10 or 20 percent of your available choices and putting it in something that has no benefit right now but could be super important to you in three years."

• Be explicit about company culture and values, and reward people who exemplify them: 

  • "I find it's best to be as explicit as you can about what you value as  a company. Like, ‘Hey, we value communication and transparency’, I haven't found a company that doesn't say that, but do you live it? Is that how the weekly meetings go?... At the end of the day, I'm always looking to reward with public praise, the folks that are doing what is best for the company's interests."

• When hiring, look for people who are team players, take responsibility, and have a growth mindset: 

  • "Personality traits, I look for people that look back and say, ‘could things have gone better?’... I'm looking for people that whether the project worked or didn't are always in the mindset of self improvement"

• Model the difficult behaviour you want to see in the company: 

  • "...be transparent. I couldn't say, ‘hey, this layoff is the last and there's never going to be another one.’ That's not true. All I can say is, ‘hey, we've cut deep so that if things progress the way we expect, we won't have to do another layoff.’ That's not exactly the comfort everyone wants to hear. But it is the truth. And at the end of the day, that's how I want everyone at the company to behave, so I have to model that behavior, in addition to it just being the right thing to do."

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