You've Developed a Clear Sales Process

A startup’s first salesperson is usually its founder. And if you’ve founded and created a company, you’re probably pretty passionate about it. You believe in the product and have developed a way of talking about it, and over time a way of selling it. You’ve probably also worked out some of the initial kinks in terms of customer experience.

If you’ve reached the point that you now have a fairly consistent sales process and cycle, then it could be time to teach that process to someone else and clear your plate to work on other growth aspects for your business.

You Can't Reach Your Goals Alone

If you’re at the point in your business where you can realistically set some aggressive targets, it’s time to look at what it will take to hit those targets. You don’t want to burn yourself and your team out, or there won’t be anyone left to run things once you’ve reached your goals. Is it possible to hit your targets with your existing team? More importantly, is it realistic? As you answer that, you need to take into account the limitations of yourself and your existing staff.

Many startups are staffed with people who are fulfilling multiple roles. While this is necessary in the beginning, it’s not sustainable. Multitasking is actually bad for productivity. Trying to be all things for too long reduces focus and eventually translates to lower performance. Take this into consideration when choosing whether or not to hire a dedicated salesperson.

You Want to (and Should) Focus on Other Things

If you as the founder or leader of the company feel the calling to be focused on new strategy or innovation of your product or any number of other important aspects of growing a business, it may be time to hire out the sales work.

While you want to make sure your company is financially able to bring in profitable revenue, you also have to factor in the very real value of freeing up your own time to focus on leadership and direction. Without your shift of focus towards vision and growth, beyond the present level, the company may not be able to scale up.

Your Existing Customers Want More

Has communication with your current customer base changed? Has your engagement with your customers evolved from your initial launch? Are they asking for more of your time or leaning on you to help them further integrate your product or service into their lives and the lives of their friends and family?

One of the services a dedicated sales function can provide is addressing complexity with your customers. A good salesperson will continue to pursue existing customer happiness while also ushering new prospects along the customer journey. Don’t disappoint customers by limiting what they can consume (your company's time, talent, and product) because you haven’t felt ready to bring on a salesperson.

Too Many Leads to Manage By Yourself

Probably the most obvious sign it’s time to hire a salesperson is when the demand for your product or service is too high to manage yourself. This is, of course, a very good problem to have! However, if you don’t manage your growth, you can end up in a bad situation. Planning for success is crucial, and hiring a salesperson is part of that planning. 

If your product is in such high demand that people are clamoring to get it, and you just can’t keep up with the communication…it’s definitely time to hire a salesperson. Take advantage of this momentum of growth and expand your capacity.

Are all signs pointing to it being time to hire a salesperson? If so, congratulations! But first, there’s a lot of groundwork to cover before posting that job online. Your next step is figuring out what your organization can afford to offer a salesperson in terms of base and variable pay, clearly defining the role, and whether that amount you can afford will be competitive in your local, unique labor market. 

I’m talking about sales compensation and all of the underlying plan mechanics, and it’s actually quite a complex process. If you’d like a beginner’s guide walkthrough of how to plan for hiring your first salesperson, check out my book here.