3 Biggest Mistakes To Avoid When Building Your First Sales Team

Hey Friends,

In the past six years, I have built and rebuilt over 30 sales teams and seen it all.

Good things, bad things, things I hope I don't see ever again...things I hope I can replicate soon.

Embarking on building your first sales team is no small feat.

Starting from scratch can be daunting whether you're a founder or a sales leader.

I've been there, and I understand the challenges you're facing.

I firmly believe that building your first sales team is more complicated than building your first product or service.

Before you achieve PMF (Product Market Fit), you're on a journey of iteration and learning. You will make mistakes, but each is a step towards traction and adoption.

Well, building your first sales team is the same thing.

You are going to try something that isn't going to work, then hire someone who isn't going to work.

You are going to laugh and cry.

Until you start seeing traction, aka pipeline creation.

Then, this pipeline will start moving fast through stages, and hopefully, it will close.

Well done if you do this multiple times over a few months, my friend.

You have built your first replicable and successful sales team.

However, three mistakes can delay success.

They are common in early-stage startups with technical founders or at least founders who haven't built a sales team before.

Mistake Number 1: Hiring a full-time Sales Leader too early

I know you think I'm biased, but hear me out. Sales teams are not built top-down: Head of Sales -->Account Executives --> SDRs, etc.

Successful sales teams are built bottom-up.

You start selling yourself (maybe with fractional help) and then hire your first SDR.

Then, when the first part of the funnel works, you move on and hire your first AE.

Then, you start considering adding your second, and after the foundations are built, you can consider bringing in a full-time sales leader.

Remember: building the foundations takes 3-6 months max, hiring will take you 3, onboarding another 3, and then the work starts. You will be much faster with option 1 (fractional help + yourself as a founder).

Mistake Number 2: Detach The Founder from The Sales Process

Most founders think their job is done after achieving some PMF.

They hand over sales to somebody else, whether it's an agency to set up a lead generation or consultants building everything themselves.

Nothing is more wrong.

Founders should stay engaged within the sales cycle and always actively sell.

Yes, they will detach from small deals or lead gen, but they will ultimately sell and close deals as long as possible.

They should learn how sales pipeline, outbound, and discovery are done and understand what it takes.

The biggest mistake you can make is leaving this out of your scope. You will lose control and wake up one day when it's too late.

Mistake Number 3: Centralise The Sales Function

It's very similar to mistake number 2 but the opposite.

Similarly, detaching yourself too quickly involves too much involvement.

I have seen the best sales teams leave founders who were too involved; they didn't know what they were doing.

Sales teams are different. You can't be too loose on them, and you can't micromanage them either.

You must stay in sight to act upon it but not too close.

Summary

The good news is that if you avoid these mistakes, you will hit your sales goal faster.

The bad news is that you may hit those roadblocks unless you consider hiring me as your Fractional Sales leader. (cheeky call to action here 😅)

Jokes aside, I firmly believe it all starts with attention.

You will be okay putting your complete founder's attention into this project.

Avoid externalising too much (agencies, for example, who set appointments for you) and try to stay there and focused on the task of building your first sales team.

The other good news is that once everything is working, leads are coming (inbound and outbound), deals are moving throughout the pipeline, and you are closing, you can move on and potentially hire someone to take over.

That will be an incredible moment, my friend.

As always, doing the hard things takes time and sweat. There are no shortcuts here, no easy road.

Thanks for reading this far. I will see you all next week.