Tech CEO: We need to hire an experienced salesperson, but they are expensive and high risk.
Me: Why do they have to be experienced?
Tech CEO: They will need little to no training because they already know how to sell.
Me: So just because they have been successful in a different company they will be successful in yours?
Tech CEO: Why wouldn’t they? We have an amazing proposition, they just need to learn the product.
Me: Do you have a process, a playbook, a training program, etc?
Tech CEO: No, they will learn by doing, I will sell with him and teach him.
Me: I thought you said he would not need training.
Tech CEO: I’m sure he’ll catch up quickly.
Me: So you both will be doing the same job, how much will this cost?
Tech CEO: It won’t be cheap and I will have less time to dedicate to the product but this is important. His experience will help us with the sales aspect in the meantime.
Me: What do you mean by “Sales Aspect”? What do you expect him to do?
Tech CEO: He has contacts, he can open doors.
Me: What happens when he runs out of doors?
Tech CEO: He will be ramped up by then
Me: How will you know he’s ramping up? How will you measure it?
Tech CEO: pipeline and sales
Me: What’s your conversion rate? How long is your sales cycle? How long will it take him to sell? What if he doesn’t? And how will you know if he’s on the right track?
Tech CEO: …
You see where this is going…
Experience doesn’t mean sales.
Contacts don’t mean sales.
Being busy with sales meetings is good, but it doesn’t guarantee sales.
If you can’t sell your product, nobody will.
Period
If you can sell your product, you can package your knowledge, hire relatively junior but hungry salespeople and turn them into top performers for a fraction of the cost of hiring an experienced salesperson.
Find out how Affinitext and Rev-Engine closed a significant deal in 60 days while putting in place the right people, processes and technology to accelerate growth:
-60 day record sales cycle
-Win against a much bigger competitor
-Successfully hired and enabled a junior salesperson
Read the whole case study here
Alberto Ares
