A guide to the basics of sales leadership for founders and other first-time sales leaders.

1. Building & leading the SaaS sales team.
A guide for founders and first-time sales leaders.

2. When building a startup sales team,
there is only one thing that matters:
results.
It’s easy to get lost in distractions that seem important. But a focused
road to strong, predictable sales results is all that matters.

3. The 3 things focus on in order to achieve strong startup sales:
‣Focus #1: Finding and retaining the right people.
‣Focus #2: Leading, managing and coaching the
team.
‣Focus #3: Laying the right foundation for scalability,
efficiency and performance.

4. So, let’s jump in and get started.

5. Focus #1: Building your team

6. When to start hiring:
A good time to consider building the team is when you have at
least 10 paying customers.

7. Why at 10 paying customers?
Don’t build a team before you have made some sales. Really. It’s important to win some customers before you think about
building out your sales team. Those first few customers help confirm what your ideal customer profile is, what your sales
process will be, and what resources you need to sell. You need a little bit of groundwork laid before you know who to hire
and how you want them to sell.
A good time to consider building the team is when you have at least 10 paying customers.

8. Who to hire:
First, just two or three account executives (AEs).

9. Who else?
First, just two or three Account Executives (AEs).
Then a couple of Sales Development Reps (SDRs).

10. And who else?
First, just two or three Account Executives (AEs).
Then a couple of Sales Development Reps (SDRs).
Then, a sales operations specialist.

11. First, just two or three Account Executives (AEs).
Then a couple of Sales Development Reps (SDRs).
Then, a sales operations specialist.
And maybe a sales engineer (if your product is complex).
And who else?

12. And managers?
Later, as the team grows, you’ll hire managers to lead the AEs and SDRs.
Start thinking about this when you have 2 or 3 of each role, but actually
hire when you have 3-5 of each role.

14. Hire the right people.
‣ Know who you are looking for (skills, characteristics, experience) and only hire
those people.
‣ Interview reps the way your buyers buy.
‣ Don’t make hiring decisions under pressure, just to fill seats.
‣ Click here for lots more tips to hire great sales people.

15. Create the right culture.
From the moment you step into your role as startup sales leader, be very deliberate
about creating a positive culture conducive to recruiting, retention and results.

16. Focus #2: Leading your team

17. Be a great sales leader.
Being a sales leader means managing, coaching, supporting and developing your
team to be high performing. An effective sales leader holds their team accountable,
inspires everyone to achieve, provides effective deal support, clears internal
obstacles, and keeps everyone focused and positive.

18. Determine comp plan and quota.
Create a compensation strategy that motivates and retains your team. You won’t be able to hire anyone if you don’t know how to
compensate them and create a quota. If you are new to sales leadership, designing your compensation plan may feel like one of
the most complicated things you have to do. Aim too low, and you won’t get qualified candidates. Aim too high by overshooting
the market, and you may not cultivate drive in your team. But don’t let comp planning scare you, it’s relatively simple.
Click here for an overview of how to create your first comp plan and set quota.

19. Track and measure sales performance.
Build tracking into your sales organization from day one. You need reliable tracking so you
can formulate your own benchmarks and continual improvement of your results. Share data
often with your team. Transparency in sales performance, metrics and reporting helps foster
accountability and alignment.
Click here for a list of the essential sales metrics to track and surface.

20. Follow a coaching & meeting cadence.
Of course, sales leaders manage their team. But more than anything they coach. They help their team achieve
more by providing guidance, discussing deal strategy, giving feedback and honing the professional strengths of
their individual salespeople. As you build your sales team you will have many responsibilities and priorities, but
your team is the most important priority. Create a cadence of team and individual meetings, and then stick to it.

21. Example coaching & meeting cadence:
With the team:
‣ Monday morning kick-offs
‣ Monthly skill development workshop
‣ Annual and Quarterly kick-offs
1-on-1 meetings:
‣ Weekly opportunity huddles with AEs
‣ Weekly status and priority meetings with supporting roles like sales engineer and sales ops
‣ Bi-monthly pipeline review with AEs
‣ Quarterly reviews & planning with each team member

22. Work on team skill development.
Sales is a skill-based profession and the best sales organizations provide ongoing training, workshops and
content to support the development of their salespeople. Annually you may want to hire an external speaker
or trainer to conduct a workshop for your team. This can provide motivation, refresh skills, provide new
perspective and help improve results. But you will also want to plan for an ongoing cadence of skill
development and training that you provide to your team.

23. Focus #3: Enabling your team
with tools and processes

24. Lay your sales technology foundation.
Tools, such as technology and playbooks, help make selling easier and help your team do it more
predictably. You might start selling with a list of target accounts scribbled on a legal pad, but before you
can blink you’re going to need a tech stack that includes CRM, sales enablement technologies, lead
scoring and routing, gamification, commission tracking, call analyzer and specialized insights. To say the
least. A modern sales organization runs on modern sales tools and the processes to support them.

25. Example tech stack evolution:
Phase one:
‣ CRM
‣ Analytics & insights
‣ Prospecting tool
‣ Screen share/web-based meeting
‣ Marketing automation (operated by
marketing)
‣ Contract management
Phase two:
‣ Sales automation (productivity, emails,
phone dialer)
‣ Sales enablement platform
Phase three:
‣ Call recording/analyzing
‣ Predictive intelligence
‣ Account-based marketing platform
(operated by marketing)

26. Create your sales playbook.
Beyond software tools, documenting your processes in a sales playbook ensures you are measurable and
benchmarked as you scale, and that everyone is living by the same guidelines. That’s where your sales
playbook comes into play. A sales playbook is a collection of everything a sales team needs to sell.
Click here for a comprehensive list of sales playbook resources.

27. What’s in a sales playbook:
‣Quick access to all the internal tools (CRM, sales enablement platforms, etc.)
‣Easy access to content and resources for buyers
‣Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
‣Lead qualification criteria
‣Sales process/methodology documentation
‣Key talking points/messaging (elevator pitch, 30-second overview, etc.)
‣Features/benefits messaging
‣Objection handling
‣Competitive landscape and differentiation messaging

28. Document your sales process & methodology.
A sales process is the steps and stages you take from lead to new customer. A sales methodology
defines how those stages are executed. Think about the process as the steps and the methodology as
the skills and approach for each step. Don’t start recruiting salespeople without your sales process
defined. If you do, everyone will start selling their own way, and it will be hard to reign them in later.
Everyone needs to approach selling in the same way to track, measure and scale predictability.

29. Now, go crush it!

30. Hey, you’ve got this!
Many talented, successful sales leaders started in a startup with no first-hand experience. Lay the foundation for a positive culture,
accountability and transparency. Build your repeatable processes and use technology as a tool to help you thrive. But most of all, stay
focused on the essentials, and available for your team.
When we first launched our SaaS, I found myself accidentally at the helm of our sales function, responsible for building and growing our
team. Up until then, I had been doing most of our early sales, with the help of a few sales-minded employees. Suddenly what had been
rather ad-hoc (“Are there companies who want to buy this product?”) became mission critical (“Yes, there are buyers, now let’s scale it!”).
We were bootstrapped, which necessitated that we remained profitable in our approach to building the sales team. We couldn’t afford the
salary and bonus that an experienced sales leader would command. Our only internal candidate to be the sales leader was…well, me. And
thus I became our sales leader. I was excited, I was nervous, and more than anything, I was ready to dig in. Dig in to what, I wasn’t sure.
I knew I needed people. And I needed to know if I was hiring the right people. I needed to know how to get the best out of these people. I
needed to know how to compensate these people. I needed to know how to set quota for these people. I needed to know if they were
performing. I knew none of these things. I didn’t even know what I didn’t know.
I wished there had been a guide to building and managing a startup sales team, but there wasn’t. This ebook was inspired by my experience.
It’s the handbook I wish I had when I started my first sales team. I hope it helps you. Good luck, I hope you crush it!
Anna Talerico

31. Want more?
These slides were inspired by our eBook
“Building the Startup Sales Team” on the Married2Growth blog.
Visit us for more stuff like this!
We’d love to hear from you!
info@married2growth.com

32. THE BUSINESS OF SaaS