The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

1Uncovering the Characteristics of a Successful Salesperson

World-class sales hiring is the most important driver of sales success.

When you are scaling a sales team, the to-do list is endless. Hiring, training, coaching, pipeline reviews, forecasting, enterprise deal support, leadership development, and cross-functional communication are all part of the day-to-day. Dozens of urgent “fires” are blazing around you at all times. Unfortunately, you have only enough water to put out a select few. Choosing the right fires to extinguish might dictate your ultimate success…or failure.

This certainly described my situation in 2007 when I joined HubSpot, a marketing software start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was the fourth person to join the company and the first sales hire. In my first month, I acquired 23 new customers for the business. Clearly, we had identified a need in the market. We were on to something big. It was time to accelerate sales. It was time to scale.

The to-do list required to scale the sales team consumed my mind. I had a vision for what world-class execution would look like across each component of the scaling process. Unfortunately, like any start-up, funds and resources were limited. A world-class effort across all components would have meant a 150-hour workweek. I had the energy for about 80 hours per week, tops. Corners needed to be cut, at least temporarily. If I could be world-class in only one discipline, which should I choose? Which fire should I extinguish ...