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

4The Ideal First Sales Hire

Thus far, we have covered sourcing, screening, and hiring the initial sales team, but we have not addressed one important question.

Who should be your first sales hire?

I receive this question from start-up CEOs at least once per week. In fact, over the past few years, I heard it so frequently that I devised an informal case, which I teach at Harvard Business School, MIT, and other leading institutions.

Let's walk through this hypothetical case. You need to make your first sales hire, and you have the following four candidates in your late-stage pipeline:

1. Candidate 1: The SVP of Sales
2. This candidate used to be the SVP of Global Sales for the Fortune 1000 company you hope to disrupt. He has 25 years of sales experience. In his SVP role at the Fortune 1000 competitor, he ran the entire 500-person sales team and oversaw $2 billion in annual revenue.
3. Candidate 2: The #1 Salesperson
4. This candidate worked under the SVP of Sales. He is currently the top salesperson on the 500-person sales team at the Fortune 1000 competitor you're looking to disrupt. He has three years of experience in frontline sales.
5. Candidate 3: The Entrepreneur
6. Until recently, this candidate was CEO of her two-year-old start-up, which just ran out of capital. Prior to running her own start-up, she was a salesperson at a large company. The company is known for breeding salespeople with excellent fundamentals, but she has very little sales experience with your target buyer context.