Hire and ramp your first rep

Stop being the only person who can sell it, without setting fire to a year of runway.

4 steps, 16 questions underneath, read for leading a gtm team

1. 1
   Hiring and ramping GTM people

   Your first sales hire, the interview loop, the ramp plan, and knowing early when someone is not going to make it.

   How many reps should I hire next quarter, and in what order?

   The gist Do the arithmetic backwards from the number. Take next year's new ARR target, divide by realistic per rep yield, then divide again by the attainment you actually expect, which for most teams is around 70 percent of quota capacity, and you have your headcount. Then subtract the ones you already have, add back for attrition, and pull the start dates forward by the ramp period, so a rep who needs to produce in Q3 has to start in Q1. Order matters: AEs before SDRs, a sales engineer before your fourth AE if the demo is technical, and RevOps the moment you cannot answer a pipeline question in ten minutes.

   📄 Sales Capacity Planning The headcount question answered as arithmetic: revenue target divided by revenue per rep and capacity utilisation, with ramp time and attrition bui... 4 questions on hiring and ramping gtm people →
2. 2
   Comp, quotas and territory

   Comp plans, quotas, OTE and accelerators, territory and segment design, in dollars and in rupees.

   How do I build a comp plan that pays for the strategy we actually have this year?

   The gist Write the strategy in one sentence first, then make the plan pay for that sentence and nothing else. If this is a new logo year, pay heavily on new ACV and stop paying full rate on renewals. If it is a retention year, move weight to net revenue retention and put a clawback on early churn. If you need multi year contracts and cash, pay an accelerator on upfront cash rather than on term length. The failure mode is stacking last year's incentives on top of this year's, which produces a plan nobody can compute and everyone optimises differently. One page, causality visible, and every rep able to calculate a deal's payout in their head.

   📄 Compensation for SaaS Sales Organizations Five design rules worth memorising, including show causality and keep the payout cycle under 60 days, plus a business case method for setting targe... 4 questions on comp, quotas and territory →
3. 3
   Running a sales process and closing

   Discovery, demos, qualification, champions, procurement and the last mile to a signature.

   How do I turn random wins into a sales process someone else can run?

   The gist Write it down, then make it boring. Take your last ten closed deals and map what actually happened at each stage, then turn that into templates: a qualification checklist, a discovery guide, a demo structure, a pricing sheet with approved discount bands, and a definition of what a stage change requires. Add a weekly pipeline review with the same questions every time, and run loss reviews on every deal you drop so the playbook keeps improving. Do not set quotas until the process is proven repeatable, because a quota on an unproven motion just teaches you that the rep failed. The test is simple: could a competent new hire close a deal using only what you have written?

   📄 SaaS Playbook: Sales India Built from a masterclass with Mohit Garg, former CRO at MindTickle, and written for cross-border companies selling from India, including how to str... 4 questions on running a sales process and closing →
4. 4
   Forecasting and GTM metrics

   Pipeline coverage, stage conversion, CAC payback, magic number, and calling a number you can defend to a board.

   How do I call a quarterly number I can actually defend to my CEO and my board?

   The gist Build it three ways and show the range, not a single figure: bottom up from deal level commits with entry criteria applied strictly, top down from historical stage conversion applied to today's pipeline (the version that ignores rep optimism), and a capacity view of productive reps times realistic productivity. If the three land within about ten percent of each other, call the middle and sleep. If they diverge badly, that divergence is the real finding and you should present it as such rather than quietly averaging it away. Then say out loud what would have to go wrong for you to miss and what would have to go right to beat it. A number offered with its assumptions is defensible, a number offered alone is just a promise.

   📄 The Definitive Way to Measure and Grade Sales Forecast Accuracy Defines accuracy against the day one forecast rather than the revised one, which is the single change that makes the metric honest. Includes the gr... 4 questions on forecasting and gtm metrics →