Podcast · 35 min

SaaStr Podcast #379: The Top 10 Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Their First Sales Team

Jason Lemkin · SaaStr Free Intermediate

Jason Lemkin runs through the specific, repeated mistakes he sees founders make when hiring too early or hiring the wrong profile. Useful as a pre-mortem: listen to it right before you write the job description.

  • Hiring a VP of Sales before you have a proven motion almost never works.
  • Founders often hire people who look experienced but have never sold at their exact price point.
  • Most bad hire stories are actually hired too early stories.
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The question it answers

  1. When do I know it's time to hire a salesperson instead of doing it myself?

Read with it

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  4. This is the book most modern cold outbound advice quietly borrows from, so reading the source is worth it. Its "Cold Calling... Amazon Book · ~208 pages Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
  5. Jen Abel has coached over 300 early-stage founders through their first sales, so this is grounded in what actually happens when... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 1 hour 16 minutes The ultimate guide to founder-led sales | Jen Abel (JJELLYFISH) Lenny Rachitsky with Jen Abel
  6. Blomfield (founder of Monzo and GoCarchless, now a YC partner) gives the concrete mechanics of closing that first B2B deal:... Y Combinator Startup Library Article · 25 min read The Sales Playbook for Founders Tom Blomfield
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