5 Tips to Scale Sales in a High Growth SaaS Startup

Sales is the lifeblood of any great SaaS business. Yet scaling a sales team is one of the biggest challenges startups face, and one of the areas that’s rife with mistakes. Succeed and you’ll have the chance to experience hyper growth on the path to $100M+ in ARR. Get it wrong and you’ll likely face a much steeper uphill battle.

So, how do you get this right?

Last month, Salesforce Ventures hosted a dinner in London with the VPs of Sales of some of the most disruptive and promising SaaS startups. We were also fortunate to have Sanj Bhayro, SVP of Commercial Sales at Salesforce, who joined the company back in 2005 and has seen the playbook for what works.

There’s a certain magic when you gather a group of functional experts to discuss a common set of challenges. Although there is no single formula, here are 5 tips that emerged from our dinner conversation to scale a sales team effectively.

1. Hiring and retaining the right talent is key to scaling
It should come as no surprise, but people, people and people are the key ingredient to startup success. On the hiring front, the biggest challenge is hiring the right people at the right time. Hiring sales capacity consistently throughout the year will drive more predictable growth in bookings. If you define the AE profiles that balance experience, characteristics and tenure, you can build a team that multiplies productivity. In other words, building capacity for tomorrow while managing performance today is critical.

A common theme was also ensuring you hire talent that is aligned with the organization and embodies a learning mindset. One of my favourite interview questions that was shared was asking potential recruits to talk about a deal that they lost. This is a great test for how self-aware the individual is. Do they blame others for the lost deal, or are they a team player and take responsibility?

Also, think about the importance of timing new hires based on the buying cycle of your customers and their industry. For example, if you’re selling to retailers, Q4 is not a great time. When hiring new AEs, factor in the typical ramp-up time and ensure this coincides with a good time to sell in your target industry. There’s no point in having new AEs fully ramped-up in October if they can’t get any customer attention until January.

2. Invest in resources needed to onboard AEs effectively
Any good sales leader knows that getting sales reps to join is only half the battle. Equally hard is making them productive and giving them the tools they need to succeed. Great companies are always looking for ways to shorten ramp-up times and ensure reps get started on the right foot.

Here are some ideas:

Related posts:

Social media is ever-changing, evolving, improving and finding ways to be even more incorporated into our lives. As of this past year, the major 4 social media platforms dominated and lead all social…

Im Februar 2018 schrieb Sophie Passmann einen Text für den Spiegel. Der Anlass: Sie war zum ersten Mal in Eisenach. Das ist ja immer ein dankbares Thema für die Medien — Westdeutsche landen in der…

sometimes prayer is enough, these days, prayer, meditation, long walks, listening and a combination of others prayers joined with my voice and letters written to the God of my understanding and…