Scaling a sales team is challenging. If you’re a business owner or hiring manager it can sometimes feel like you’re operating on an island. If you’re working at a small company or startup, you might not have historical references or resources. Knowing that you need to build a team isn’t the hard part. The hard part is figuring out how to build your team, and how fast.
When asked about the importance of hiring strategically, Ashish Raina, Director of Talent at Index Ventures, described the hiring process by stating, “It’s tempting to fill positions quickly to relieve anxiety but that is a mistake. The quality of your talent is proportional to your likelihood of success so don’t take any chances here. Spend the time to hire right and if you don’t have the right expertise, look to others for help. But no matter what, do not underestimate the value of hiring right…”
Having worked with hundreds of companies and hiring managers to build out their sales teams, we’ve been able to define some general sales team scaling best practices. While these are generalities and every company is different, the chart below should give you an idea of who should be hired and at what level when building a sales team.
If you’re interested in more on the topic of scaling a sales team, check out our new ebook, The “Sales Team Accelerator Tool Kit.” You can download your free copy of the tool kit by clicking here.