The Evolution of Sales Needs
Almost every organization I’ve sold in since 2008 had sales departments that were ‘founder led sales’. These small but mighty companies drove millions of dollars in revenue each year, and I owe so much of my professional development as a career salesperson to them. This unique sales experience also gave me an insider look into when and how founder led brands can start thinking about growing their sales teams.
Like most things in life, the sales needs of an organization will evolve with the natural evolution of the organization itself. The needs and sales support for start ups will look different than those of more established brands. Similarly - approaches and tactics employed by larger companies might not be appropriate for startups. Often founders want to outsource sales - but either don’t have the foundational infrastructure in place to ensure new sales hires have success or can’t afford the six-figure price tags that often accompany seasoned sales people. The following is a breakdown of sales needs depending on revenue stage that I’ve seen through my work supporting businesses with founder led sales ranging from $100K - $5M in annual turnover and should give some insight into the sales needs of your business.
Sub $250K
What they experience:
These businesses often have a founder who has a passion for and mastery of a skillset that they’ve built a business around. Yippie! They typically don’t have formal sales training and didn’t have revenue responsibilities in their former careers. All of the sales functions inside the business are led and driven by the founder.
What challenges them:
They are the lynchpin of their entire business. If they get busy with delivery, sales takes a back seat. They often have other contract or part time employees supporting marketing or admin functions inside the business but don’t have any sales support. There can be an impatience or frustration surrounding sales: Why is it taking so long? I only want to talk to serious buyers. I can’t help people who wont help themselves.
Critical Activities:
Robust qualification and disqualification practices. Conducting effective, high converting sales conversations (close rates below 70% for inbound SQLs indicate an issue with your sales approach), having a clearly defined series of steps you follow to ensure consistency when selling.
Support Needed:
Improving sales acumen of founder
Mindset
Organization
Core Decisions:
Do I trust someone else to support me with sales? Do I have a proven approach and process to have someone else manage for me?
$250K - $1M
What they experience:
Their business has been growing, initially organically and then through a combination of partnerships, networking, organic content marketing and paid traffic.
What Challenges them:
Their buyers want to talk to them. They might have invested in other sales support - see this article which debriefs various options - however the bulk of sales functions (prospecting, conversions, follow ups and tracking) still sits with them. Which sometimes means it’s not all happening…
Crucial Activities:
Refine the sales process to a point where it doesn’t require their constant oversight.
Clearly defined roles and responsibilities so other team members can support with sales.
Tracking customer and lead data for better insights to inform strategy and decision making.
Support Needed: Previous support +...
Support to examine, refine and operationalize the sales process by breaking it down into specific steps and stages, introducing automation where appropriate and developing the sales SOPs that are effective, simple and easy to follow which can then be run by other team members.
Support to run effective sales meetings so the team can report on progress without the founder needing to take an active role in extracting necessary information.
Core Decisions:
Do I have the right roles and tech to support my sales goals?
$1M - $5M
What they experience:
They will have assembled a small sales team. They still work closely with sales for oversight and management.
What Challenges them:
Bandwidth & Revenue Leaks - they don't have the proper training in place to minimize ramp up time. Siloed teams
Crucial Activities:
Reporting & forecasting
Continued education for sales team
Support Needed: Previous support +...
Data analytics to optimize sales & marketing
Ongoing training for sales team to ensure sales excellence
Core Decisions:
Do I outsource for this support? Can I keep this in-house?
Structure creates freedom and approaching your customer acquisition process with rigour allows you to clearly define steps, roles and responsibilities so that you have the ability to outsource aspects of the sales process to existing team members or more junior sales people so that you aren't remortgaging your house to afford a sales ace!
