Dear SaaStr: Growth Has Slowed and My VP of Sales is Pushing Me To Hire More Reps. Is That The Right Way to Go?
Dear SaaStr: Growth Has Slowed and My VP of Sales is Pushing Me To Hire More Reps. Is That The Right Way to Go?
No. Not 9+ times out of 10.
In fact, the #1 sign your VP of Sales is really struggling is when their best answer to slowing sales is to hire even more sales reps.
It’s a sign they don’t know what else to do, and want to try to magically brute force it with more humans. As if more humans, on their own, magically equal more sales.
Of course you need enough reps to hit the plan, and enough capacity to hit the plan. But when grow slows, when you miss the plan, more bodies does not solve the problem.
In fact, fewer sales reps often in the short term solves the problem. You focus leads and opportunities on the best reps, and then rebuild the sales team from there.
Once a VP of Sales that is struggling starts pushing for a lot more sales headcount … it’s time to realize it’s not working.
It’s a hail mary than on paper might work, but in reality, doesn’t.
A related post here:
CEO & Cofounder | CRO | Global GTM | ~$60M to $1.5B | 1x IPO | 2x🦄 | Advisor | Author | Speaker
1wSaaStr #truth Chasing capacity to improve performance with little operating discipline is a doom loop. Performance and productivity diminish, and costs increase - a garbage move, and if the executive team supports it, they are complicit in the mistake #oneteam