By Fernando Berrocal

First of all, don't recruit salespeople too early. The founders should be able to sell their business early on (and should be selling). Even if you are a designer, an engineer, or whatever you want to call yourself. Neither if you've ever made a sale before nor do you believe that it's not a good match for your personality. It is important to know that you develop this skill. Your days as an "I don't sell anything" person are over. You'll be selling constantly. Knowing that you have to understand that you don't require salespeople; you require sales. Think "Revenue Engineer" instead of "VP of Sales." (It's not the best comparison, but just as you wouldn't employ a development "manager" as one of the first five people at a business, you shouldn't hire a sales "manager" as your first hiring, either.) Don't get caught up in fancy titles; instead, concentrate on getting money in the door. Finally, don't recruit several salespeople at the same time. You aim to determine the "pattern" of people who are most suited for what you're selling and to whom you're marketing it.

Don't fall into the trap of creating complex compensation plans. It's too difficult to figure out the commission if it takes a spreadsheet with numerous tabs and lookup functions. Don't worry; you'll have plenty of opportunities later to perplex yourself and your salespeople. For the time being, keep things simple. Agile techniques may also be used in sales. Refine your demo script, presentations, and any other supporting materials. Capture the best-performing people's lessons and pass them on to the rest of the team. Your story and pitch should be improving every day in the early phases of your business.

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Based on incentives, salespeople will often operate in largely reasonable (though occasionally unexpected) ways. The participants' conduct is determined by the game's regulations. Don't act as if you weren't warned. If you've never hired or worked with salespeople before, be prepared for a bit of a shock to the system. They're not horrible people; they're just not like you, particularly if you're an introverted nerd.

Always link rewards to ultimate customer pleasure and success in some way. If you just reward "deals getting done," you'll get deals, but at an exorbitant price. You may be told that salespeople have no control over or impact over customer happiness, yet they do. They "choose" consumers, create expectations, and manage the level of "convincing" used. Make sure you comprehend your business finances. Calculate your total COCA (Cost of Customer Acquisition). Salespeople, marketers, and marketing campaigns all fall within this category. In terms of sales vs. marketing cost, different businesses have varied requirements. Your worth over a lifetime - The amount of income you anticipate generating per client should exceed your COCA.  You may start turning the knob and scaling the business once your LTV is a multiple of your COCA (hiring more salespeople). However, act with caution if your LTV is significantly lower than your COCA. You've got a problem if there's no way to increase LTV greater than COCA. Wait until the economics make sense before trying to employ more salespeople.

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Keep detailed records of what was sold, who sold it, when it was sold, how much it cost, and so on. This information will come in handy as you scale up. Your price should correspond to the structure of your sales. Similarly, if you have an inside sales staff, any price point below $500 per month would be difficult to justify. Running your sales on a spreadsheet becomes unpleasant whenever you have more than 3 or 4 individuals. Start looking at Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. As soon as possible, start paying attention to the form of your "funnel." Better yet, find out your objective before the game starts. How many leads do you get every month? How many of them turn out to be opportunities? How many of those people end up becoming paying customers? How many of those consumers were delighted and became advocates as a result? Once you have a good understanding of your flywheel, you can start modifying it to address the "leaks."

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