Sales Hiring · Sales Leadership

How to hire your (first) VP Sales (and not screw it up) by Jason Lemkin

Phil Freo · October 19, 2013

Close is at today’s Sales Hacker Conference in San Francisco and we’ll be taking notes and sharing the best talks of the conference with you. List of all talks.

What is this talk about?

Avoiding common mistakes when hiring your VP Sales, and tips on how to do it right. Want to learn more about sales? Download a free copy of The Sales Hiring Playbook!

Who is Jason Lemkin?

Co-founder & CEO, EchoSign (Acquired by Adobe), SaaStr. Did $100M in revenue with Adobe this year.

How to hire your (first) VP Sales (and not screw it up)

Non-scientific study of 80 startups. 70% of Saas first VP Sales don’t make it to 12 months. It’s one of the most common, and also most devastating mis-hires in startups. However, if you avoid the most common mistakes, you’ve got much better chances of finding the right VP Sales.

Mistake #1: Wrong hire for your stage

The biggest mistake is founders want to hire from Salesforce or Dropbox or another big name company. He made a personal mistake here as well. Hired “Mr. Dashboard” when he should have hired “The Evangelist”.

Stages and types of VP Sales:

The Evangelist: < $1M
Mr. Make it Repeatable: $1M–$10M
Ms. Go Big: $10M–$40M
Mr. Dashboards: $40M+

Don’t just look for a smart, talented, experienced person to become your VP Sales. Look for one who is a good fit for the job that needs to be done in your company.

Mistake #2: You start hiring too late

When you have 10 customers, you should start looking for your VP of sales, because it can take you a long time to recruit a good VP Sales. It took Jason Lemkin 20 months! That said, hiring senior sales leaders prematurely can be a devastating mistake.

Mistake #3: You expect your VP of sales to be a magician, instead of a manager

You need to give them time. Time to recruit great reps, time to help the sales team, time to tune sales tactics in order to maximize revenue per lead, time to make the right strategic decisions.

Getting these things right is more important than closing deals themselves. Although it is important that your VP Sales also closes deals, your VP Sales should first and foremost focus on the things that scale. Read this to get a better understanding of what your VP Sales should be really good at. And grab a free copy of The Sales Management Toolkit.

Mistake #4: Pipeline doesn’t mean c*ap

If you keep hearing pipeline, pipeline, pipeline ... you’ve probably hired the wrong person.

Here’s what you (and your VP Sales) should be focusing on instead as a key metric: Qualified Lead Velocity Rate. Read this to learn more about it.

Mistake #5: Your VP Sales must be accretive, not a cost center

Avg. pay for VP of Sales is $300k.

Key: Increase revenue per lead.

How to make your VP Sales a success on every level

Start early, as soon as you have 10 customers.
Don’t settle. Must be stage-appropriate and have done it for real.
Do it yourself first. Only then will you know.
Pay very well. But only for success.
Trust. You must trust your VP, Sales.

Want to learn more about sales hiring? Download The Sales Hiring Playbook, which is packed with not just practical advice, but also ready-to-use resources, interview questions to ask, hiring checklists, a sales rep onboarding schedule, fill-in-the-blank training documents and more.