Where do you find good sales managers if you are a startup? | Hacker News Reader

Where do you find good sales managers if you are a startup?

I’m a founder of a startup that makes AI solution for B2B. I’ve been searching a sales manager with good experience and strong skills. I’ve posted this job position on indeed but haven’t got any relevant applications. So share, please, have you ever had the same problem? How do you solve it, which sources or tools you use to find a good sales?

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How many sales people do you already have?

Do you sell? or your co-founder(s)?

The answers should be: (a) more than 5; (b) Yes; if No, then should be (c) Yes.

I am not being snarky. It has been shown time and time again, that when you are starting out, at least one of the founders should be selling. Hiring an experienced sales managers will not result in sales, they are "managers" so they will hire more sales people and thus increase your burn rate.

Ok, I guess you don't believe me. So why don't you let Google be your friend and find a few articles along the lines of "Things I wish I knew as a startup founder".

I have already 7 enterprise customers, and now I’m getting somethings about 3-4 leads per month. That’s not a lot but I’ve realized that I can’t handle it by myself.

That's great when you start getting traction.

So you need one salesperson, not a manager. Not knowing how much profit each customer generates, you need to do your numbers. A good rule of thumb is that a salesperson needs to generate 3-4x profit / customer for their commission and their anticipated annual commission would need to be at least 2x what they could earn in a "typical" job for that age, knowledge and experience.

That's a good rule of thumb to have as a guideline. I wonder as a start-up that obviously has to balance trade-offs, but how do you prioritize hiring customer success folks vs hiring sales folks.

Especially with enterprise customers - ultimately, each can be as productive a pipeline, even moreso long-term, than an individual salesperson.

My wife checks relevant Facebook Groups with sales managers. Also, you can check Reddit. I suppose you can find someone there.

Thank you, I’ll try it

I used dice https://www.dice.com/, there're people who're ready to work in startups. Maybe linkedin or facebook groups could work for you as well but not sure. Overall, good luck

Thank you, I’ll try this board

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