{"id":347,"date":"2025-02-18T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/?p=347"},"modified":"2025-02-22T16:21:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T16:21:40","slug":"gtm-134-when-to-hire-your-first-sales-reps-and-how-to-get-it-right-with-joe-dimento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/18\/gtm-134-when-to-hire-your-first-sales-reps-and-how-to-get-it-right-with-joe-dimento\/","title":{"rendered":"GTM 134: When to Hire Your First Sales Reps (And How to Get It Right) with Joe DiMento"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<p>The GTM Podcast is available on any major directory, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/in\/podcast\/the-gtm-podcast\/id1369291464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2SA1dgQ2Yc5t4V5GcBLnD2?si=b9dcb3e53b2d4ad2&amp;nd=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spotify<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KyUVm57kpS4&amp;list=PLGXnz4Tyz3-SfJ5DPByHtUOQOFB3yJ6zZ\">YouTube<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/joedimento\/\">Joe DiMento<\/a> is the Head of Go-To-Market &amp; Industry Partnerships at Bain Capital Ventures. Previously, he was an operating partner at Fractal Software, helping launch vertical software companies and find product-market fit. Before that, he was the first <em>non-founder seller<\/em> at three startups, turning early traction into a repeatable sales motion. He began his career at Google and Bain &amp; Company and holds an MBA from Stanford GSB.<\/p>\n<h2>Discussed in this Episode:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>When to hire your first account executives<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Key traits to look for in early sales hires<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Structuring compensation for first sales reps<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Should you \u2018hire the buyer\u2019 to be your sales rep?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><em>If you missed GTM 133, check it out here: <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/gtmnow.com\/gtm-133-build-your-ai-outbound-machine-with-chatgpt-jordan-crawford\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Build your AI Outbound Machine with ChatGPT | Jordan Crawford<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Highlights:\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>05:03 <a href=\"#s1\">When to hire your first sales reps.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>13:17 <a href=\"#s2\">Characteristics of top early-stage sales reps.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>22:25 <a href=\"#s3\">Designing a sales compensation plan.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>31:55 <a href=\"#s4\">Hiring for grit, curiosity &amp; determination.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>42:03 <a href=\"#s5\">Fast-tracking your sales career.<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Guest Speaker Links<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>LinkedIn: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/joedimento\/\">https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/joedimento\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>LinkedIn: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ssbarker\/\">https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ssbarker\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Newsletter: <a href=\"https:\/\/thegtmnewsletter.substack.com\/\">https:\/\/thegtmnewsletter.substack.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Where to find GTMnow (GTMfund\u2019s media brand):\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Website: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/redirect?event=video_description&amp;redir_token=QUFFLUhqbmcxckl6eF81ZDRfWEVBVlcwVk9jWG83TnVHd3xBQ3Jtc0tsckJpcWdFRVdVdU9DVUVESEU2RkJXVTRnZEdTVHBfUmR0NFFSTkJ5UmRmaU5ENFZKQi01YjlOVEoyeE9JVVhMR1JoOWR0NUpYbERCbUdOWG80eFRNTlQ2RWhaenY4Y1h1MVc3TnVEVVBXM2hOdndaYw&amp;q=https%3A%2F%2Fgtmnow.com%2F&amp;v=K8ttdq7ujX0\">https:\/\/gtmnow.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>LinkedIn: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/gtmnow\/\">https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/gtmnow\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Twitter\/X: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/redirect?event=video_description&amp;redir_token=QUFFLUhqa0hmdzJ0aWpraGZLdjN0eXUyUm5aSGdRQl9Gd3xBQ3Jtc0trb2NuSXpMNFZDVWJJZmpZckJxM3hPY01wUFNuZTVzVThxVWhyVGhodG9IUGlKeEdaRlN0OFlOYk5LUEZWU2Y3QXJXeUVMWWVmWU9ydFNKSWtXU2hyNVRYY2pkYkRWLVlFMlA2MndxXzNzRW1ubkpsQQ&amp;q=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2FGTMnow_&amp;v=K8ttdq7ujX0\">https:\/\/x.com\/GTMnow<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>YouTube: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCGQM23b5lZbcfLtHAe87J_A\"> \/@gtm_now <\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sponsor: Pursuit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The best talent isn\u2019t actively job hunting. Pursuit helps companies hire elite go-to-market talent on a <em>non-retainer basis<\/em>. As a key GTMfund partner, they equip sales and marketing teams with top performers.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re hiring for sales or marketing roles, reach out to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pursuitsalessolutions.com\/gtm\">Pursuit<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pursuitsalessolutions.com\/gtm\">pursuitsalessolutions.com\/gtm<\/a> or message a GTMfund team member.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2><strong>GTM 134 Episode Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Welcome, welcome GTM community. Appreciate you lending us your eardrums for the next 45 minutes or so. Uh, I always do my best to deliver as much value as possible. And, uh, it\u2019s easy because I always get fantastic guests like my guest today. Uh, I am joined by Joe Demento. Uh, Joe, welcome to the pod, man.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah, thanks for having me. I\u2019m excited to be here and talk about all things that go to market.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> I\u2019m pumped and, uh, you\u2019re the perfect person to do that. So I always like to tee it up a little bit for the listeners. So, uh, Joe currently leads go to market and industry partnerships at Bain Capital Ventures. Uh, Bain has been an incredible partner and friend to the fund since, uh, the very early days. So we love the team at BCV.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, really that role and it\u2019s such a cool role you have is it\u2019s all about, you know, working with founders to help them unlock go-to-market growth and access, you know, executive networks within the Bain network, which is very much like what we do at GTM fund. But prior to that, you were an operating partner at Fractal Software, uh, where you helped launch dozens of vertical software companies, which is super cool and helps them kind of find product market fit.<\/p>\n<p>Uh, but before that, even you were an operator, um, and you were at three early stage startups and the kind of red thread is you were oftentimes the. First non founder seller, um, you know, taking that early traction when there\u2019s no product market fit, there\u2019s not a lot of process and you\u2019re just kind of in this ocean trying to figure things out.<\/p>\n<p>Um, and you know, that\u2019s where I want to spend the bulk of this conversation with you because I think it\u2019s, it\u2019s very rare to, uh, speak with someone who\u2019s done that three times and three times, you know, successfully, um, and. I will say for our listeners that this is probably one of the most common questions that we get from our early stage founders.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"s1\"><strong>When to hire your first sales reps<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>And that is \u201chow do I make my first sales hire?\u201d And within that question, there\u2019s about 50 other questions, but, um, you know, I want to fly you back to your first, uh, startup that you\u2019re at. Uh, you\u2019re in this position of kind of being the first sales hire. What does Joe look like at that time? What was your experience?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> What was your background? You know, if people are trying to find a Joe, what did Joe look like back then?<\/p>\n<p>I think one thing that\u2019s worth noting is who is important, but when is probably more important? When should you actually hire an AE or more than one AE in your startup? Once you have some sales going, um, that question, that answer varies a little bit, but it\u2019s almost always not immediately simply because you need to learn as a founder, how exactly the market is responding to your vision and then you have to have closed several deals at least before you understand, okay, where is there a pattern here that even someone who is very versatile, very adaptable, um, Um, and so one of the things we talk about at BCV is, you know, you have to have some deals closed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> There has to be some through line in those deals. Maybe it\u2019s the problem that you\u2019re solving. Uh, it\u2019s not necessarily industry because oftentimes you have multiple industries in an early sort of sales book, and that\u2019s fine. Um, but there has to be something there. And then I think about the second point on when, and then I\u2019ll love to talk more about who is how much of it can you document in any meaningful way, right?<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re going to hire ideally more than one AE to start, so you can kind of see how they work and kind of learn from their efforts, what are you going to tell them when they start? What onboarding, if any, do you have, have you recorded some of these calls? You know, those types of things I think are very important.<\/p>\n<p>Um, at Fractal when we had. Founders who were selling and then hiring AEs after they closed, you know, anywhere from 50, 000 to 200, 000 in ARR. Like, we encouraged them to have calls recorded, you know, a battle card that was very loosely defined in some sort of doc. You know, a bunch of Q&amp; A and sort of objection handling.<\/p>\n<p>Just because You know, those AEs, they\u2019re hard to hire, they\u2019re important to train, they\u2019re expensive, and so getting them set up for success is important. So anyway, that\u2019s a little bit on the when. Um, I\u2019ll pause there and then I can talk more about who, unless you wanted to chat more on that stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> No, I think it\u2019s an incredibly, uh, insightful call out of the, the, when is a big part of that, that question. And you said something in there that I, uh, I just want to double, double click on. Uh, you said, um, preferably you hire more than one AE. Is that kind of your best practice? And you\u2019re an early stage founder looking at your first sales hire.<\/p>\n<p>Should you look at your first two at once and what are the benefits and pros and cons of, uh, of doing one versus maybe two.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah, um, a lot of folks will say do more than one. We tend to agree with that. Obviously there\u2019s exceptions in every case, but partly because If you don\u2019t do more than one, you don\u2019t know if it\u2019s working or if they\u2019re not working. And also, you\u2019re in such an experimentation mode early on as a company, right?<\/p>\n<p>You want your rate of learning to be so accelerated with every single thing you do, and in that sense, having different archetypes, different approaches, but both hopefully effective in that early AE cohort can be very valuable. You know, you might have someone who\u2019s far more data driven and really just dives into all of the information that they have through Apollo or what have you and then knows how to manage their very large book right when they\u2019re one of two AEs.<\/p>\n<p>And then maybe you have the other person who\u2019s just the sort of very charming, very extroverted kind of goes and networks like crazy and can win any meeting over. That is less data driven, and maybe one of those approaches is going to be more effective early on, and you\u2019re not sure, because you\u2019ve only done it yourself as a founder, um, and then the other thing is, it\u2019s just lonely when you\u2019re a seller by yourself, and you\u2019re not a founder, I mean, it\u2019s lonely as a founder too, but it\u2019s helpful to have someone with you who you\u2019re kind of Understanding how they work, what they\u2019re doing, um, And, and then lastly, one more point, is it helps the, Helps the founding team understand what\u2019s working, right?<\/p>\n<p>If one new AE has a hundred calls made a week, and the other has three hundred, and is converting more of them, Well, that\u2019s a pretty good sign that the second one is more effective.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. Sales is hard enough. Uh, doing it alone, uh, is, it\u2019s just almost cruel. Uh, you, you need that, that built in almost therapy of having someone in the trenches with, uh, with you. And before we get into the, the archetype or the, the who, um, you, you mentioned this idea of having some sort of onboarding enablement materials ready so that you\u2019re actually setting these people up for success.<\/p>\n<p>And if I\u2019m a founder, I\u2019m listening to this. I\u2019m like, Oh, shoot. I don\u2019t really have that, but I have an open JD right now for, uh, my first AE. Um, What\u2019s the baby steps? Like what are, what are a few things that aren\u2019t a huge lift, uh, that founders can start to do so that when they do bring that person on board, you know, they are set up to win and, and, and hit their number.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah. Uh, first off, I would say it\u2019s not, It\u2019s not like this needs to be prepared well in advance. I often tell founders, put the JD out there, start getting people in the interview process, hire someone, then before they start, which could be literally the weekend before, like start cranking out a bunch of learnings you have.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, that\u2019s the extreme version, but you know, that works fine sometimes. Having some call recording software is very good. I mean, it\u2019s just going to help you as a founder learn. What resonated well and what didn\u2019t resonate when you\u2019re actually watching again or listening again at 2x speed on a jog or something And then of course those calls are very valuable.<\/p>\n<p>You can say oh man I did so well in that pitch to this this brand Just listen to that call and that\u2019s what I think you should try when you\u2019re selling as the new AE So I think that\u2019s pretty important And then in terms of what this sort of series of documentation might entail, it really can be quite simple, right?<\/p>\n<p>This is the core brand value prop. These are the main problems that we\u2019re solving as a company that we believe in. Here are three great anecdotes that kind of always spring to mind and get sort of prospects and customers excited. Obviously those should probably come from your lighthouse customers or your first design partners.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully they\u2019ve approved that you can use their name. And if not. It\u2019s probably okay if the AE says the name and doesn\u2019t blast it out on the internet, you know, so I think it\u2019s not too cumbersome an activity for folks to do and then lastly I\u2019ll say I think it also helps Force thinking on the part of the founding team, right?<\/p>\n<p>If you have three different verticals that have bought your product before you\u2019ve hired AEs Well, which one is the best one for the AEs to go clean up in? Now, ideally, when you\u2019re a Series B, C company, you\u2019re going to have ten verticals, and everything\u2019s gravy, and, and the product is used by everyone. But in order to get there, you\u2019re going to need to focus on what really works.<\/p>\n<p>And you really should have alignment among the founding team, and certainly engineering, and product, and marketing, too, about what those are, before you tell the salespeople, go close more of these.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"s2\"><strong>Characteristics of top early-stage sales reps<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then one thing. You know, add to that to just on the topic of kind of enablement and slowly building towards a repeatable process is once you do have this person in the door, make sure that this is someone who is rigorous in kind of documenting everything that they\u2019re doing all the wins, the losses, you know, because that is going to be so invaluable as you, you know, scale.<\/p>\n<p>I guess that leads naturally to the first question, which was what is the archetype of this, where, where do we find these, these magical unicorns that everyone is looking for? Because it is a hard, hard, hard role. I\u2019ve been in that position myself, it is very difficult.<\/p>\n<p>It requires a very different type of seller and mentality. Um, you know, again, just using yourself as an example, like what was, what was. Joe, like back then. And what were the experiences you had that made you successful?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean, first of all, I made tons of mistakes, so I certainly don\u2019t want to suggest that I did it all right. And honestly, Scott, I would say a lot of it was I learned about myself in the process, and obviously that\u2019s part of growing up in your career, but I think it has a lot to do with what my answer entails.<\/p>\n<p>So I was a consultant before I started as an AE. I had some sales experiments experience before going into consulting after my MBA, but not sort of AE quota carrying type work. Um, and when I was consultant, I really spiked in the client side of the business and it was very natural to me to the point where I was once on a case and there was a very important senior client that I had sort of a very strong relationship with and the senior partner on the case asked me before I.<\/p>\n<p>I had to leave for paternity because I wanted to go and spend time with my baby. Hey, can you stay on the case longer? Because you really have some rapport with this client. And I thought to myself, wow, that\u2019s weird. Like I haven\u2019t, I haven\u2019t been working hard on that, right? That\u2019s just me. I\u2019ve been working hard, but it\u2019s just who I was.<\/p>\n<p>So I sort of listened to that and thought maybe going into sales once I, once I jumped into startups would be something that was interesting to me. But I also think that coming from the consulting background was helpful because I was thrown in so often in that environment to brand new contexts that were unknown, kind of bewildering, in high intensity environments, uh, working really, really hard, right?<\/p>\n<p>Lots of very, uh, familiar parts of being a salesperson, and I was very curious. I just liked learning about stuff. You know, I was in a case where we did a lot of work for a major utility, and I had no background in utilities, and I thought, gosh, this is wild. Let\u2019s learn all about this. And so I think spiking and curiosity is super important, especially, uh, Because, to your point earlier, so much of that role is not just closing those deals.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s writing down what works, learning about what has worked before, telling your founding team or the other AEs alongside you what you think works really well. And so, like, the speed of learning is such a critical ingredient in that early AE profile. And so someone who likes doing that, I think, is extremely important.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll pause there. We can talk more about some of that stuff, too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah, I, I, I mean, it\u2019s one of those things where, you know, you think of all these different pools of places that you can pull people from. And, uh, I think consulting is not often a, a, a normal trajectory from like consulting to, to AE, but makes total sense in terms of like a first, uh, sales hire. extrapolate those things out. You know, you mentioned people that are constantly having new contextual experiences, high intensity, high in curiosity, like. Maybe entrepreneurs as well, someone who started a little business after university or something, you know, that might be better places to source from, would you caution against hiring an account executive with experience at a larger company?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Probably. It depends how large. So, I think the nuance of that answer is, it sounds crazy, and it perhaps is crazy to say uniformly, don\u2019t hire former AEs for your first AEs, right? That sounds kind of dumb. But I do think there\u2019s a big part of that early journey, I mean, I certainly experienced it where. Um, You don\u2019t have almost any infrastructure, right?<\/p>\n<p>Who\u2019s your PMM? There\u2019s not, there\u2019s not one. You\u2019re going to be revising the deck that the founder made, you know, during her weekend or whatever. Um, And so you need to be very comfortable and kind of like that stuff, right? Like, I didn\u2019t mind doing the deck because I had done lots of decks as a consultant or what have you.<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s a big part of it. But then I think an even bigger part of it is you\u2019re figuring out how this business goes to market, who are the customers that love it versus just kind of like it, therefore, where should you spend your time, you know, and of course, therefore, where is product market fit coming from whereas an AE who spent a lot of time at a company that has product market fit, no matter if it\u2019s, you know, the number one or the number five player in a market, it\u2019s just so much different in landing a sale. Oh, we are this product. We\u2019re compared to these three products. You\u2019re already probably evaluating all three.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s our scorecard and you know what we do well and what we don\u2019t. If you\u2019re creating a category or you\u2019re trying to rethink the way people do work, which Lots of companies are doing now with AI. You can\u2019t use that toolkit at all. And so I would caution folks to really look hard at anyone who comes from that background and say okay But how else are they?<\/p>\n<p>Very curious. Could they work well in our founder environment and with our early stage product, despite having grown up at a slightly bigger place? And then I think one easier heuristic is the bigger it is, the less likely it is gonna work, right? If someone has spent 10 years at, you know, Oracle to use a ridiculous example, they\u2019re, they\u2019re, they\u2019re gonna have a hard time being the first AE at a new AI company.<\/p>\n<p>Um, you know, there\u2019s always exceptions, but I would be very surprised.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it\u2019s about looking at how much process they were following, right? Like, and, and how many resources did they have and how often did they leverage them? Um, and having that very honest conversation with them like, Hey, there\u2019s no sales engineer coming to save you. There\u2019s no product marketing.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s going to spin up something you need. Um, you know, Reminds me of, you know, back in the sales hacker days, if I, if I needed a case study, it was me calling my customer asking for a quote, and then going on Canva and building my own case study. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and God bless them all. Um, thanks, uh, Udi at Gong for, uh, for always being awesome back then.<\/p>\n<p>Um, but, um, what are your thoughts? Um, cause there\u2019s this other idea. Which I quite like sometimes is the idea of hiring the buyer. Um, so let\u2019s say you\u2019re in a vertical SaaS company and, you know, you\u2019re selling to customs brokers, let\u2019s say, um, could you find someone who has done that job of a customs broker and teach them the ins and outs of.<\/p>\n<p>You know, being an effective account executive in, in software.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> think kind of, and I\u2019ll say that because, uh, I do think it\u2019s very possible to incorporate folks like that on the team. Whether they are the AEs or not, I think, is debatable. Uh, for example, um, at Fractal we are working with new verticals, uh, to the founders. Um, Higher Ed Software, for example, is a company that I worked a fair bit with.<\/p>\n<p>And they did a really good job of getting advisors who are not necessarily on their board, but people they go to all the time, who have relationships. And who will willingly get on the phone with them, uh, pretty regularly to just break down the realities of a particular deal or, you know, better yet, a broader landscape of the industry that they\u2019re still getting up to speed on. And, you know, this person I\u2019m thinking of in particular is career, uh, person in higher ed. They would not leave their job to do exactly, you know, uh, AE sales, AE sales work at an early stage startup. But they were extremely valuable for their intuition. And then on the reverse side, I do think how much of what tech companies do now is changing so quickly that having folks who are excited to learn and grow their careers as they do that and not necessarily do things the way they\u2019ve been done before in any given industry is important.<\/p>\n<p>Now, there are some exceptions. I think in healthcare, it\u2019s very hard sometimes to not have a domain expert, sometimes in many of those calls, those sales calls. Um, so we work with some healthcare tech companies here, and often they hire at least one person who\u2019s in a sales-ish role. They\u2019re not necessarily a quota carrying AE, but they\u2019re in the commercial team and they\u2019re helping the commercial team.<\/p>\n<p>Uh, not only as an advisor role, but typically I think you should get the expertise elsewhere, whether it\u2019s full time or part time. And then the sellers themselves should be building the playbook and come from the more traditional sort of tech sales background.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"s3\"><strong>Designing a sales compensation plan<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> That makes total sense. Total sense. Um, the next big thing, uh, which is again, part of all the same question, but it\u2019s a question that keeps, keeps, uh, getting deeper and deeper is how do I comp this person? I am a founder, like we\u2019re having some success, but I\u2019m kind of throwing. Darts at the board when I\u2019m coming up with this quota, I want them to succeed.<\/p>\n<p>I want it to be fair. How do you think about the compensation structure? Because it can be very difficult in those early days.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah. Uh, a couple thoughts on this. First, you can get data. So, you know, our portfolio can get data from us and we buy it from data brokers who have lots of very detailed sort of benchmarking across company stage, location, et cetera. So, uh, they shouldn\u2019t have to start from a shot in the dark. Um, that said, I do think in general philosophy that we have and we talk about is You really want your early sales team to understand how they\u2019re getting paid.<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s a simple metric it\u2019s not a bunch of accelerators and Uh variables that they have to track because you have to track them, too Uh, I was once uh at a startup and it was a great company and everyone was very well meeting But I wasn\u2019t I wasn\u2019t paid accurately for a couple of months because you know The team was busy and strapped and whatever it happens, right?<\/p>\n<p>So the more simple it is the better for everyone um, and then I think also a Philosophy point You want to err on the side of generosity, right? You want your early AEs to hit their quotas. Um, now you\u2019re not going to set it so low that your business isn\u2019t growing, but if you use a 50 50 OTE model, that means that if they\u2019re hitting their quota, they\u2019re delivering well in, uh, excess of the value that, sorry, you\u2019re paying them well less than the value they\u2019re bringing in, and then they, they\u2019re happy, you\u2019re happy, they\u2019re going to tell their other friends who are AEs, uh, that they can come and, and hit their number at your company.<\/p>\n<p>Um, so I think that\u2019s pretty important. And then the last thing in addition to clarity and generosity is flexibility. You just need to tell the team, Hey, this is going to change, you know, we\u2019re going to do right by you, you know, we\u2019re in this to build a great big company. And we\u2019re so excited to do that together.<\/p>\n<p>Everything changes all the time. And so if this sales comp plan is different in six months, it\u2019s not because. We don\u2019t have your best interests at heart. It\u2019s because we got it way wrong, right? It\u2019s way too generous and we can\u2019t pay you, you know, uh, a million dollars a year when we\u2019re a seed stage company, um, uh, or what have you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there you need to both go into it with some agreed upon flexibility, you know, um, because things just evolve so quickly, you know, at that, that early stage, it can go way better than expected. It can go away worse than expected. And, you know, that flexibility built in is, is really important and erring on the side of generosity.<\/p>\n<p>I couldn\u2019t agree. More, uh, especially cause you know, your next hires are going to ask you, you know, how did they do? What percentage of the team is to quota? Like what, what are they at? And if they\u2019re at, you know, 30 percent to quota, uh, good luck getting, getting more talent, um, in the door. This is a hard question because it\u2019s super nuanced and, you know, it depends on your ACV and the different selling motions and things, but can you give folks a rough benchmark of like what you\u2019re seeing founding a ease make. So you, you set a 50, 50 split, um, numbers wise. What, what are you seeing out there right now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> It ranges quite a bit, obviously. I would say at the low end, you know, 200, 250, you know, in a big market of, of OTE, um, and at the high end, more like 300, 350. Um, and then for more enterprise, it can go slightly above that. Um, and I think the key is that that\u2019s the O. T. E. To this point of generosity. I think it\u2019s not uncommon for companies doing really well in certain markets to pay their early eight years, half a million dollars, in cash a year. And that\u2019s cool, right? I mean, it\u2019s rewarding their hard work, but also, frankly, the product market fit that the company has. Um, I can definitely get some more detailed benchmarks if you want. But I think the zooming out and thinking about my career trajectory. I was pleasantly surprised at sales comp.<\/p>\n<p>You know, it wasn\u2019t a thing I paid any attention to before I was in sales. And then when I left consulting, which pays well, I was pretty excited to learn that I could also. Um, and that\u2019s because of the nature of the, the role and the compensation model.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. And in this scenario, do you, do you cap their commission? It feels like you almost have to, cause you, you know, you only have so much money<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> No, I, I don\u2019t,<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> No cap.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> think not necessarily. I mean, certainly not forever, right? If it\u2019s been three years of uncapped and they\u2019re way exceeding it, you should change the quota for sure. Um, but no, actually, I don\u2019t think so because. Then they\u2019re able to, first of all, they\u2019re going to be ecstatic. Um, that helps you learn, wow, we, we need to change the quota, uh, and, and just increase it.<\/p>\n<p>Um, and I just don\u2019t think there should be that penalty, um, that\u2019s artificial and arbitrary, when your whole raison d\u2019etre is to build this market and this business and figure it out together. Um, and then lastly, like I said already, if they are exceeding it, that\u2019s because they\u2019re selling a lot of stuff, right?<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve already empowered them and you have all these customers coming in the door. Um, and I think that\u2019s really important. One last thing I\u2019ll say on this is, um, The kind of customers you\u2019re bringing in are really important to think about. Um, and so for instance, do you have SPFs or accelerators when it\u2019s certain marquee logos maybe in new verticals you want to go after?<\/p>\n<p>Um, I think those are things to think about because, uh, you know, you could pay someone quite a bit because they\u2019re hitting their number. But if you\u2019re just sort of running the table with your core ICP and you\u2019re not expanding. What is possible for this company in doing so by going outside of that vertical or what have you? Then, that\u2019s good right now, it\u2019s not as great in a year.<\/p>\n<p>And, so much of that work is really the pioneering work of figuring out how you bring this product to market and you want to incentivize that with the comp as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Such a great point. Really, really great point. Um, you know, it\u2019s setting up the incentives to incentivize the right, right behavior. And if you know, hey, the X, X customer, they\u2019re the stickiest. We make the most money from them. They love it. Like, either go incentivize more of them or okay. Now we\u2019re good in this vertical.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s go spiff this next vertical that we\u2019re, we\u2019re trying to break into. Uh, I think that\u2019s a really,<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> And, and a big, one last thing on that Scott, a big part of this is land versus expand. I, because I think a lot, especially PLG products or products where there\u2019s lots of room to run within an organization. I think it\u2019s important, first of all, to recognize that and to expand, right, and to have NRR that grows because of your ability to continue to sell within an account.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, early on, if you only have, you know, a handful of logos, but you\u2019re running a very good business within them, you know, that\u2019s, that\u2019s harder to defend, right? Churn risk is much, much higher because one executive change could, could change things. Um, and so I think incentivizing new logo growth in addition to expansion within existing logos is also something to pay attention to.<\/p>\n<p>But again, this is even getting a little later. Like I think if we\u2019re talking about the first few AEs, this is not a problem. You\u2019re going to be thinking about too much, uh, but maybe for another day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Um, so, and, and just to, uh, make sure kind of for, for the audience. So this is, uh, we\u2019re talking like a full cycle, AE, these first, first ones, they\u2019re going to be prospecting, they\u2019re going to be closing, and then you brought up an important point, which is, um, you know, logo growth, you\u2019re not going to have, you know, account managers, you might not even have, you know.<\/p>\n<p>Um, and so they manage that account maybe indefinitely until you build out that function and they\u2019re rewarded for the growth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Uh, yeah, I think so. Uh, early on, uh, but you can pretty quickly hire other folks to help maintain the account. I think you should. Yeah. One thing that I have thought a fair bit about is. Um, the profile of an AE, you know, to use the very cliched, uh, uh, uh, uh, analogy, the hunter is very different from the, uh, CSM profile or the AM profile of farmer.<\/p>\n<p>Not always, right. But in general, AEs like new deals, figuring out new customers, how to close them, how to get the signature, et cetera. And so I don\u2019t think for too long you want that same person. Maintaining the relationship, even if they are expanding within the account. Um, just because new logos are fun, right?<\/p>\n<p>Having, being able to say, gosh, I closed, you know, Nestle and then Pepsi and then another CPG brand here is, is, is just more exciting innately to a lot of people, I think, than saying, I got another division within Nestle or what have you. Um, and so in that sense, I think pretty quickly you should think about those other functions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah, totally. Yeah. There\u2019s a reason we specialize those roles. They\u2019re definitely, uh, two different types of human beings. Um,<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"s4\"><strong>Hiring for grit, curiosity &amp; determination<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> One last thing to go back to if it\u2019s all right on who you should hire in this first AE profile obviously, but we should say it directly. I mean people who work really hard and are excited to do that. Now, it\u2019s hard sometimes to evaluate that in an interview setting. It\u2019s not as hard to evaluate that in a backchannel reference, right?<\/p>\n<p>You may be connected via two other people to someone prior to hiring them, just get a three minute phone call with them. Uh, I often send an email that says, you know, did you ever work with XYZ, you know, five minutes for a reference convo and then the person calls me and that alone can often make or break the situation.<\/p>\n<p>And. And then you can also see it once they start, right? I\u2019ve worked with teams that have had a couple different AEs, some of whom looked really great and interviewed well and had pretty good references. And then as the days and weeks went by, you just thought, gosh, like we\u2019re not seeing the same level of productivity on the input metrics, right?<\/p>\n<p>The number of calls, the number of emails, just the excitement of learning all this stuff about the company that they just joined. And that\u2019s a huge variable in the success of an AE long term of any employee in many ways. Um, and I think that\u2019s an important one to really look at and actually measure early on when so much data is uncertain within the company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Absolutely. I think, you know, this idea of grit and resilience is always incredibly important for AEs, but it\u2019s just almost a 10 X when it\u2019s, when it\u2019s this, when you\u2019re starting from, from nothing, there might be maybe months where you\u2019re just hitting your head against the wall, things are not working and you need to keep that, that level of hustle and, you know, the, the back channeling is, is super, super important.<\/p>\n<p>Uh, have you found any other ways to kind of test for. For grit. I know for me, you know, I\u2019ll almost like to try and talk people out of the role and be like, this is like, this is really hard. This is a really intense environment. You\u2019re, you\u2019re stepping into like, you know, we strive for excellence and like, really almost kind of try and talk them out of it.<\/p>\n<p>Um, and the ones that thrive in those environments, you know, get, get excited and not deterred by conversations like that. Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> I think exercises are helpful in that respect, you know, I hesitate to encourage companies to give people huge amounts of work Especially if it\u2019s free labor for them, right? Like don\u2019t give someone an exercise That\u2019s a project that you need to do yourselves But if you give someone a relatively open ended assignment and you say hey spend Something like 10 to 20 hours on this over the course of two weeks You get very different outcomes and partly that is Uh, the input part, right?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve then talked to candidates who said sheepishly, uh, you know, I spent 25 percent more than you told me I should. And that\u2019s fine, that means they\u2019re hungry, right? But then also, you\u2019ll see just how efficient they are, right? You might get two submissions that are wildly different, and one person actually spent less time than the other, and boy, that\u2019s gonna tell you Not about the grid piece as much as it is about the raw intellect and their ability to solve problems quickly Which is so important and I think that gets back to one other thing.<\/p>\n<p>We haven\u2019t talked about explicitly, which is I think To say it bluntly like early employees of any company You really should filter for raw intellect and intelligence and horsepower clock speed whatever you want to call it because there\u2019s so many different parts of building the business that are unknown.<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t possibly predict and you\u2019re going to have to just keep reacting. And each of those decisions changes the course of the company and people who are able to make those decisions quickly and generally with the right answer are going to do really well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, a plus one on giving at least some sort of small project and it can be pretty low lift, but you can find, I think the best ones, they turn that low lift into something quite extraordinary.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, I\u2019ve, I\u2019ve always very intentionally given them the back. Oh, when do you want this by?<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019ll be like, ah, you know, next week, sometime and the best usually have it. You know, by the end of that week, not, not the full seven days. It\u2019s like, if you\u2019re having the conversation on Wednesday, it\u2019s a million bucks on, like Friday. Um, you just kind of cause speed matters to speed matters a lot in an early stage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> And one other part on that, Scott, on the exercise piece, I think a lot of that should be, um, making sure that they understand to some degree. The company, they\u2019re joining the product that they\u2019re going to be selling or working on. Obviously, they\u2019re not going to know as much as the founder, but anything that\u2019s out there, right, did they listen to a podcast the founder was on?<\/p>\n<p>Did they read all the help docs on the site? Did they look at, you know, uh, Hacker News thread in which the company was talked about? Like, the more that they do that, clearly, they\u2019re intrinsically motivated to do it to some degree, right? They think it\u2019s cool. They think the company\u2019s interesting. And that level of passion I think is very important, right?<\/p>\n<p>If someone doesn\u2019t believe in the broad mission of the startup that they\u2019re joining. Uh, and they\u2019re just doing it to make a buck, they\u2019re just not going to do as well. Um, they might be a great salesperson, but I think, uh, going back to the archetype discussion of sales profiles, the true mercenaries, the people who are just like, Hey, give me the call script and I will just kill my number and I\u2019ll always make president\u2019s club.<\/p>\n<p>Like, I don\u2019t think those folks are great early because they need to be motivated by something other than<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah, that passion is so, so critical. Um, and last thing I\u2019ll say on just, um, you know, projects and giving candidates projects. There\u2019s a lot of people who are like, I don\u2019t get people to do free work, but I think some of the best ones are when you can give them a project project that even if they do spend.<\/p>\n<p>You know, 40 hours on it, they\u2019re actually going to learn something that will help them in whatever role they, they land, you know, uh, there\u2019s ways that, you know, it\u2019s not so specific to your company that, you know, no, you\u2019re going to go learn all about, you know, the latest developments in AI and come like pitch that to us and like, that\u2019s going to be super helpful for their, their career anyway, you know, um, the.<\/p>\n<p>Other piece going, going back a little bit to, to comp. So you\u2019ve got your, your OTE, um, equity, you know, traditionally AEs don\u2019t get as much of the equity split, uh, as I think some, some should. Um, and this early hire is so, so critical. Um, what do you think is fair in terms of, uh, equity for this, this type of role?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah, um, again, depends a lot on the stage, but early on, they should, first of all, equity should be a meaningful driver of their motivation, right? To this point on passion, you want to build the, I don\u2019t know what the term du jour is, maybe it\u2019s not decacorn anymore, but, You want to build the very large business that people will know about and you\u2019ll be able to participate in the growth of.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s equity comp, right? That\u2019s not just sales comp and cash comp. Um, so there should be some meaningful component there. Uh, it ranges a lot. You know, I\u2019ve seen anywhere from five basis points in an early AE hire to more like 20, um, if the company\u2019s, uh, pretty early and. And the person\u2019s really good, um, can go slightly beyond that.<\/p>\n<p>But obviously, if you\u2019re getting close to sort of half a percent or even a percent, then that\u2019s a, that\u2019s more of an executive level, higher, maybe even C level at that point. Um, and again, the cash comp is a big deal, right? I mean, I remember, uh, talking to founders who. are more technical and saying, Hey, why is it that the, the AE is going to make more money than my full stack engineer who\u2019s actually built like most of this product and is incredibly hard to get and was paid, you know, a quarter million, three quarters of a million dollars at meta.<\/p>\n<p>And the reality is, sales is a different business, right? You make the OTE when you hit the quota. And if not, you don\u2019t necessarily stick around. And then also the equity piece is different in those two circumstances. That engineer probably has a much bigger equity package than the AE. And that\u2019s just kind of how the market has evolved over time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, on the flip side, if you are taking a founding AE role, I would always try to negotiate more, uh, more equity, bet on yourself. And I think that\u2019s also a good signal if you\u2019re a founder, if they\u2019re maybe even entertaining, like, Hey, can I, My OT go down, but I get more, more equity.<\/p>\n<p>Like, I think those are strong signals that this person believes in the mission wants to be here long term and, and believes that this can be a true, you know, deck of Gordon, if, uh, if we\u2019re, we\u2019re going with that<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> We\u2019re still doing it. You know, and I think very pretty commonly, at least now, certainly when I was being interviewed at places like Coda, I know Uber did this, they\u2019ll give people a menu. They\u2019ll say, Hey, here\u2019s three options. One is heavily weighted to cash. One is more heavily weighted to equity. Which do you want?<\/p>\n<p>Now, people should still negotiate within that. But it kind of lets you choose your own adventure a little bit, uh, in that respect. And frankly, I think the earlier you\u2019re going, the more you should definitely believe in the mission and therefore be excited to sign up. Almost, almost if it were unpaid, of course, not actually if it were unpaid, and then you should motivate yourself with equity because that\u2019s really the kind of outcome you want to generate and the ultimate driver of the success of the company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah, totally. Um, so switching gears, uh, a little bit, um. So that was such a fantastic breakdown. Thanks for running through all of that. Okay. Let\u2019s say, you know, now I\u2019m, I\u2019ve got my first sales hire. I\u2019m, I\u2019m, I\u2019m in this role. How do I approach this behemoth task that\u2019s ahead of me? How did you approach it, at Coda and some of these companies that you were a part of, like you\u2019re 30, 60, 90, like, where did you start?<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"s5\"><strong>Fast-tracking your sales career<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Uh, it\u2019s a great question. I\u2019m smiling because in my first week at Coda, I was at the time reporting to the CEO, Shashir Mabhotra, who I just have such tremendous respect for. And he, I remember he said something like, Yeah, go ahead and pitch the product to a couple people this week, if you don\u2019t mind. And I was kind of like, oh my god, like, I don\u2019t, I just got here, like, I have to figure this out.<\/p>\n<p>Uh, and you know, I called up some friends who I knew, who I trusted, who had genuine business problems that they were working through, and I I pitched the product to them, uh, you know, in my very limited capacity. Uh, and I think to Shashir\u2019s credit, a huge part of his philosophy and something I\u2019ve carried with this is you learn by doing right.<\/p>\n<p>The more you can actually start doing the work, the better you\u2019ll certainly assess how well that person\u2019s doing the work if you\u2019re in the part of the founder, but in the part of the seller, you\u2019ll actually just, uh, You know, learn from those mistakes and move on and and grow and improve as a result of that So I think that\u2019s why this call recording thing is important, right?<\/p>\n<p>We didn\u2019t have that at the time because the product was even earlier. We were in stealth Uh, but if you can watch all of the long calls of the founder then boy you have a bunch of anecdotes, right? You can kind of lean back in your chair and confidently say the anecdote about why this new prospect should consider buying the product versus kind of Trying to remember or frankly not being able to have an anecdote and just saying something that\u2019s more theoretical.<\/p>\n<p>Um, so digesting as much as you can talking to as many customers or prospects or people with the problems in, uh, in question that you can. So, for instance, if you have friends who are In an industry that could use the product, call them up and just go very, very deep and honestly about what you think the product is, how you think it might work.<\/p>\n<p>What do they think about competing products? Right? Cause you\u2019re just training yourself about all of this context. Um, I often tell folks who are. Getting into new industries for the first time. Just learn everything you can at every moment, right? Read any substack, download any podcast, watch YouTube on 2x speed while you\u2019re doing the dishes, like, talk about it with your friends and sort of stumble over your phrasing, right?<\/p>\n<p>I mean, there\u2019s no substitute, I think, for that experience. And the more you can throw yourself into that, uh, as quickly as possible, chances are, the more successful you\u2019ll be in actually selling that product,<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah, learn by doing, uh, and yeah, I wish, wish Gong was around when I first<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Selling, I was so unbelievably fortunate that my first sales job in tech, I just happened to get sat by the number one AE and I still remember his name, Brendan Shaughnessy. Thank the Lord for Brendan, uh, just hearing him.<\/p>\n<p>On the phone day and day accelerated my learning curve just exponentially. Um, and now we have, you know, technology that can, can help us, um, do that. So one thing I forgot to ask is this comes up quite a bit too, is, um, should this first sales hire. Should we be looking for leadership qualities? Cause I think a lot of times when I talk to founders, they\u2019re like, yeah, we\u2019re going to hire this first person.<\/p>\n<p>And then they\u2019re naturally going to become our manager. And then we\u2019re going to build a team around them. And, you know, yada, yada. How much do you weigh? Like that? That\u2019s great. If that happens, um, But should you be thinking that way?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> I think early on, it is a nice thing to consider in the hiring profile. Probably not quite a non-negotiable, but pretty close. I think it\u2019s because of the things we said earlier, right? Are they so passionate about this mission? Are they deeply curious people who love solving problems? Are they Incredibly hard working and are going to put a lot of effort into it I mean, those are great characteristics in a sales leader for sure um And pretty soon if you have a team of one, two, three, four, five AEs It\u2019s completely untenable for a founder, CEO, or CTO to watch all those comm calls and give all that feedback.<\/p>\n<p>And so you do need some level of sales management somewhat soon, call it 6 to 18 months from then. And that person coming from the ranks makes complete sense. Um, and in fact, I think one error that some folks think through, maybe not always do, is they think, great, we have some salespeople, let\u2019s hire the big boss who\u2019s going to run this team for 20 years, and that is, is still not the right profile, right?<\/p>\n<p>Going back to, uh, what we mentioned earlier on this sort of, um, true mercenary sales profile not being great as an early AE, I think similarly, a true VP or CRO type person is probably not the right fit when you have a handful of sellers. Uh, and maybe more, uh, a couple of years beyond that. So, for instance, uh, Jeff Williams, who\u2019s an operating partner here at BCB, he\u2019s been a CRO at multiple cybersecurity startups.<\/p>\n<p>You know, he always says, don\u2019t get the VP too early, because you want someone who can kind of grow that managerial emotion, and then you want that person who\u2019s a true VP who can think much more strategically. Hey, how are we going to go internationally? Like, which segments do I already have relationships in, that we can double down on in the market?<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s very hard to get very early on. And so generally we say, don\u2019t even try. Try to hire that more player coach person or promote them from within.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah, I have seen that outside big boss VP fail so many times. It, it<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah, especially in your<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> like batting close to a hundred, like at least with the companies I\u2019ve been, you know, a part of, um, so I think that is a good word to use, of caution. Um, you mentioned. What are your thoughts on player coach? I\u2019ve, I\u2019ve been in that role before.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s very hard, very hard to do. Um, do you think it\u2019s a necessary evil?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> It\u2019s almost a misnomer to say it\u2019s a binary distinction, right? Like always early on in a startup\u2019s journey, you\u2019re going to have a, even if you have a sales manager, someone who\u2019s getting in the weeds and getting involved in individual deals and doing all this work that is not just managing the team now specifically, should they have a quota?<\/p>\n<p>That is their own versus their teams. I think that\u2019s a little squishier because then you get into conflicts of interest, frankly, and empowering and motivating their own team versus hitting their own number with their own deals. And those motions are quite different, right? Listening to gong calls and going for a coffee chat with someone on your team and figuring out how they\u2019re truly motivated in order to make sure that they\u2019re successful.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just so different than calling your prospect again, uh, or having the nth meeting in order to close the deal and get the DocuSign signed. So I do think that\u2019s a little risky, but certainly they should think like a player all the time, even if they are a coach, uh, and the best folks definitely do that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. What I\u2019m hearing there is like comp them like a player. And if they start coaching while they\u2019re playing. playing, that\u2019s probably a good sign to move them into the management position.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> totally, and it goes back to what we talked a little bit about earlier, which is these early AEs should be learning and documenting too, right? So if you have, let\u2019s say you have four AEs selling your early product, and not only is one of them doing pretty well, but they\u2019re doing well because they have a process that\u2019s pretty buttoned up, and they\u2019ve started to share best practices with the other AEs.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re even teaching the founder some things about how their product is perceived in the market. Well, shoot, that\u2019s basically the job, right? So in many ways, I think the person will kind of select for themselves. And rather than having to be sort of anointed from the I. C. position.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Well, man, I could talk to you about this topic all day long. Um, it\u2019s so incredible to be able to extract some of this insight and all this, this learning that you\u2019ve had. So I really appreciate you sharing it. I have, I have two more questions, but before we, we get to them. Anything else broadly on this topic?<\/p>\n<p>We didn\u2019t cover that you might think, uh, is important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Uh, so this is slightly related, but a little, uh, a little adjacent. But I think that early stage founders in particular need to think very hard about marketing. Especially product marketing and don\u2019t wait too long to do that. Simply because we\u2019ve talked a lot about how you hire an ease, right?<\/p>\n<p>The people selling your product, of course we haven\u2019t talked about, but intrinsic to this is who are the engineers building the product engineers and PMs, I think sometimes companies hire both those. And then they pick their heads up and realize, Oh my gosh, like this that we built is not at all what this is being sold or being demanded by the market.<\/p>\n<p>We have a total mismatch in what our messaging and product positioning is. And that\u2019s really an important marketing exercise that shouldn\u2019t be an afterthought. And I think it\u2019s, uh, I think the best founders think about this early and kind of have a plan for product marketing before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> I\u2019m feeling another, uh, episode coming up here. I think at some point of how to hire your first marketer, your first product marketer, we\u2019ll just, we\u2019ll just keep it, keep it going for each, each role. Um, that\u2019s a great call out though. So final two questions. I always keep these questions the same. Um, and they are intentionally vague, so you can take them any way you want.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t have to be anything around what we\u2019ve discussed. Um, but my first question is what is one widely held belief? That revenue leaders or founders hold to be true that you think is bullshit, or at least no longer serving us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah, I have a, I have sort of a cop out answer, Scott, which is, uh, I don\u2019t have a hot take here and I think because of where we are in the technology life cycle of AI, honestly, um, it will surprise you not at all to know that here at Bain Capital Ventures, we\u2019re talking and thinking about AI more than perhaps we should, uh, and perhaps it\u2019s healthy, but we, I mean, it is going to change so much.<\/p>\n<p>Our private equity. Uh, side of the business is thinking a lot about, uh, when they acquire a company like Fogo de Ch\u00e3o or, uh, um, or Canada Goose. Like how, how is AI going to enable those businesses? And we\u2019re thinking about it too on the venture side. And it\u2019s just changing so many processes and in a way.<\/p>\n<p>And perhaps greater than the Internet that I think it\u2019s dangerous to say, okay, we\u2019re still going to do this like we always have, but everything else can change. Um, and so I think, I think it\u2019s important to reevaluate a lot of our prior assumptions. Um, and then the last thing I\u2019ll say is, I do think the thing I like about early stage sales is you\u2019re learning, things are changing all the time and therefore there.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s rarely a single right answer. There\u2019s, there\u2019s certainly some wrong answers. Like, I don\u2019t think you should, uh, not compensate AEs using a variable compensation method, for example. But, um, I don\u2019t want to go so far as to say, like, everyone has that wrong. Um, maybe it\u2019s my personality too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> I like it. Well, what I\u2019m hearing though, is almost rethink all of your beliefs. Now that we\u2019re in a new<\/p>\n<p>age of AI, you know, re underwrite all of your thinking, all of your systems, all of your process. We are in a new world now. Um, and so rethink it all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean, we\u2019re seeing that with, uh, AI enablement for SDRs and BDRs, right? I mean, there are now AI BDRs, and you might be getting spammy, uh, cold outreach from, uh, from a bot, essentially. That will certainly change the way humans behave. I mean, humans are extremely adaptable. Five years ago, COVID locked us in our houses for, you know, indefinitely and many of us, uh, survived and, and lived to do normal things despite that incredible change, uh, in our lives.<\/p>\n<p>And, uh, akin to that, I think this is going to change a lot of things in business and we should look hard at our processes. And really re evaluate them based on that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Absolutely. And my bot might be responding to that<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> Yeah. No, it\u2019s just It\u2019s just gonna be<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> And my, my bot will know what I want and my needs and maybe they\u2019ll get some meetings because, uh, it will be valuable. Um, I love it. Okay. Final question. I call it the silver bullet question. Of course, there\u2019s no silver bullets and go-to-market.<\/p>\n<p>I wish there were, but. Uh, what is just one tactic or strategy that\u2019s currently working for one of the companies, uh, that you\u2019re working closely with in the portfolio?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe DiMento:<\/strong> simple one Just being extremely customer oriented no matter what I think especially the earlier you go, right? When you have a huge sales team and you you have, you know tens of thousands of leads a month and you have a process that\u2019s like a 45 day close then, you know, you can Take a customer in, close them, move on, you need not know that much about them, frankly, because they came to you.<\/p>\n<p>At the beginning, it\u2019s the complete opposite, right? You\u2019re literally going out there and saying, hey, you\u2019ve never heard of this product or even this idea, but here\u2019s why I think you might want to consider it. And in order to make that happen, you need to know exactly who that person is. What do they care about?<\/p>\n<p>What do they do in their job? What\u2019s their boss\u2019s name? Like, are they gonna get promoted? Do they care about that? Do they have kids? Like, do they work on the weekends? Like, all these things that I think You can\u2019t go wrong obsessing over, and many of the great companies we work with now just do that to a T.<\/p>\n<p>Uh, one of my favorite founders, uh, Chris Terlica of MaintainX. When we, when I see him, he can just rattle off the names and the nature of all these customers. And they have thousands and thousands of customers. And he just keeps focusing on that because of the value that they\u2019re driving. And so I think you really can\u2019t go wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Be with being extremely customer obsessed and making sure that your team does the same thing. And really cares a lot about these people because they\u2019re paying money for something that you\u2019re building and you got to do right by them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Barker:<\/strong> Absolutely. Absolutely. Customer obsession. I think that is a great way to end the episode. It is so incredibly important and it was always important, but it now somehow feels even more. Important as we automate more things, you know, just being that human to human and knowing them, uh, intimately on an interpersonal level is, is really a massive differentiator.<\/p>\n<p>Um, well, Joe, thank you so much. This genuinely was a very, very enjoyable conversation. One of my, my favorite episodes, and I\u2019m excited to share this with many of our founders. Cause like I said, I get this question all the time and it was fun to really go. Go deep with you. And, uh, again, appreciate all the support from you and the team at, uh, BCV and, uh, you know, to our listeners, I say it every week, uh, listening\u2019s one thing, you know, actually executing is something totally different.<\/p>\n<p>Uh, hopefully we gave you some tactics, strategies to go and, uh, either be successful as a first sales hire or go find that person who\u2019s going to change the trajectory of your, your business. And, uh, we\u2019ll see you all next week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/gtmnow.com\/gtm-134-when-to-hire-your-first-sales-reps-joe-dimento\/\">GTM 134: When to Hire Your First Sales Reps (And How to Get It Right) with Joe DiMento<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/gtmnow.com\">GTMnow<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The GTM Podcast is available on any major directory, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Joe&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hudsonpcrepair.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}