Before you fire your new AE, read this

Six months ago you made your first real sales hire.

They had the right background, did well at their last company, maybe they said they had built some processes.  Finally, someone to take deals off your plate so you can get back into other parts of the business! 

But six months in, it’s not working like you thought. Maybe a few things have closed but they were mostly deals you sourced and/or helped with. The pipeline looks busy, but nothing's moving. And you're starting to think you made a mistake.

Maybe you did. Sometimes it is the rep. But before you start over, it's worth getting super clear on what the problem is…is it a bad hire or a bad process?

Here's the diagnostic I run first. Three questions:

1. Do they get what the job is? 

Are they on the same page with you about what they are there to do (close deals, build pipeline, build process, or hire a team?)

2. Do they want it? 

Is the version of the role you need from them something they are excited about doing? Or would they like the role to be something different?

3. Do they have the capacity to do it? 

Do they have the specific skill set the role needs? Have they done it before (recently) or have they shown that they are capable in another way?

If they miss one of these, it might be a mis-hire and starting over might be the right call.

But if they pass all three, a person who gets it, wants it, and is capable, and still isn't closing, the problem is most likely you. 

You closed most of those early deals yourself. Which means you have a system that is probably living in your head as instinct. You never clearly documented it, so there's nothing to hand anyone, and there are probably parts of it that wouldn’t work the same for them anyways. 

Here's how to get it out:

1. Start with your own closed deals. Go back to the recordings if you have them. 

2. Name the things you habitually do. The questions you ask in discovery, how you prioritize the deal. What you do when they say "send us a proposal”, how you handle pricing conversations. Write them down in as much detail as you can (AI can help a lot here). 

3. Map the path stage by stage. What has to be true for a deal to move from one stage to the next?
   
   

4. Run it with your sales hire on 5-6 live deals before you hand it off. Compare what happened against the path you wrote down. Where they veer off is where your framework needs more detail.
   
   

5. Update it as you go. The first version will be wrong in places and will evolve. That's good! The point is that it now exists somewhere other than your head, and someone else can pick it up and take it from here.
   
   

This works whether it was a good hire or not. The diagnostic might tell you it really is the rep. But a capable person can't run a process that doesn't exist, and most founders fire the person before they check whether the system was there to begin with.

This week: Ask yourself the 3 questions above and pull up 5-10 deals you closed yourself and write down the steps and skills that made them work.

P.S. Do you have a rep who is struggling right now? Hit reply and let me know what’s going on - I’m here to help 🙂