it’s not them, it’s you

A founder booked a call with me last week. She mentioned they'd just let go of their second sales hire in 18 months and weren’t sure where to go next. 

"I keep hiring the wrong people," she said. "They had great backgrounds and have done this before. But they just... couldn't figure it out. Am I just really bad at this?"

I asked what the pipeline looked like when they started.

*long pause*

"There wasn't really a pipeline. That's why we hired them."

✨There it was✨ 

She had hired salespeople and then asked them to do everything but sell… figure out who the ideal customer was and generate demand with no brand, no inbound, and no past data.

That's not a sales job. 

Product and marketing create demand. Sales harvests demand.

When your job description includes "source pipeline" and "develop messaging" and "create the playbook" you are not hiring a salesperson. You are (trying) to hire a unicorn who will solve the hardest parts of building a company.

The “been there/seen what good looks like” sales hires aren’t bad at their jobs. They've just never had to do this job. 99.9% of people haven’t. The other .01% are founders. 

Try this week: 

Pull up your last (or current) sales job description. Highlight every responsibility that assumes pipeline, leads, or demand already exists vs. responsibilities that require creating it from nothing.

If most of the job is "create from nothing" that is your sign that you don't have a hiring problem! 

You’re just not ready to hire *yet*. Keep building.

Please let me know if this resonated, and what else you'd like me to write about!

I'm here for you. 

-Monica