If you’re a first-time founder, you’ve likely come across the phrase founder-led sales quite a few times—and for good reason.

When you’re getting off the ground, you are the biggest advocate and champion of your business. You created it. You know the ins-and-outs. You understand how the product is best utilized. What your ICP is. 

So, there’s no question that you should be at the forefront of selling. 

Eventually, the need for sales to grow from a one-person team becomes a reality, and you have to go from knocking on doors to poring over resumes. 

But how exactly do you go about that? How do you find high-quality sales folks who can accelerate the foundation you built as a founder?

To get some answers, we sat down with our very own CRO, Tommy McNulty, to get his perspective on how founders can best approach the process of hiring their first salesperson. 

If you want to check out additional insights from Tommy, be sure to check out his full conversation with the Head of Marketing at Rho, Justin Wolz.

Just get out and do it 

When you’re looking to hire your first salesperson, it can be easy to fall into the trap of trying to perfect your pitch beforehand. And the thinking is sound. The more solidified your sales foundation is, the better. 

But here’s the problem: until your pitch has been battle tested, it means nothing. Tommy’s advice? Get out, fail, learn, and repeat. 

“You have to go and talk to the customer for the first time, have a pitch, get beat up, figure out why you got beat up,” said Tommy. 

The key is iterating on your pitch after every conversation—by deleting, not adding. 

“Even the smartest people in the world can only ingest two to three pieces of information at any moment in time. So what a great salesperson does is they start deleting things from the pitch. They're not adding anything. And eventually you get to this really crisp way of describing your product and your hard work meets luck at some point where you find the person that really resonates with.” 

There is no silver bullet

As a founder, once you’ve committed to hiring your first salesperson, it’s important to remember one reality: this person will not be your savior or your silver bullet if things are in total disarray. 

If you think you have selling problems or pitch problems or value proposition problems, you need to solve those before you bring in the salesperson.

While you don’t necessarily need to be an expert in sales, you should have proven your product's market fit by securing a few initial calls with non-family, non-investor contacts. "There has to be a kernel of something that worked at least once or twice.”

This foundational work validates the demand for the product and helps establish a clearer sales strategy that you can then hand off to your first hire.

“Things will not be built out, things will be messy. But you want to be able to say, ‘Start selling this way and then figure out how it's going to work for you.’”

Early on, titles don’t matter

With the explosion of the sales function over the last few decades, deciding which role to hire for can be a huge challenge in itself. SDR? AE? For Tommy, this is an inconsequential decision long-term.

“There's a lot of things out there like, ‘Hire an SDR. Hire an AE. Hire someone with this background. Hire someone with that background.’ It doesn't matter. You need to find someone with the right intrinsics who are motivated by the task at hand,” said Tommy. 

But regardless of which route you go, accept that this is a single person tasked with scaling your sales function—so don’t put too much pressure on them. 

“Make them a part of the team. Don't put a whole lot of risk on their head. Make sure they have good equity upside. Be supportive. Understand that the role is really hard.”

Character over experience 

While it’s a fair assumption to make that this first hire has to be someone with deep sales experience, don’t be quick to dismiss someone who’s just getting started. 

On one hand, someone with experience can likely hit the ground running and will require very little oversight. But there are some risks as well. 

“They know how to do sales, but the risks are like, ‘Oh my God, I don't have 17 tools. I don't have resources. I don't have an AM. I don't have an STR. I don't have a script,’” said Tommy. 

And while someone with no experience may require a bit more patience and training, “...the characteristics of the person are far more important than the experience that they have.” 

In the end, it ultimately comes down finding someone with the motivation to get the job done, regardless of background. 

Don’t skip on references 

While the reference check stage might feel like a formality before an eventual offer, be sure to actually approach the process tactfully. 

“The point of a reference check is to ask very specific questions," said Tommy.

"If you go into a reference check and you say, ‘What do you think about this person?’ They're going to say, ‘They're great.’ If you go into a reference check and you say, ‘Hey, if I fired this person in three months, what would be the reason?’ You'll get an accurate understanding of what that person's deficiencies are,” said Tommy. 

It’s incumbent upon you to do your due diligence and get as clear of a picture of the person you’re about to give an offer to. Gather as many data points. Ask questions with depth. 

Expectation setting is everything 

Finally, once you do find the right person and bring them on board, you have to be clear and unambiguous in the expectations you set for them.

Leaving any room for interpretation or confusion, particularly with a more junior hire, can lead to some less-than-stellar results. If you need someone to cold outbound 50 people per day, be up front about that. If there’s a need for them to focus on follow-up email sequences, then be direct about that, too. 

“What you don't want to have happen is someone who gets caught up in strategy when you need [them] to just go out and talk to customers,” said Tommy. 

“And then for early career people, you have to set the expectation like, ‘Hey, I'm taking a risk on you but you need to grow quickly.’”

Note: This content is for informational purposes only. It doesn't necessarily reflect the views of Rho and should not be construed as legal, tax, benefits, financial, accounting, or other advice. If you need specific advice for your business, please consult with an expert, as rules and regulations change regularly.

‍