7 Avoidable Mistakes Kiwi Tech Startups Make When Building Their First Sales Team

As a startup, building a sales team is never easy and mistakes will be undoubtedly made. Here is a list of the key mistakes that too many Kiwi startups are making every day - If you can avoid these you will achieve faster growth with fewer headaches!

1.    You hire salespeople before you have proven you can sell your own product first - If you can’t sell it don’t expect a salesperson who doesn’t share your intimate passion to be able to do it for you!

2.    Your first sales hire is too senior i.e Sales Director/VP of Revenue – First build a small team of reps that can hit a realistic sales quota and be doing about $1million+ revenue before bringing in such a senior leader.

3.    You underpay your sales team - Sales is hard and salespeople get in to it to earn good money, if you underpay compared to the market good people will leave you or you will only attract low quality talent.

4.    You set unrealistic, unachievable sales quota’s – If you salespeople are set up to fail it creates a toxic culture that ultimately results in good talent leaving.

5.    You hire the wrong type of salespeople for your business – You can’t expect someone who is used to selling at a $100 price-point to be successful at a $100,000 price-point and vice-versa. Ensure that any new hires are familiar with selling at a similar price-point and similar sales cycle to your product.

6.    You hire someone from Microsoft, LinkedIn, Salesforce etc. – There is a big difference in being successful at a large enterprise where salespeople have infinite resources and an established, proven product to sell versus in a small scrappy startup like yours.

7.    You don’t invest time and resources in to training your sales team – Don’t expect your sales team to outperform if you aren’t giving them the structure and training they need. This becomes even more imperative as your team grows!

Avoid these mistakes and achieve an easier and faster path towards scaling your organisation and sales growth!