Thread by @lennysan

One of my biggest surprises from researching B2B growth is that 100% of successful bottom-up B2B companies eventually add a sales team. It's not a question of if – it's a question of when and how.

Below are my fav 5 tips from @Kazanjy for setting this transition up for success👇

1/ First, do sales yourself. As a foremost expert in the problem space, you’re best positioned to have the first few dozen sales conversations.

Later on, these sales tasks will be handed to a specially hired salesperson but only after the initial motion has been roughed out.

2/ To get a sense of the need for a full-time salesperson, add a “Contact Us” or “Contact Sales” CTA to your home page in a place that wouldn't distract the user from self-sign up. Watch for inbound requests asking for large-company-type needs (e.g. SOC 2, consolidate billing)

3/ To figure out the ROI of a potential salesperson, use this model. Generally speaking, you want to see a salesperson delivering 4x their fully loaded cost in incremental revenue.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

4/ There are 2 reasons to add salespeople to a self-serve product:

1. “Scooping up” pods of successfully activated customers and facilitating expansion
2. Helping with conversion of unactivated customers

Before hiring, be clear on the initial focus of this salesperson.

5/ Avoid going top-down. Your current strength and asset is that you have a self-serve product that users love. A top-down motion will mean interacting with decision-makers who are so far removed from the day to day work your product facilitates. Do this later.

6/ For so much more, don't miss the full post below. And for EVEN MORE, don't miss @Kazanjy's definitive and highly-actionable book on startup sales: foundingsales.com

lennyrachitsky.com/p/sales-bottom…