That First Magical Sales Rep

Almost All the Top SaaS Companies Had One

Yesterday on LinkedIn and Twitter we had over 100,000 views and engagements on a quick post on The First Magical Sales rep.

It's worth a deeper dive.

The transition from founder-led sales to a true sales team is often a rough one. Most founders aren't actually great salespeople, but boy, they are good "middlers". If a lead comes in, founders know how to talk to them. How to hack the product to make it work for the prospect. How to have an honest conversation about competition, about feature gaps, and about ... the future of the product and the industry. How to be a true evangelist.

Most sales reps really can't do this. Very few can. And frankly, as you scale to 10 reps, 100 reps, and beyond, you don't need evangelists. You need sales experts.

But these sales experts often just melt and fail when they are the first rep in the company. They don't have the passion for the space, the deep product knowledge, and the passion that a founder has.

Most SaaS companies you will find had this Sales Magician as their first successful sales rep. Someone that maybe wasn't even the very very best sales rep, but was good enough to close, and incredibly fluent and passionate about the product.

These Sales Magicians are often smarter than the average rep. And importantly, often come from a less traditional background. Maybe they were mid-pack, at best, at a second-tier SaaS company. Maybe they came out of an adjacent industry. Often, they don't fit the fold you would expect. Like most "natural athletes", they tend to make up for any gaps with EQ and IQ about your product, customers, and mission.

The trick, the hack, is to find a sales rep you would buy from as founder. You truly would buy from, even during the first meeting with her. If you don't have that, you'll never successfully transition from founder-led sales. You'll never trust her with those few, precious leads. You have to want to buy from her. If you do -- the founder that has sold to the first 10, 20, 100 customers -- then the prospects will, too.

Even if her domain expertise, lack of degrees, and quirky LinkedIn doesn't quite fit what you might expect for your Magical Sales Rep.

A bit more here:

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