Why a SaaS CEO must carry a sales quota
Let’s face it. Selling is scary. It’s a microcosm of startup-life itself. It’s a rollercoaster. The highs are exhilarating, the lows are heart-wrenching. One day you’re high-fiving with your colleagues after closing that first enterprise deal. The next, you’re head in hands at your desk, having just received ‘another’ cancellation email from an important account.
Far too many founders and CEOs’ try to hire their way out of this. Far too many companies hire salespeople, as a way to avoid actually picking up the phone and talking to potential customers.
It’s very easy to believe that as a founder, there are “more important things to focus on”. Things like fundraising, accounting, product development and recruiting. Unfortunately for us, there is nothing more important than putting cash in the bank.
Yes, selling is tough. However, if you want to succeed as a SaaS founder — you need to be selling.
“Why can’t I just hire a kickass VP of Sales, a few reps and focus on the stuff I really want to focus on?”
No one understands your product like you do. Your passion, your domain experience, your product knowledge — that is what your early customers will take a bet on, and respond to. Trust me, I’m living this right now.
Most importantly, the feedback and learnings you’ll get from early customers is critical. This will have a huge impact on your product roadmap, sales strategy and pricing plans.
How you, as a company deal with this information is important too, so it’s vital to have this early feedback come through the “Founder Filter”. Early criticism on product bugs or pricing will only alienate sales reps. When you’re ready to pass the baton onto a sales team, you must be sure you’ve worked out those early kinks.
As an early-stage SaaS founder, you should be directly involved in selling to your first 10 customers, at least.
I would go as far to say that, a SaaS Founder/CEO should carry a full sales quota for the first 12 months of the company’s journey.
This keeps the founder’s skin the game and makes sure the leaders are truly leading by example. There is nothing more inspiring to a sales rep or an engineering team than seeing the CEO walk in after closing a massive deal. It sets the tone for the rest of the company. No one is above selling, no one is above delivering a great customer experience.
Why a quota?
Now, perhaps I’ve convinced you that a selling-CEO is a must for an early-stage SaaS company. Why the quota you ask?
Again, it’s all about leading by example. Your CEO should realisitically aim to be the company’s best salesperson during Year One. In addition, it’s super easy to become distracted as a founder/CEO. There are a million things pulling you in a million different directions, and it’s really easy to end the week — having not spoken to any customers.
The accountability of a quota helps keep startup founders engaged in their sales processes, and helps to keep the eye on the ball.
Summary
There is no pride in startups, and there is especially no glamour in being a CEO.
If you’re a < 12 months SaaS founder hiding behind “growth experiment” spreadsheets at your desk instead of picking up the phone, I think you’re in trouble ☺
Now, it’s also worth mentioning that — there is nothing more exciting than seeing your first reps start to challenge you, and eventually overtake you. Then, you know you’ve truly done your job. You’ve passed the baton.
Just don’t try to pass the baton, before you’ve finished your first lap of the track.
