Do Not Hire Your First VP of Sales — A Case for the Interim Executive
Photo by Andrii Leonov on Unsplash
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
not from Albert Einstein
Picture a B2B start-up.
The founder and a team of engineers and developers have built a great product. The founder has taken it to potential clients, received positive responses, hired a couple of salespeople, and sold it a few times. Now it is time to scale through sales.
At this point, do not HIRE your first VP of Sales!
The executive recruiting process is going to take six months, cost $50–70k, and you will fire the person after 12–18 months and start over.
The recruiting typically starts when an internal or external recruiter is being given a job description and starts the process of posting, active outreach, screening, and interviewing. This process can take a very long time! In researching what “long” actually means, I came across several executive recruiters that describe “long” as “it depends,” “up to one year,” or “longer.” Some do claim shorter timeframes and publish timelines of 90–120 days — for all the steps they can control.
My observation is that it is at least a six-month process until you have a person of your choosing start their first day on the job.
Most executive search firms charge a percentage fee. On average, retained executive search firms charge 33% of first-year total cash compensation (base salary + bonus). Even if you get a “deal” at 20 or 25%, you can do the math on a $200k+ total cash compensation. It is an expensive undertaking.
The numbers on tenure for the sales leader vary just a little bit. They range from “less than a year” to “24 months.” The two common denominators are (1) the tenure of the VP of Sales is only half that of all other executives, and (2) the younger the company, the shorter the tenure. Sayings like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” are around for a reason.
So, a prediction that you are going to fire this person and have to start over is not far-fetched.
At this point, you may think, “I am going to break this cycle.” Break it by promoting your best sales rep that you have known for a long time. Or break it by hiring a friend that you always wanted to bring into the business.
Let’s step back: as a founder, owner, CEO, or board member, you start by defining your needs: the goals you want to accomplish, the specifics of your sales structure, the nature of your product, the target markets, etc. Promoting from within or bringing in a friend may not give you the experience and skills required to achieve those goals. At the very least, you may have to accept the longer learning curve of an inexperienced individual.
On the other hand, there is most definitely someone out there who has done before what you aim to accomplish. The perfect match is bringing their experience into your organization!
If finding a skilled, experienced sales leader is a top priority, and the urgency of filling the void is recognized, it is the ideal timeto bring in an interim sales leader.
· They can be available within a few days.
· They integrate into your organization just like a permanent hire would.
· They can be fractional or part-time, only pay for what you need.
· They are generally (over) qualified and are immediately impactful.
· They can transition into a permanent role, so try-before-you-buy.
Contact us if you would like to explore this option.
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Originally published at https://www.vendux.org on June 16, 2020.
