In 2021, after my business operations stabilised post end of Covid Lockdowns (not worried about survival), I decided to focus my efforts towards growth. I knew little on the B2B sales cycle, so I decided to hire a “Sales Manager”. Six months and ₹ 2.5 Lakhs poorer, I learnt a valuable lesson:
You cannot hire for a a process or function when you cannot differentiate between activity and progress.
I spent most of career in Business Operations, so sales was a black box. I knew the words that people in sales use but never really understood what these terms actually mean in a real world sense.
So I decided to hire someone to help me build a sales function with my company. After meeting a few candidates, my Ops manager recommended one with 12+ years of industry experience.
During his interview, he shared multiple anecdotes and success stories from his prior roles. He rarely mentioned how he did it or support required to succeed in his role.
I had my doubts but my insecurities and personal vetting by my Ops manager made me ignore them. I made him an offer, and he joined us a week later.
Most article or podcast on sales repeat the same advice: Sales momentum requires 2-3 months of investment in time and efforts. Trusting the advice I told him:
I don’t expect results for the first 2 months. I expect business to start flowing after Month two. Take your time to settle in and keep me posted on a weekly basis.
What I actually said was:
I don’t know how to measure sales, so I will pay you to exist and hope revenue appears.
For the next 90 days after his joining, he update me on his “building relationships” and “reaching out to my network” activities. He appeared busy but apart from a single proposal, nothing else happened.
Sales, like any other business functions has its own set of metrics. Tracking (a) leads generated, (b) qualifying leads to prospects, and (c) proposals sent, allows you to measure your progress. Only then can you understand why you won or lost a deal.
I never correlated work done by my sales manager with these metrics. Hence, I couldn’t verify if he was doing the work or not.
Here is what I had missed: even if he did work hard, he would have failed. He had always worked in a company where a sales system or process was in place. He never understood how to build one.
I asked him to resign and he left quietly. A week later, I ran the numbers: I paid him ₹ 2.5 Lakhs as salary and generated zero revenue. In Business, you can earn money lost but not time wasted. I had wasted the post-lockdown momentum in the market.
The failure was not his. It was mine.
I expected him to build a sales machine for me. However, not every employee is an architect (build new things), as most are just operators (work within a proven system). I could not tell the difference between “the market is tough” and “the approach is wrong”. I needed an architect but never evaluated his abilities during the interview.
Basecamp founders in their book “Rework”, recommend hiring anyone only after you yourself have understood what needs to be done by actually doing it yourself. Only then, will have a clear understanding on what needs to be done and the type of person to hire
I invested the next couple of weeks of actually doing the job I was scared to do. I reviewed existing leads, cold calling for meetings and sharing our service proposal.
Sales has its own rules and quirks. Ironically, it also dawned upon me that I was doing similar work on a regular basis but never called it sales. We were poor at lead generation, which needed real external support.
While I am yet to hire a “Sales Manager”, the lesson stayed with me: never hire for a role you have not done it yourself for two weeks.
If you are about to hire a “Head of Growth” or “Senior Sales Lead” to solve a problem you do not understand, stop. You are falling into the trap of agency cost. You cannot improve something that you can’t measure.
Spend the next couple of weeks to do the job or get someone within your company to do it. Identify three specific metrics that can prove work is actually being done or not. For ex: In sales, measure (monthly basis): Leads Generated, Leads to prospects conversion % and Proposals sent.
If you cannot write three key metrics within ten minutes, you still lack clarity. Once you are clear on the role, you will know the type of person to hire. Define your baseline across each metric, allowing you to intervene when required.
Ignorance is expensive. Experience is cheaper.