Vp Of Sales And Operations: Fill & Download for Free

A rough structure for your first 1–25 sales reps:Early days:CEO acts as VP of Sales.CEO hires 2 reps, in the beginning, each barely pays for themselves, but by months 4–6 they are able to close 3x-5x their total compensation.Once 2+ reps can do 3x-5x their comp, the model gets pretty efficient.Then:Have to scale from reps 3–8 or so. CEO often struggles to manage so many directly.CEO starts looking for true VP of Sales before $1m, ideally hires one by $1m in ARR.VP of Sales hires next 5–10 reps herself.After 8–10 reps, you have to add more management:A VP of Sales can probably only manage 6–8 reps and a handful of SDRs herself.So for each 8 AEs or so, and 8–10 SDRs, you need a Director of Sales.You also start specializing more here. Segmenting by customer size, and sometimes geography.By 15 sales reps, you probably need a first head of sales operations to handle training, onboarding, compensation, quotas, etc. Earlier if you can afford it.

When do you stop taking out the trash?My general learnings:By 20 employees, you should have 1-2 good managers in place such that at least 50% of the company can run based only on weekly staff meetings, 1-on-1s, and "grab me when you need me-s". E.g., a great VP of Sales that can just handle sales. A great VP of Engineering that can just ship the product from spec with no drama, etc. So you don't have to directly manage at least several of the key functional areas in the company at all. You won't have it all but you need to not be the Interim VP for at least 50% of the operations.By 50 employees, you must have a complete initial management team. This means you are no longer the effective VP of any functional area. You must not be micromanaging anything at this point, if at all possible, and have fully become a "macromanager."By 200 employees, you don't need to have a role in hiring any non-managers. Not only are you no longer the boss of any area, but every functional area needs to hire and manage its own staff and self-propogate. You spend all your recruiting time just on VPs and above.By 500 employees, it's OK if you don't really know the names of the new folks. Employees start to simply become resources at this point. They'll come and (hopefully at not too high of a rate) go. Your VPs and managers will deal with this. You just make the company meetings great. Inspire the troops. And hit the plan.

It varies.A “true” VP of Sales often wants nothing more to do with a customer after a deal closes.Because most great VPs of Sales are closers. They want to close, and move on. And close another one. Managing support, customer success, any part of post-sales is a distraction. And one that keeps her away from hitting her ARR or bookings quota.But often times, a good VP of Sales over time wants to own more, and become a bit of a Chief Revenue Officer.CROs often own the entire revenue cycle process.But to do that right — they have to hire a great VP of Sales under them.Most can’t.Most take the title and role as a vanity. And fail because of it.