The first sales hire should be what we at In Revenue Capital call a “Founding AE.” This person is more than just a salesperson; they’re a business partner, a fellow entrepreneur who brings business intelligence to the table and can also deliver results as an individual contributor.
After hiring your Founding AE, you’ll soon realize that managing a sales team presents a unique challenge—one that might be outside your usual experience as a founder. Sales professionals have a different approach compared to engineers, product developers, or customer success teams. Those who fit the Founding AE profile often have an independent, sometimes maverick, attitude. While this trait can be valuable, it’s crucial to manage them effectively, as the best salespeople often end up managing you too.
Simplifying Sales Management
The key to effective sales management is simplicity. The goal isn’t to create an administrative burden but to establish a system that fosters productive conversations about pipeline growth and opportunity management.
When it comes to measuring activities, be selective. Cold calls and emails are low-effort and often yield minimal results, so focus on tracking meaningful activities like connections and significant conversations. At this stage, it’s about setting benchmarks for success, so be ready to test and iterate.
Tracking conversions is straightforward, with meetings being the easiest metric to monitor. As you build your sales funnel, tracking activity-to-meeting conversions is a practical approach. Again, simplicity is key for pipeline. Define it as active opportunities in your CRM.
As your team becomes more sophisticated, weighted pipeline stages will become more relevant, but for now, focusing on the pipeline will get you started. Finally, bookings are another critical metric so plan to track closed-won deals against your goals.
Meeting Recommendations
Establishing a regular rhythm for communicating with your sales team is essential, especially in the fast-paced environment of a startup. While impromptu meetings and Slack messages can be effective, schedule meetings with specific goals attached to them.
The following meeting cadence can scale as you build your team; it’s not just for your Founding AE. While the content within this framework may evolve as your team grows, the structure should remain consistent.
Weekly Pipeline Review
It’s important to resist the urge to make every meeting with sales a pipeline meeting, particularly one that devolves into a full deal burndown. Instead, hold a dedicated pipeline meeting with a clear structure to ensure it’s valuable for you and the seller.
This requires preparation from both parties—the seller needs to keep the CRM clean and up to date, and you need to review it before the meeting. Focus on key aspects such as why you win, why you lose, the compelling reason for a customer to buy, and your competitive edge. This approach fosters a collaborative meeting aimed at winning together rather than just pointing out flaws.
Weekly Coaching
Coaching sessions with your Founding AE will likely differ from those you’ll have as your team scales. For now, focus on building their product knowledge and industry expertise, and developing their leadership and entrepreneurial thinking.
Set tangible goals, blending short- and long-term activities. For example, focus on one objective per quarter while building toward a major annual goal. As your team grows, coaching will evolve to include sales methodology and process training across the team.
Weekly 1:1
These sessions should set the stage for coaching and pipeline meetings. They should focus on the individual—their career goals, well-being, and personal connection. Understanding each team member’s motivations is critical to building a high-performance culture. Use these meetings to gauge morale, track goals and performance, and discuss personal development. These 1:1s are powerful tools that shouldn’t be overlooked.
You might be thinking this is a lot of meetings to manage, and you’re right—it is a lift. But the relationship between you, your Founding AE, and your subsequent sales team is crucial to the business’s growth. As you establish a rhythm, these meetings will become mission-critical touchpoints with your go-to-market leaders, helping you keep a pulse on the business.
Final Thoughts
To build a strong sales culture and lay the foundation for long-term success, establish a regular meeting rhythm with clear goals to maintain effective communication and progress tracking. Focus on high-impact activities, prioritizing meaningful connections over volume. Conduct structured pipeline reviews that foster collaboration and goal alignment. Invest in personalized coaching to enhance your Founding AE’s expertise and leadership skills. Finally, cultivate strong relationships through regular one-on-one meetings to understand and support your AE’s career goals and well-being. These steps will help you create a high-performance sales team.
