Founders who are the primary salespeople often get trapped in a cycle: sell heavily, then get overwhelmed with service and operations, causing the pipeline to dip. This desperation leads them to hire salespeople without the necessary infrastructure, a costly mistake.
Instead of documenting the sales process themselves, busy founders should first hire a sales leader. This leader's initial job is not to manage a team, but to shadow the founder, document their process through an objective lens, and build the system before the first sales reps are brought on board.
Founders, often sales 'savants,' struggle to build a team because they try to teach their personal, intuitive methods. This fails because new hires can't replicate it. The solution is to create a documented, universal process that anyone can understand and execute, independent of the founder's unique skills.
Entrepreneurs default to high-commission/low-base plans to mitigate bad hire risk. This is a symptom of a weak sales process. A strong, documented process de-risks hiring, enabling higher base salaries which attract different talent and ultimately lower the total cost per sale.