Great teams aren’t bought — they’re built. Nurture talent, then stack the stars.
With the NBA playoffs in full swing, the early results have brought clarity to the two ways that teams have been built that have had the most success: pay the most for a couple star players and fill in the team with lower priced role players, or find undervalued or less experienced talent that can be coached to perform well; once they develop, add some higher priced veterans for stability, experience and accelerated growth.
Successful sales teams are often also built in these two ways. For smaller SaaS companies, it is tempting to "shoot from the logo" with high priced salespeople with lots of stock options (assuming you can even recruit them) as opposed to developing less experienced talent at a lower cost point. The obvious risk in starting with high end salespeople is that if the organization can’t properly support them, they will go to larger companies (likely within 12 months) that can pay them and support them.
The risk with hiring junior salespeople is that if they don’t develop, you need to continuously replace them. The key is always the sales leadership that has an eye for talent and has a sales process that works for both junior and senior salespeople.
The financial impact of getting this wrong can delay success for at least eighteen months (six months to recruit, six months to onboard/ramp and six months to determine if the salesperson will be consistently successful). Multiply each failure by this length of time and it's easy to see why choosing the right sales model is critical to short-term and long-term success. All told, it is easily a multi-million dollar bet.
Of course, the market being pursued is also a factor in determining which model to use. For example, senior people aren’t likely to want to sell into the mid-market space and junior people aren’t likely skilled enough to be successful in the enterprise space (although there are exceptions).
If we apply these two models to NBA teams, the Lakers, with LeBron James and Luca Doncic, have chosen to pay close to $100 million per year to these two players and fill in the roster with easily replaceable (and lower cost) players in an effort to have their best chance of winning now (note that the Lakers are currently down 3-1 in their series against up can coming Minnesota). Meanwhile, the OKC Thunder has chosen to recruit (draft) and develop younger (lower cost) high ceiling talent and as they develop, fill in the gaps with more experienced (but not superstar) players. (The Thunder won their series 4-0.)
Now let’s analyze their management: the Thunder has a very process-oriented coach that is expert at developing young talent, while the Lakers have a coach that is there to ensure that the superstars are satisfied with the talent level around them.
By the way, the Thunder are the top seeded team in the West (the Celtics, which also chose this model, are the top seeded team in the East). This approach requires patience, as it takes time to develop consistent success, while the superstar-led approach is a high risk/high reward approach.
Meanwhile, the Lakers have had three coaches in the past three years, while the Thunder have had the same coach for the past three years.
For a small SaaS company, hiring superstar salespeople is not realistic, but hiring a sales leader that can identify and nurture less experienced salespeople is not only possible, it is the more efficient way to build a fast growing sales team. Once the team develops momentum and the company can support enterprise companies’ projects, then bring in higher end enterprise proven talent, which will elevate the entire team.
In other words, the choice between these two team building models depends on your time horizon, ability to pay and the market being pursued. If your SaaS organization is struggling to build its sales team, please ask Virtual Dave or email dave@moicpartners.com.
Virtual Dave is an AI-based virtual sales support tool trained on 40 years of enterprise software sales experience, available 24/7 to enhance sales process consistency.
