Build a Sales Ops Foundation Before You Scale
Hiring more reps to fix a broken sales motion is expensive. Fix the motion first — then scale.
The most expensive mistake I see growth-stage companies make is hiring the next five reps before fixing the sales motion the current five are struggling with. More reps on a broken motion don't produce more revenue — they produce more chaos.
The foundation, in five parts
One: a defined sales process with stage entry and exit criteria. Two: an ICP and disqualification criteria that reps actually apply. Three: a lead-response SLA with the tooling to enforce it. Four: a playbook covering discovery, demo, and closing. Five: a reporting cadence that ties activity to pipeline to revenue.
The order matters
Don't touch comp until the process is defined. Don't touch territories until the ICP is clear. Don't touch dashboards until the CRM is clean. Sequence matters — most 'RevOps projects' fail because they try to fix everything at once.