Sales Department that works
Building a successful sales department is challenging for many owners with a Tech background, but it’s not impossible. The key is learning from common mistakes that can drain your resources and slow your growth.
I’ve seen many startups struggle because they followed popular advice from LinkedIn instead of proven methods. The difference between a sales team that grows your business and one that costs you money comes down to avoiding classic critical mistakes.
Here’s a list of mistakes to analyze and adjust if you’re in this situation.
The Problem: You think hiring salespeople means you don’t need to sell anymore.
The Truth: If you haven’t personally closed your first 20 deals, your team will struggle.
When you sell those first deals yourself, you learn valuable lessons. You discover what customers want, what pricing works, which concerns stop deals, and how your product solves real problems.
This knowledge becomes the foundation for training your team.
Maria Lopes, VP of Sales, explains: “When founders understood our sales process, our new reps learned twice as fast. They knew what we sold because they’d seen it sold.”
What to do: Close 20 deals yourself before hiring your first salesperson. Write down every conversation in CRM, concern, and technique that works.
The Problem: You hire a Head of Sales before you have a working sales process.
The Truth: You’re paying high salaries for leadership when you need people who can execute.
VPs and HoS are good at growing proven systems. Without proven salespeople and processes, you’re asking them to build everything from the beginning, something they may not have done recently.
Wait until you have two successful salespeople consistently meeting their targets. Then bring in leadership to organize and grow what’s already working.
What to do: Don’t hire senior leadership until you’ve proven your sales process with individual salespeople.
The Problem: You focus on resumes instead of how people present themselves.
The Truth: Your first hires set the standard for your entire sales team.
Ask yourself this question about every candidate: Would I buy from this person? If the answer is no, keep looking.
You can teach skills. You cannot teach presence, credibility, and genuine enthusiasm.
Anton Fedulov, Co-Founder, Sales Label Consulting this: “Personally, I made several mistakes regarding personas who have been involved in startup development, just relying only on skills instead of a human approach.”
What to do: In interviews, have candidates sell you something as a role play. Watch how they connect with you, handle questions, and try to close.
The Problem: You think the EPAM or Ciklum experience automatically means startup success.
The Truth: Big company salespeople often need extensive support systems to succeed, and their job salary expectations are higher.
Large companies train skilled professionals, but also people used to having many resources, long sales processes, and complex approval systems, which are expensive.
Look for candidates who have succeeded in smaller, resource-limited companies like yours. They’ll adapt faster and work better with less support.
What to do: Focus on candidates from companies similar to yours, or those who’ve successfully moved from big companies to startups mode.
The Problem: You treat sales compensation as an expense to minimize.
The Truth: In sales, you get what you pay for.
Your compensation plan should include:
Complex plans reduce motivation and drive only salespeople who come to the company and only earn a base salary. Simple plans drive results.
What to do: Research market rates in your area and industry. In the IT industry, it started from 1% to 10% revenue from a deal won during 12 or 24 months. In SaaS B2B based on deal revenue, 1%, and quota exceeded, commission of 3 months’ salary, for example.
The Problem: You think new hires will learn just by being around experienced people.
The Truth: Structured training is essential.
Listening to calls isn’t training—it’s just observing. Real training includes:
Helena Carvalho, Growth VP, saw quick results: “Adding weekly call reviews and practicing objection handling increased our close rates by 25% in three months. Sales success isn’t about guessing.”
What to do: Create a 30-60-90 day training program with clear goals and measurable results. Also, we suggest having a look at our sales courses here: https://salesmateslibrary.com/
The Problem: You have salespeople handling every part of the sales process indefinitely. Unfortunately, 60% of companies have this style of management and format of accountability.
The Truth: Specialization improves performance.
Start with salespeople who handle the entire process; they need to understand everything. But as you grow, separate:
Specialists perform better than generalists.
What to do: Once you have 4-5 salespeople, start specializing roles based on individual strengths.
The Problem: You focus too much on activity numbers and pipeline volume.
The Truth: Revenue pays your bills, not activity.
Track calls and Pre-Sales, but prioritize:
Activity numbers should help you make decisions, not define success.
What to do: Build reports that show revenue results first, with activity numbers as supporting information.
The Problem: You manage quotas instead of managing people. I need Quota, Quota what I need…
The Truth: Burnout quietly destroys your budget and sales team.
Sales is demanding work with intense pressure. Your top performers need:
Catarina Mendes, VP Sales, learned this lesson: “We thought quotas were the answer—until people started leaving. We started doing wellness checks and flexible quota management. Our retention improved by 40%.” It means, 1 sales manager leaves – with him leaves 40% of your revenue.Â
What to do: Schedule monthly one-on-one meetings focused on career development and satisfaction, not just numbers.
Most people think the best salespeople are the loudest ones. This is wrong.
Alex Sinichenko, Co-Founder, Sales Label Consulting noticed: “Our moderate personality reps consistently beat the loud talkers every week. Sales isn’t about being loud; it’s about connecting with people.”
Look for candidates who can adjust their communication style to match their prospects. Real connection works better than aggressive pressure.
Great sales teams don’t happen by chance. They’re built through careful planning, systematic processes, and constant focus on what actually creates revenue.
Every mistake on this list will cost you time, money, and opportunities. But avoiding them will help you build a sales department that gives you a competitive advantage.
The choice is yours: learn from others’ expensive mistakes, or make them yourself.
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Co-Founder & CEO with Sales Label Consulting Company
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