Jason M. Lemkin argues that in early-stage sales, leads are scarce and valuable, so startups should concentrate leads with their best-performing sales representatives rather than spreading them thin across mediocre reps who will likely close few or no deals. He emphasizes avoiding unattainable quotas and protecting precious leads for reps who can actually close.
It's not because we don't want to be supportive, but leads are so precious in the early days. Leads are often precious. Up to 20, 30, 40 million. Congratulations to a handful of folks like Calendarly and Zoom and maybe Slack back in the day that did. But almost all of us don't have enough leads. So not only do you not want to stretch folks too thin and have quotas that are unattainable, but you want to make sure that you're not giving too many precious leads to folks that can't close. I know it sounds a little Glengarry Glen Ross, but it's true. You're better off having fewer reps that are good and giving them more leads than spreading them across reps that can't. Because those meet those. Those mediocre reps. They'll close nothing. They'll close nothing in many cases. Okay, next point.
