Jason M. Lemkin says removing your bottom 10-20% of sales reps and giving their leads to top performers can boost bookings 20-40%. After rapid hiring lowered standards, your best reps convert far more effectively than mediocre ones.
And I started writing about this like 10 years ago at Saster and this and a few other early Sasser folks. And I hate this word, but they just triggered people. Okay, a couple early Sasser posts. One of the first Sasser posts from almost 10 years ago was, you'll know in 30 days if your VP of Sales is going to work out. And so many sales leaders hated me for it. They wrote, oh, that's ridiculous. You've got to give a VP of sales 60 days now. You've got to give. You've got to give them a year. You've got to give them five years to get points on the board. But I asked people to calmly read this post, which is, hey, look, if a VP of sales comes in and nothing gets better in 30 days, it never will. I've seen this again and again. If they don't bring in a better rep, if they don't improve the playbook, if they don't just influence whatever's in the pipeline, they never will. And eventually folks realize, hey, you're right, the VP of sales doesn't always do magic in their first three days. But things do have to get better. This one, folks, until recently, I think I've struggled with. But now everyone sees it's true. Like, the simplest upgrade on your sales team in tougher times is to let the bottom 10 or 20% of your sales teams just go, today. I literally mean today. And a lot of us, obviously, we are at, in some ways almost a record time in layoffs, which we may chat about a little bit. It's a little crazy when times are still decent that layoffs are at a record level, but they're. Because hiring was a record level. People hired at literally an insane level last year, especially on their sales teams. A lot of sales teams doubled or tripled last year, not just to hit insane plans, but because there was vast amounts of capital in the system and it was go, go, go, go, go. And I don't know how many startups I work with. I know there's one that, that I, that I've invested in a long time. It was literally one of the most capital efficient companies I know. Got to nine figures in revenue with 300 employees, and then last year they went to 900. In one year, 300 to 900. It's all over the place. So. So we've learned we do have to shrink a little bit. But this is magic. And let's. I've written about it 20 times on Saster, but let's talk about it. And if People have questions at the end. Let's really go through this. Because literally, this, as tough as it is to let people go, this. This helps everybody. Look around your sales team. And I put the math on Saster a long time ago. The best sales reps often do 9x the average sales rep, and they almost always do 2 to 3 times better. In really good times, mediocre reps still do okay. Like, they still hit. They come close to quota. Um, but in tougher times, they close nothing. And look around your team. I know it's tough. Do you have some reps on your team that literally this quarter have closed nothing or close to nothing? Nothing at all? I bet you do. And I bet your top one or two reps close the same as earlier in the year. If you're struggling. They. They often close almost the same and tougher times. And we can talk about why here. You can read more Ancestor. But think about the math for a minute. Leads are so precious. For so many years, for so long, certainly until a hundred, 200 million ARR leads are precious. So let's say you're getting 100 leads per month and you're giving 20 to your two worst reps. Give those 20 to your top two reps. What happens? Think about the math. You will almost inherently increase bookings 20 to 40%. Think about the math. I know the math is obvious, or at least maybe now you know in 20, going into 2023, it should be obvious. But. But do this math on a spreadsheet and realize you're kind of always flushing your leads down the drain when you give it to mediocre reps. But you do have to train people. You have to scale people. So you're going to take some risk when you're hiring rapidly. And then like in 2021, everyone lowered the bar. Everyone hired reps they wouldn't have hired in 2018 or 2019 just to put warm bodies against deals. And now you can see in tougher times again, they're flushing your precious leads down the drain. It's sad, but every founder knows this is true. And every VP of sales that's been around for a while knows it's true. So do the math. And I know it's tough. It doesn't mean don't give people severance. It doesn't mean don't treat them well. But reroute the leads from your worst reps to the best reps, and literally your bookings will go up 20 to 30% in Q1. I guarantee it.
