Jason M. LemkinCEO, SaaStr · Co-Founder of SaaStr AI, SaaStr Fund, Adobe Sign

Why Hiring Sales Veterans Who Don't Want to Sell Anymore is a Strategic Mistake in Sales

12 Mar 2024 · 1 min

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Jason M. Lemkin argues that hiring experienced sales veterans who no longer want to actively sell is a strategic mistake. Using an anecdote about a candidate living in Pleasanton who refuses to travel to the San Francisco Peninsula, Lemkin generalizes that many veterans from prominent companies (Twilio, MongoDB, etc.) seek titles like VP of Sales but no longer want front-line selling — creating a widespread hiring challenge for firms.

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In a distributed world, it's more important to visit customers. And he lived in the East Bay, in Pleasanton, in the East Bay, which is maybe 20 minutes east of Oakland. He said, I'm willing to visit customers, but I won't go as far as the Peninsula in San Francisco. He's just happy at home. He's happy at home, Lenny, and he don't want to sell. And this guy has the best LinkedIn and the best references, but you don't want to sell anymore. He needs a job. He wants to be a VP of sales. And I see this across the industry, and I'm struggling to find answers. And I think the biggest hiring. We talked. We talked about a lot of tactical hiring mistakes that you can make today in sales. The biggest strategic mistake you can make today in sales because there's so many veterans. There's so many folks that worked at Twilio and Mongo and wherever. Pick any, any great company you want, right? There's so many veterans out there. You just can't hire the ones that don't actually want to sell anymore. And there's too many. There's too many.