Sales teams
How To Hire Remote B2B Sales Reps
Do not hire a rep until you have product market fit, ten deals the founder closed personally, and lead flow. After that, run hiring like marketing: an ideal rep profile, one platform, filtering copy, a specific form, then group interviews.
Most founders hire a salesperson too early and then conclude that salespeople do not work. The hire was not the problem. Hiring someone to sell a thing nobody has proved they can sell is the problem.
When should you hire your first sales rep?
Never before all three of these are true.
- Product market fit
- The thing sells. People buy it, keep it, and tell other people about it.
- The founder has closed 10 deals himself
- You know what the objections are, what the pitch is, and what a real buyer sounds like. You cannot teach a script you have never run.
- Lead flow
- There is something for the rep to work on day one. A rep with no leads is an expensive way to find out you have a marketing problem.
Miss any of the three and you are paying someone to fail at a job that has not been proved yet.
How should you think about hiring?
Like marketing. The exact same way. You are running a campaign to an audience, filtering out the wrong people, and converting the right ones.
Build an ideal sales rep profile the way you build an ideal client profile. Who are they, what have they done, what do they want, what would make them leave their current seat. Then pick one specific platform to find them on. One. Not five job boards at once, because you cannot learn anything from five channels you are running badly.
What goes in the recruiting ad?
Write it like an offer, because that is what it is. Seven things, all of them explicit:
| Element | What it does |
|---|---|
| Who you are looking for | Sets the filter before anyone applies |
| The offer | What they get, in plain terms |
| The price | Pay grade, stated. Vagueness attracts the wrong people |
| What they will do | The actual work, day to day |
| Who this is for | Lets the right person recognise themselves |
| Who this is not for | Does more filtering than everything above it |
| The CTA | One link, to one form |
“Who this is not for” is the line most people leave out, and it is the one that saves you the most time.
How do you filter applicants?
With the form. Make it very specific, exactly like a marketing form. Every question is a filter. If the form is easy, you get everybody, and then you spend your week reading applications from people who were never going to work out.
Effort on the form is a signal. Someone who will not answer six specific questions to get the job will not make eighty calls a week once they have it.
Why group interviews?
Take the top 10 candidates off the form and put them in a room together.
A one to one interview shows you how somebody performs when all the attention is already on them. That is not the job. In a group you see who speaks up, who takes the lead, who waits to be called on, and who fills silence. The go getters show themselves in the first ten minutes without being asked to.
What do you ask the final three?
Pull the top three out of the group and go one to one. Two things only.
- Level of agency
- Do they act without being told, or do they wait for instructions? Ask about a time they moved before anyone asked them to.
- Real time thinking
- Can they handle something live, or do they only have rehearsed answers? Throw a real objection at them mid sentence and watch what happens.
Both of those are the job. Everything else on a résumé is decoration.
What does the whole funnel look like?
| Stage | What it tests | Who advances |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiting ad | Self selection against a specific offer | Anyone who applies |
| Specific form | Effort and fit | Top 10 |
| Group interview | Who leads, who speaks up | Top 3 |
| One to one | Agency and real time thinking | Your hire |
Run it in that order and the interviews get easy, because the form has already removed everyone you would have said no to.
Questions about hiring remote sales reps
When should you hire your first sales rep?
After three things are true: the product has market fit, the founder has personally closed ten deals, and there is lead flow coming in. Hiring before all three means paying someone to fail at a job nobody has proved can be done yet.
Why run group interviews for sales roles?
Because a one to one interview only shows you how someone performs when all the attention is on them. In a group you see who speaks up, who leads, and who waits to be called on. Sales is the first behaviour, not the third.
What do you ask the final candidates?
Questions that test two things: level of agency and real time thinking. Agency shows whether they act without being told. Real time thinking shows whether they can handle a live objection instead of reciting a rehearsed answer, which is the whole job.