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Sales Process: Startup Looking To Hire First Sales Employee - And completely lost. Any advice on compensation structure (benefits?), items that need to be in place?
TW
TW
Tom Williams, Clarity's top expert on all things startup answered:

Jason Lemkin who runs the http://saastr.com blog (founder of EchoSign) answers your question here:

http://saastr.com/2013/06/21/a-framework-and-some-ideas-for-your-first-sales-comp-plan/

The challenge for you in recruiting great reps is how to adopt this comp plan to convince great sales reps they can make "M6" money on a $6k ARR.

Depending on the actual sales process for your product, you might be better hiring what looks more like a "Customer Success" manager. In this case, they are measured on a mix of customer sat, churn and add-on growth in accounts. Typically, not on quota, any commission they receive as part of the up-sell would be net-positive to their OTE (on-target earnings).

Happy to discuss further with you to provide more context-specific advice.

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