So SaaStr polls aren’t perfect, but they do seem to capture the zeitgeist of things pretty well. One this week surprised me a bit. Only about half of you are actually adding to your sales team next year:
Times certainly are strange these days. CIOs are scrutinizing budgets like never before. Salesforce has suspended forward guidance for 2023, saying it just doesn’t know how much it will grow. And yet … so many leaders in SaaS and Cloud are still growing at epic rates.
It makes sense to hit the brakes if your growth has slowed dramatically this year. And perhaps that ties to the data above:
- 16% of folks are shrinking their sales team. That ties to prior data and experience that about 20% of SaaS startups are really struggling now.
- 33% of folks are keeping their sales team flat. Probably wise if growth has radically slowed.
- And 52% of you are still growing the sales team from 50%-100% or more next year. Because you have to, to really grow.
When times are tougher, concentrating leads in your top closers really does work. It works magic. The top closers often close 2x, 5x, even 9x the average rep. More on that here.
But ultimately, to really grow, you have to add capacity. In fact, to double next year, you probably need to double your sales team right about … now.
How Many Sales Reps Do I Need To Hit The Plan For The Year? Hint: ~2x What You Think
Pause when growth slows. And focus on the reps that can really close. And upgrading the playbook, and the approach.
But once things grow again, make sure you have the reps you need.
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Jason Lemkin, Khareem Sudlow
