You are a start-up business leader.
And you've just closed your funding round.
You are a start-up business leader and you've just closed an investment round.
You have 2 AEs on staff, each trending at 12 closed deals per quarter (total = 24).
As of October 1st, 2024, and according to your business plan, you simply have to double your number of deals over the next two years.
To keep things simple, let's not take into account any seasonality effects, average deal size, target acceleration nor profitability concerns.
So you've decided to hire 2 extra AEs because:
4 AEs each delivering 12 signed deals per quarter = 100% of your company's target.
What could go wrong... right?
So let's start.
Unrealistic scenario as a basis:
You've managed to find your 2 new AEs; they'll start on November 1st.
They'll ramp up fast and deliver 100% of the objectives by the third month (January).
If there are no other issues along the way, you'll make it.
You'll have closed 384 deals in 2025 and 2026 combined.
But let's say that a first event occurs---
One AE still starts on November 1st and ramps up fast.
But it was harder than expected to find another great sales talent, who will start on January 1st.
On top of that, it will take 4 months to ramp up instead of 3.
You are now trending at 98%.
No biggie. You simply lack 9 deals. You have 23 months to recover from that.
Second event---
One of the AEs was not the right fit and was let go at the end of Q2 2025.
It happens. You had doubts but needed to go fast and have people on staff.
It takes you 2 months to hire a new person.
This has taken you a lot of unexpected time already, and it impacts the time to ramp up of the new AE by one additional month.
You are now trending at 95%. That's 26 deals missing.
We can recover from that; let's put in some extra effort.
Third event---
In H1 2026, one of your most senior AEs is a bit below target and achieves 10 deals per quarter instead of 12. He/She was doing fine, so there was no need for training or coaching.
You had to take care of other aspects of the business and didn't have the internal resources to delegate training, coaching, routines, or other support.
You're now trending at 90%. That's 37 deals missing.
Fourth event---
The third event never happened because you detected rather quickly that one of your AEs was off track, and you took care of this person, ensuring that the whole AE team was on track to make it happen.
But as a result, you kind of neglected the customer success side.
Everyone told you it was about scaling and the sales machine first.
By the end of 2025, when conducting an analysis, you discovered that your churn rate was increasing too much.
In January 2026, you take some time with the CSM department to implement new things. And on top of that, you increase the targets of the AEs by 10% for each quarter of 2026. Let's go team! Let's make it happen!
Your efforts pay off and more deals are signed from Q2 2026 onwards.
You are trending at 91%.
You've managed to increase your number of signed deals by 4%, which is great!
But the decrease in retention increased the required target. Unfortunately...
Fifth event---
You are still a start-up. People come and go. The company is changing. Sometimes you are pivoting. Pressure is increasing.
One of your original AEs decides to quit.
You react quickly. With a great sense of urgency, it takes you one month to have someone on staff to replace them.
But still, losing someone is tough. Especially at this stage.
You are now trending at 89%.
Sixth event---
Woop woop!
One AE is really stepping up and achieving 125% of their quarterly target in 2026.
You are happy for this talent and happy for the team.
But you are only gaining 3 points and trending at 92%.
Seventh event---
You're the cautious type, and when you announced the investment round to the team, you really wanted them to embark on this journey and remove any blocks to overachieving.
During the kickoff in January 2025, you announced an uncapped bonus, a strong accelerator, and implemented many things such as:
You've allocated a bit of budget for training and coaching.
You've organized sales blitzes.
You've never neglected weekly routines.
You've always kept a pipeline of sales candidates to reduce your time to hire.
You've somewhat industrialized your onboarding program.
And so forth...
The carrot was that you expected one more deal per quarter per AE, and one more deal as a team to unlock things.
Despite all the six previous events that still took place, the team made it happen!
They generated only five more deals per quarter.
They collectively achieved 100.45%.
My Point?
Yes it's an over-simplified scenario.
But there will be many unexpected events along the way,
Yet there are many mistakes to avoid,
And many best practices + “already seen” situations out there,
That entrepreneurs and business leaders can benefit from.
That's why I became an operating partner.
That's why I do what I do.
We can truly have an impact when course-correcting fast,
And implementing things ahead for the team.