Startup hiring guides

How to hire your first sales rep at a startup

Hiring your first sales rep is one of the most pivotal hiring decisions you’ll make as a startup founder. The right hire can accelerate your growth and capitalize on your initial traction, while the wrong hire can slow you down and grind things to a halt. Your first sales hire is also more than just someone to sell your product or service – they’ll be helping to build your entire sales process from the ground up.

It may be intimidating to make this decision, but it’s also very doable. You just need some preparation and the right information to make your decision. Dover is here to help.

Introduction

In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to hire your first sales rep for your startup. From understanding the role to knowing what qualities to look for, we’ll walk you through the key steps to ensure you find the right fit for your startup. We’ll also tell you how Dover can help you make this hire. Let’s get started.

Understanding the role

Hiring your first sales rep isn’t just about closing deals. They’ll be responsible for helping build the foundation of your entire sales process. It’s not the same as hiring a sales rep at a large, established company. You can’t really afford to take a risk on someone who isn't willing to go above and beyond a typical SDR/BDR role. In addition to selling, they’ll may be doing a lot more to help the company grow including post-sales work like customer onboarding, account relationships, etc.

To better understand the role, here are some key responsibilities your first sales rep should take on:

Building the sales process – Your sales rep should be responsible for creating and refining the sales pipeline. As the founder, you’ll likely want to be involved in this process, but your first sales rep should bring their own experience and knowledge of building out sales processes.
Driving customer acquisition – Of course, they still need to sell. They should actively seek out new business opportunities, generate leads and close sales. Outbound prospecting and relationship building will be significant responsibilities on their plate.
Gathering feedback – Building your sales process, implementing it and selling your product/service is half the battle. They should also be contacting potential customers and existing customers to gather feedback. They need to learn pain points and refine your sales processes and your product offerings to better fit the needs and wants of your customers.
Handling customer success – Your sales rep is going to be the main point of contact after the sale is closed. They should be ready to ensure customer satisfaction, address issues and manage relationships. You might have other positions that can fulfill some of these roles, but your sales rep may often need to act as a bridge between the client and your team in the early stages.
Defining and tracking key metrics – Your sales rep will help set sales goals, track KPIs and regularly report on progress. This will provide critical insights for optimizing your processes and understanding where improvements are needed.

What to look for in your first sales rep

When hiring your first sales representative, it’s important to be highly selective. Here are five essential qualities to look for:

Look for a Builder, Not Just a Closer – As mentioned, your first sales hire shouldn’t just be a great closer – they need to be a builder, too. This means being comfortable with ambiguity and establishing sales processes from scratch, rather than just plugging into an existing system. Find someone who thrives with minimal structure and who is excited about the challenge of building something from the ground up.
Prioritize Industry Knowledge – At the startup stage, industry knowledge is often more important than having a long list of contacts. You don’t have time to train them on everything, and they should have plenty of experience from the jump. Your sales rep needs to understand your market deeply and be able to speak the language of your customers. A sales rep who has a firm grasp on the industry also understands the pain points of people in that industry. This makes it easier to build rapport, ask the right questions, overcome objections and ultimately build a sales pitch that resonates with your target demographic.
Assess Their Ability to Wear Multiple Hats – In the early days of a startup, your sales rep won’t just be closing deals – they might be your entire go-to-market team. This means they’ll need to handle prospecting, lead generation, closing, post-sale customer success and more. When evaluating candidates, look for those who have experience juggling multiple responsibilities.
Test Their Resilience – Early-stage sales are tough. Rejection is frequent, and your startup may not yet have the brand recognition or marketing engine to drive consistent leads. A key quality to look for in your first sales hire is resilience and the ability to stay motivated. They won’t have a big team around them, and they need to be able to quickly bounce back, persist and overcome the challenges that are coming their way.
Align on Metrics – Finally, it’s important to be on the same page about what success looks like from day one. Is your goal to drive revenue? Improve your close rates? Whatever it might be, make sure these metrics are clearly defined and understood. Setting clear expectations will ensure there’s no confusion and you’re both aligned on priorities.

Remember: This hire can make or break your growth trajectory. Take your time, run a rigorous process and don’t settle. Your first sales rep should not only be a talented seller but also a strategic partner who can help lay the groundwork for scaling your company.

Planning & preparation

Before you dive into hiring your first sales representative, take the time to clearly define your goals and your evaluation process for good candidates. Gather input from other team members who will work with the sales rep to see if they have any issues they want addressed. Getting all of this information together ahead of time can ensure you’re ready for a thorough and rigorous vetting process.

Some key questions you can ask during the planning stage include:

What specific sales tasks do you need the rep to handle?
Are they building the entire sales process from scratch or optimizing current processes?
What level of experience is required to perform the role effectively? What should their experience look like?
What skills and level of industry knowledge do they need?
What resources, tools and systems will be available to support them?
What are the critical KPIs and success metrics for the position?
What is our budget for the position and what will the commission structure look like?
Will they need to start building a sales team or will they be our sole rep for the foreseeable future?

Asking and answering questions like these can help you create a detailed plan for the role and make the hiring process more efficient. It also makes sure everyone is on the same page.

Crafting the perfect job description

With your key requirements and the perfect candidate in mind, it’s time to craft the perfect job description. A good job description can help you attract the right candidates. It can also help weed out unqualified candidates, so you have fewer resumes to sift through.

For this specific sales rep position, your job description should highlight the fact that this is an opportunity to build something from the ground up and play a key role in the company’s growth. This can be a major selling point for entrepreneurial salespeople who are excited about making an impact in their next role.

Additionally, be sure to include the following in your job listing:

A clear description of the role and its responsibilities
The skills and qualifications needed for success
Key metrics and performance expectations
Perks and benefits (e.g., flexible working hours, equity, etc.)
Information about your company’s mission and culture
Commission structure

Need help crafting the perfect job description? Dover’s ATS makes it easy to instantly generate great job descriptions with AI. You can also use our ATS to post your job listing on job boards, your website, social media and other channels. This way, you reach a broad pool of qualified applicants fast.

Sourcing & evaluating candidates

If you nail the job description, you should start getting plenty of solid candidates. You might get quite a few applications coming in, so make sure you have a standardized process in place for evaluating them. Identify your must-have and nice-to-have qualities to narrow down and filter candidates.

Dover’s ATS can make this process easier. With AI-powered resume scoring, you can prioritize top applicants based on specific parameters. This can save time and ensure you’re talking to the best applicants as soon as possible.

Interviewing candidates

Next, we reach the interview process. This can be time-consuming, but the effort is well worth it for such a pivotal role. The first stage of interviewing should ideally go through a pre-screening with HR or a recruiter, so you can eliminate anyone who isn’t a good fit. This stage assesses their basic qualifications and finds your best candidates.

Once you’ve narrowed down the candidate pool, the next interview should focus on assessing their selling skills, their ability to build sales processes and their approach to overcoming challenges in these settings. Qualifying questions like “How would you approach building a sales pipeline with no leads and minimal brand recognition?” can help you understand how they think on their feet and how they come up with solutions.

Finally, founders should have an interview with the first sales rep candidate before making an offer. The first sales rep will be working closely with the founder to develop the sales funnel. If you’re the founder, you’re probably already handling sales. Make sure this new candidate is bringing the skills, attitude and knowledge you need to the table before you hire them.

Track candidates from application to offer with Dover’s free ATS

When you’re putting candidates through the hiring process, it can be hard to keep track of all of them. This is especially true when you’re hiring for multiple roles. If you want a birds-eye view into your hiring pipeline that lets you track candidates from application to offer, Dover’s free ATS is your solution.

Our ATS offers best-in-class features at zero cost. You’ll get access to intuitive applicant tracking, AI-assisted resume scoring, job description generation, job board posting, one-click interview scheduling, hiring team collaboration tools and much more. Using Dover’s ATS you can start making better hiring decisions in minutes.

Hire top talent fast with Dover!

Hiring the right sales rep can be difficult without the right tools. Dover’s ATS is designed to help startups find top talent fast. Whether you’re looking to hire your first sales rep or scale your entire team, Dover is the answer. If you need extra hiring help, make sure to check out our Recruiting Partners marketplace to connect with expert startup sales recruiters.