Founder’s Playbook: Turning Your Sales Team into a High-Performing Asset

As a founder or business leader, there’s one thing that can make or break your company’s growth: your sales team. But here’s the truth: Your sales team can either be an asset that helps you consistently grow or an anchor that pulls you down with constant demands and inefficiencies. The key is how you lead and structure that team.

In service-based businesses—whether it’s SaaS, home services, or anything that relies on a sales engine to support growth—scaling your sales team properly can be the catalyst for not only revenue growth but also preparing your business for a successful exit. When done right, your sales team becomes a well-oiled machine that drives sustainable growth, allows you to take a step back from day-to-day operations, and can even increase your business’s valuation when you’re ready to sell. Done wrong, it becomes a high-maintenance, time-consuming liability.

So, how do you take your sales team from liability to asset?

Let’s break it down.

What Defines a Great Sales Team?

A great sales team isn’t just about closing deals—it's about execution, consistency, and accountability. Here’s what you should expect from your sales team:

• Relentlessly Follows the Sales Process: Your sales team should follow the sales process to a T and be coachable enough to recognize when they’ve deviated from it. It’s not about reinventing the wheel, it’s about sticking to what works.

• Accountable: This is less about KPIs and more about culture. A great sales team takes responsibility for their results. If they miss their targets, they know why, and they take action to fix it.

• Moves with High Velocity: A high-performing sales team is always moving the needle—booking a meeting from a meeting, leveraging SOPs both on and off calls, and keeping the momentum going.

• Daily Huddles Are Their Most Valuable Time: These 15-minute check-ins set the tone for the day, improve real-time data, and reinforce team culture and standards.

  
  

As a founder, you can spend an enormous amount of time managing and coaching reps if your sales team isn’t performing well. But when you get this right, your sales team can take on a life of its own. They begin to manage themselves. And that’s when you start scaling.

Time Constraints of Founder-Led Sales Teams

As the founder of your company, you know how tough it can be to balance everything. If you're still leading the charge in sales, you’re likely spending your time on:

• Coaching and mentoring reps

• Making sure sales teams' calendars are packed

• Managing individual sales processes

• Trying to keep everything aligned and moving forward

  
  

While this can work in the early stages of your business, it eventually becomes a huge drain on your time. To scale, you need to remove yourself from the day-to-day operations and let your sales team become self-sufficient.

Step 1: Introduce Daily Huddles and Eliminate Non-Revenue-Related Meetings

Daily huddles are where it all comes together. These quick, 15-30 minute check-ins are the most valuable time your team will spend each day. This is where real-time data, high-level coaching, and accountability come into play. A daily huddle should be:

• Focused on Next Steps: Constantly ask your reps, “What are the next steps with your customers?” This reinforces the BAMFAM principle—“Book a meeting from a meeting”—and ensures that no deal falls through the cracks.

• Play-by-Play Coverage: Each rep should share what they did the day before, their current status, and what’s on the agenda for today. This helps everyone stay aligned and accountable.

• EOD Reports: At the end of each day, every rep must submit an end-of-day report detailing their actions and progress. These reports are reviewed in the huddle to keep everyone on the same page.

• Focused Training: At the end of the huddle, set aside 10-15 minutes for training. Ask the team, “What are you facing as a common objection?” or pull a call from the day before to do a group review. This encourages a growth-oriented culture where no one is afraid to showcase their work.

  
  

BONUS TIP: If you're grooming your next sales leader or manager from within the team, use this time to share the mic. Ask the team for suggestions on overcoming common challenges, and let a seasoned rep step up to provide insights. This creates leadership opportunities organically, helping you identify your next manager without searching externally.

Step 2: Phase in a Sales Manager

This is where things get serious. When you’re ready to take a step back and refocus your time, you need to bring in a sales manager. But here's the kicker: this should be a collaborative, smooth transition period. Don’t just hire a manager and expect everything to fall into place.

The transition period is essential because it ensures alignment between leadership and your team. The biggest mistake many business owners make is hiring a sales manager and expecting their problems to be solved instantly. That’s a fast track to disaster. What often happens is a misalignment of leadership cadence, cultural backlash, and turnover—leading you to have to go back and fix what the manager messed up.

Instead, find an experienced, leadership-driven rep or a proven sales manager to act as a rep for the first few months. Let them learn the ropes of managing the team, running huddles, and handling call reviews. After 60-90 days, they should gradually take over reporting and forecasting, allowing you to shift your focus to higher-level strategic work.

This thoughtful transition period sets you up for success. It ensures alignment, reduces friction, and prepares your sales team for long-term growth.

Step 3: Focus Your Time on Strategic Decisions

Once your sales manager has taken over reporting, forecasting, and quality assurance, it’s time for you to focus on the big picture. Your role as the founder should now be about making informed decisions based on the data your sales team is producing.

The three things you want from your sales manager in your one-on-ones are:

1. What they’ve accomplished (Keep it results-focused)

2. What they need help with (Understand the pain points)

3. A prioritized list of goals and tasks

This allows you to shift your time from running huddles to working directly with your sales manager on improving the team’s performance, solving problems, and optimizing systems. Don’t get distracted by building fancy dashboards or designing marketing materials—that doesn’t move the needle. Keep your focus on aligning priorities and solving the most pressing challenges to drive growth.

When Your Sales Team Becomes an Asset

When your sales team is firing on all cylinders, it can help you:

• Grow from data and proven indicators: Hire more reps, increase ad spend, and drive lead volume based on data-backed decisions.

• Be managed independently: Your sales manager can take on the responsibility of day-to-day operations, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.

• Constantly improve CAC and LTV: As your sales process becomes more refined, you'll see a steady improvement in your customer acquisition costs and lifetime value.

• Inform business decisions: With consistent, productive data flowing from your sales team, you’ll make more informed, strategic decisions for the growth of your business.

Why This Matters for Growth or Exit

As a founder, when your sales team becomes an asset, you can finally focus on the larger aspects of running your business—like refining marketing strategies, improving your product, or tackling new growth channels.

If you’re looking to sell your business, having a well-oiled sales team can increase your business’s value. Buyers will see the stability and scalability of your sales engine, which means they won’t need to rely on you to drive day-to-day sales. Instead, they’ll be able to inherit a proven, predictable sales process.

Ready to Take Your Sales Team to the Next Level?

If you’re looking to turn your sales team into an asset that fuels your growth, frees up your time, and helps you scale your business or position it for a successful exit, let’s talk. Learn how to identify your next sales leader, implement these strategies, and start building a sales team that works for you—whether you’re looking to scale or sell.