Most founders' first sales hire fails. Not because the founder picked badly — because they handed the rep a phone, a CRM login, and a vague "go close some deals."
The fix isn't a better hire. It's a structured first six weeks. Here's the playbook we install with every B2B client we work with.
Week 0: before they start
Three things should be done before day one:
- Documented Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Not "anyone who'll buy" — specific. Industry, size, role, pain. One page.
- Baseline pipeline scorecard. What conversion rate from contact → meeting → proposal → close looks like for you, today. Without this baseline, you can't tell if the new rep is good.
- First 30 leads pre-loaded. Don't make the rep do prospecting in week one. Hand them warm-ish leads so the first call happens on day three, not day twenty.
Week 1: shadowing and the script
The new rep does zero outbound. They:
- Listen to 10 of your recorded sales calls (you do record sales calls, right?).
- Read the last 20 closed-won and 10 closed-lost deal notes.
- Sit in on every live demo and discovery call you do.
- Write a 1-page summary of the ICP from the rep's perspective at end of week.
By Friday, you should have a written one-page document the rep wrote that matches your understanding of the customer. If it doesn't, the rep is misunderstanding something — better to catch it now.
Week 2: paired calling
Rep takes their first calls — but you're on the line every time, muted. They speak; you observe.
After each call, debrief together for 10 minutes:
- What worked?
- What did they miss?
- What's the next-best move on this account?
Aim for 8–10 paired calls this week. By end of week, the rep should have shipped 1 first-call discovery completely on their own.
Week 3: solo calls, daily debriefs
Rep is now solo on calls. You read call notes daily for 15 minutes and debrief once a day.
Set the first measurable target this week:
- 5 first-meetings per week (not 5 calls — 5 meetings converted from outreach).
Week 4: pipeline review starts
Move from daily debriefs to a structured weekly pipeline review:
- Every active deal, current stage, next action, blockers.
- Two metrics: pipeline velocity (days from open to close) and pipeline coverage (pipeline value as multiple of quota).
If the rep can't articulate next action on every deal, they don't actually own the pipeline yet.
Week 5: first deal closes
By week five, expect the first close. If it doesn't happen, that's a signal — not necessarily a problem.
Look at the leading indicators:
- Are first-meetings happening at target rate? (If yes, deal cycle is just longer than expected — be patient.)
- Are meetings happening but not converting to proposals? (If yes, qualification is weak — work on discovery questioning.)
- Are proposals going out but not closing? (If yes, pricing or competition issues — work on objection handling.)
Each of these has a different fix.
Week 6: full ownership
By end of week six, the rep should:
- Own a documented portion of the pipeline.
- Run their weekly review.
- Hit at least 70% of the steady-state quota you've set.
- Bring you problems with proposed solutions, not just problems.
If they're not at 70% by week six, you have data: either the hire isn't right, the role isn't ramped right, or the goal was set wrong. All three are recoverable — but only if you have the data.
The pattern that works
The reps who succeed aren't the most aggressive or the most charming. They're the ones whose founders gave them a system to learn inside, instead of throwing them in the deep end.
Six weeks of structured onboarding costs you ~30 hours. The cost of a failed first hire is ~PKR 2.5 million in salary + opportunity cost.
The math is not close.
