Sales & Revenue Operations

Full-stack sales playbook: founder-led sales, team building, enterprise deals, RevOps, ICP definition, buyer personas, and compensation design.

Quick Start

Assess stage — Founder-led, first reps, or scaling?
Define motion — Inbound, outbound, PLG, or hybrid?
Build ICP — Who are you selling to?
Design process — Discovery → Demo → Close
Instrument RevOps — Lead lifecycle, scoring, routing

ICP & Buyer Persona

ICP Stack (build bottom-up)

┌─────────────────────────────┐
│       BUYING CENTER          │ ← All decision stakeholders
├─────────────────────────────┤
│       USER PERSONA           │ ← Daily user
├─────────────────────────────┤
│       BUYER PERSONA          │ ← Signs the check
├─────────────────────────────┤
│       COMPANY PROFILE        │ ← Firmographics
└─────────────────────────────┘

Company Profile: industry/vertical, size (employees/revenue), stage, geography, tech stack

Buyer Persona: title/role, seniority, goals & KPIs, decision authority, what they care about

User Persona: daily workflow, pain points, tech savviness

Buying Center Roles: Champion, Economic Buyer, Technical Evaluator, End User, Blocker

ICP Scoring

| Factor | Weight | |--------|--------| | Problem severity | 25% | | Budget available | 20% | | Champion identified | 15% | | Technical fit | 15% | | Decision timeline | 15% | | Expansion potential | 10% |

The 50-Company Test

List 50 specific companies that fit. Find the buyer's name at 20 of them. Reach out to 10. If you can't do this, your ICP isn't specific enough.

For full persona canvases, buying center maps, interview questions, and fit scoring: see references/full-guide.md

Founder-Led Sales

Core principles:

The founder IS the product — your credibility closes deals early competitors can't
Your biggest competitor is indecision (40-60% of B2B purchases end in no decision)
Sell before you build — Figma mockups can secure first customers
Close the laptop — focus on diagnosis, not demos
Book next meeting on the current one to maintain momentum

When to hire: Wait until ~$1M ARR and a repeatable process. Hire in pairs — you need an A/B test.

Hiring framework:

| Stage | Who to Hire | When | |-------|-------------|------| | Founder-led | Nobody | Before $1M ARR | | First AEs | 2 reps | After proven repeatability | | SDRs | 1-2 | When inbound overflows | | VP Sales | 1 | When 2+ reps hitting quota |

Enterprise Sales

Buying committee roles: Champion (internal advocate), Economic Buyer (signs), Technical Buyer (evaluates), End User (uses daily), Blocker (can say no)

JOLT method for indecision:

Judge level of indecision
Offer a firm recommendation
Limit exploration by building trust
Take risk off the table — de-risk the deal

Key tactics:

Identify and arm the champion — they sell internally for you
Address FOMU (Fear Of Making a Mistake), not just FOMO
Make procurement's job easy — prepare all documentation upfront

Sales Qualification

BANT: Budget · Authority · Need · Timeline

MEDDIC: Metrics · Economic Buyer · Decision Criteria · Decision Process · Identify Pain · Champion

Rule: Qualify ruthlessly. "No" is a successful outcome. Disqualify on the first call if fit isn't there.

Sales Enablement

Sales Deck (10-12 slides)

Current World Problem, 2. Cost of the Problem, 3. The Shift Happening, 4. Your Approach, 5. Product Walkthrough (3-4 workflows), 6. Proof Points, 7. Case Study, 8. Implementation, 9. ROI/Value, 10. Pricing Overview, 11. Next Steps/CTA

Demo Structure

Opening (2 min) → Discovery Recap (3 min) → Solution Walkthrough (15-20 min) → Interaction → Close (5 min)

Objection Handling

| Category | Response Approach | |----------|-------------------| | Price | ROI angle, payment terms | | Timing | Urgency, cost of delay | | Competition | Differentiation, unique value | | Authority | Arm the champion | | Status quo | Cost of inaction |

Revenue Operations

Lead Lifecycle Stages

| Stage | Owner | Entry Criteria | |-------|-------|----------------| | Subscriber | Marketing | Opts in to content | | Lead | Marketing | Basic info provided | | MQL | Marketing | Fit + engagement threshold | | SQL | Sales | Accepted, qualified via call | | Opportunity | Sales AE | BANT confirmed | | Customer | CS | Closed-won |

MQL = Fit Score (who they are) + Engagement Score (what they do). Neither alone qualifies.

MQL-to-SQL SLA: Contact within 4 hours; qualify or reject within 48 hours.

Lead Scoring

Explicit (fit): Company size, industry, title, tech stack

Implicit (engagement): Pricing page visits, demo requests, email clicks, product usage

Negative: Competitor domains, student emails, unsubscribes

Lead Routing Methods

| Method | Best For | |--------|----------| | Round-robin | Equal territories | | Territory-based | Regional/vertical teams | | Account-based | Named accounts / ABM | | Skill-based | Complex deals, multi-product |

Speed-to-lead: Contact within 5 minutes = 21x more likely to qualify. After 30 minutes, conversion drops 10x.

For routing decision trees and automation playbooks: see references/routing-rules.md, references/automation-playbooks.md

Pipeline Stage Hygiene

Enforce required fields per stage to block advancement with bad data
Flag stale deals (2x average time in stage) automatically
Alert on stage skips (Qualified → Proposal without Discovery)
Require reason codes on close date pushes

RevOps Metrics

| Metric | Target | |--------|--------| | Lead-to-MQL rate | 5-15% | | MQL-to-SQL rate | 30-50% | | SQL-to-Opportunity | 50-70% | | Win rate | 20-30% | | Speed-to-lead | <5 minutes | | LTV:CAC ratio | 3:1 to 5:1 |

For scoring models and lifecycle definitions: see references/scoring-models.md, references/lifecycle-definitions.md

Sales Compensation

Standard structure: 50% base / 50% variable (OTE). This is a starting point, not a law.

Modern comp plans align with customer outcomes, not just bookings. Reps who close churny deals should earn less than those who close sticky customers.

Ramp periods: 3-6 months for SMB, 6-12 months for enterprise. Provide guaranteed draw or reduced quotas during ramp.

Simplicity rule: If reps can't instantly calculate how an action affects their pay, the plan is too complex.

Common mistakes:

Incentivizing only bookings without customer quality
Over-complicated plans with too many variables
No ramp protection for new hires
Ignoring churn in comp design

For detailed comp frameworks: see references/guest-insights.md

Sales Metrics

| Metric | What It Tells You | |--------|-------------------| | Win rate | Sales effectiveness | | Sales cycle length | Process efficiency | | Pipeline coverage | Forecast reliability (target 3-4x quota) | | Lead-to-Opportunity | Qualification quality | | CAC | Acquisition efficiency | | Quota attainment | Rep performance |

Related Skills

outbound-email-strategy — Cold outreach
pricing-strategy — Pricing decisions
go-to-market-strategy — Full launch planning