Show Notes His sales team is more of a consultative sales team. He has a technical product that requires a lot of different people to be involved on the team. He finds though that if you show up to a meeting with a lot of people the prospect can feel that they are just paying for your large overhead while at the same time if you do not have the right people to answer all the questions you may miss an opportunity. As such he hires very knowledgeable pre-sales engineers and will try to limit his team size to 5 in meetings with prospects. Account executive manages the qualification, deal flow, procurement cycle and building the overall relationship. Sales engineer leading technical diligence and adoption. Product team sets expectations with custom development. They found that they had too many products and made the decision to cut down on the products and focus only on their most profitable products. This allowed the sales team to more easily speak about the product and convey the message of experts on that type of product. The decisions leaders make have a direct impact on his/her teams life and family. He would give his new sales executives (hires) prospects already with an opportunity so that they would have something to work on right away. As the sole independent contributor, he began to build out his team by first building the support around him so that it would free up some of his time to still do deals and build the team. If you are sitting with someone during the interview and you can see yourself having a conversation with them 6 months down the road that it is not working out, don't hire them. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmeucci/ Final Five What is your favorite sales or leadership book? Accidental sales manager Do you have someone that you follow/read for sales/leadership ideas? John Barrows Are you available 24/7? Do you have strict personal time boundaries? Yes but only for emergencies otherwise the mornings are his What is your favorite tool used for sales? Yesware and Pandadoc What one piece of advice do you have for all the founders/CEOs/VP Sales out there? Sales doesn't just happen, you need to plan and you need to account for the natural cadence of the sales process.