Your first sales team: who to hire and how to pay them

The first sales hire happens when the founder tires of selling. That is the worst timing: you are hiring to offload work you have not yet described.

Do not hire before these three

You have closed at least ten deals yourself. If you do not know why they buy from you, you cannot teach anyone.
You know where your customers come from. Hiring a seller with no source means they will spend months hunting a list, which is your job, not theirs.
You have written what works on one page. Common objections and answers, first-meeting questions, and your ideal scope.

Who to hire first

Do not hire a senior seller from a large company. Their success there rested on a brand, lists, and a marketing team, none of which you have. Look for someone who sold in ambiguity: who built their own list and worked without collateral.

Hire two, not one if you can. With one you cannot tell whether the result came from them or from the market. Two give you a comparison.

Compensation: what you reward is what happens

The rule: 60 fixed / 40 variable in year one (not 50/50, an ambiguous environment needs security). And the variable is built on:

Rewarded on	Why
Closed contract value	The basis
Collection, not signature	A contract not collected is not a sale
A multiplier for annual terms	Encourages longer commitment
A commission cut when discounting	Makes margin their concern too

Do not reward: call counts, pipeline size, or proposals sent, all three can be raised without selling.

The first ninety days

30: completed a first meeting led alone, and knows the product well enough to present it.
60: built a pipeline worth three times their quarterly target.
90: closed at least one deal.

Someone who has not reached day sixty is not a slow seller, they were usually not trained, and that is your responsibility.

The most common mistake

Letting them sell to anyone. Give them a scope (a sector or a size) for the first six months. A seller who sells to everyone masters nobody's language.