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