Head of Sales

Common hiring mistakes for this role

Sales-leadership hires are expensive and hard to reverse. Four recurring mistakes lead to the wrong decision in 80 percent of mis-hires.

1. 01

   Hiring the best sales manager instead of a real leader

   The most common mis-hire: an excellent sales manager with 6-8 reports is promoted or hired into a sales leadership over 20 reports and three sales managers. The jump from direct management to team-of-teams is a different discipline. Compensation-plan design, stack strategy, GTM bets, market entry and executive alignment are skills that are not developed in the pure sales-manager role. Filter explicitly in the case study for org design and multi-manager experience, not just for operational sales steering.

2. 02

   Not clarifying the difference between Sales Manager and Head of Sales in the ad

   If the ad does not clearly distinguish whether you are looking for a player-coach with 60 percent of their own pipeline (a Sales Manager) or a true sales leadership with no own quota, you attract applications from both camps and disappoint both. Candidates with a clear lead profile walk away when the ad has player-coach language; sales managers with a growth wish apply for a role they cannot yet fill. Make the choice explicitly before the posting.

3. 03

   Not checking the candidate's own hiring track record

   A sales leadership will most likely hire 3-5 sales managers and 10+ salespeople over the next 24 months. If the person has not demonstrably done this well in the past (retention of sales managers over 24 months, documented onboarding successes, ramp-time data), you are buying hiring problems for the next two years. Ask concretely: How many sales managers have you hired in the last 3 years? How long did they stay? Which did you develop yourself?

4. 04

   Setting up the variable and equity components wrongly

   At this level the compensation structure is a filter: too defensive a fixed with too large a variable deters experienced profiles (who know that org-building takes 12-18 months before variable kicks in); too high a fixed with no strategic-goal component attracts profiles with no skin in the game. The norm is OTE 70/30 or 75/25 with variable on team revenue plus 20-30 percent strategic goals (hiring, expansion). An equity or VSOP component is added at a scale-up, not expected in the classic Mittelstand.