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

sales-and-revenue-operations