Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Blond: Guaranteed draws during onboarding can make or break sales hiring

Sam Blond · CRO Confidential: Sales Recruitment and Hiring Managers With Ben Braverman · Jan 27, 2023 · at 38:25

Sam Blond, former CRO at Brex and Partner at Founders Fund, explains how early-stage startups should structure compensation during rep onboarding.

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“You can really de-risk that through either you know, you're hiring your first two sales reps, put them on a draw for 60 to 90 days, and a draw means pay them their full commission. If you're paying somebody like 150,000 dollars a year, that means that their commission is going to be 75,000. That means each month they're gonna be making something like 6000 dollars that you were going to draw them. And so in total, if you draw them for 60 days, that's 12 grand per rep. It's not gonna break the bank, and it can be the difference between hiring an incredible person and not”

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