Founders typically fire non-performing sales hires at month nine to twelve. By then they have lost revenue and market share, because the system never enabled those hires to succeed. The data was already there at month three.
hit 80% of ramp
at 30% or below
Four business development executives hired in Q1. The founder blamed the hires.
The truth: he never built a training system. He built a hiring funnel. Targets became numbers on the wall — not because the hires failed, but because nothing helped them succeed.
The three layers of sales training
Three Layers
Onboarding
How a new salesperson learns your way of selling — who to call, what to say, what good looks like by week six.
Coaching
Regular feedback on real calls and real deals, so skills improve after the first month.
Enablement
The material salespeople use every day: playbooks, case studies, objection answers and proposal templates.
Most founder-led B2B companies in the ₹5–80 Cr range are missing two of the three. Onboarding is usually HR orientation, coaching is occasional, and enablement is whatever the founder remembers to share.
The hires did not fail. The training system was never built
Related: Define day 30 before your next sales hire starts — the onboarding layer in detail.