90 Day Sales Scorecard: Is Your Head of Sales Fit for Purpose?
A practical framework for deep tech founders to evaluate their head of sales within the first 90 days. Learn the five key metrics that reveal whether your sales challenges stem from leadership, product-market fit, or both. Includes actionable steps to set clear expectations and measure success in enterprise sales environments.
You hired a head of sales, but you’re still missing sales targets and wondering “is it the head of sales or our product-market fit?”
If you’re asking this, the answer is probably ‘both’.
I assess five measurable metrics in any B2B sales process to clarify the head of sales’ fitness for purpose.
Quality of Meetings 🤝
Are you getting meetings with decision-makers at companies that match your ideal customer profile? A red flag is meetings with companies outside your target or without the need you’re addressing.
Progression of Leads 📈
Are leads moving through the sales funnel—from initial discussions to product demos or POCs—or stagnating at the early stages? When there’s a real problem and you’re talking to the right people, even big companies move quickly.
Depth of Discovery Calls 🔍
Is your head of sales asking questions in sales calls that uncover meaningful pain points, or expecting you to do all the talking? The best salespeople identify specific challenges, instead of staying at a surface level. If you’re not impressed with the questions they ask when you’re in the room, they’ll do an even worse job when you’re not there.
Building Relationships 🌱
Are they fostering trust and rapport with potential clients? Consistent follow-ups and strong connections result in engaged prospects, while weak follow-ups can leave clients disengaged.
Proactive Feedback Loop ↪️
Do they actively seek feedback from clients and your team to refine their approach? A strong performer will constantly adapt and improve, while a lack of feedback-seeking can indicate rigid or ineffective methods.
As you scale up your sales, the most important metrics are the quality of meetings and the progression of leads.
How to use this scorecard: ✅
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Agree clear metrics with your head of sales in advance and track them weekly (yes, weekly, even in enterprise sales)
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Agree on definitions of your decision maker (e.g. verbal confirmation that they can sign off on the budget required to sell your product), your ICP (e.g. characteristics of the companies), and what “good” progression looks like (e.g. expected number of weeks from first meeting to demo, demo to follow up, etc)
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Ask your head of sales to assess their performance in these categories. Push for specifics and metrics. Don’t settle for fluff.
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Focus on Meeting Quality and Lead Progression.
How Nick can help 🚀
I help technically brilliant founders find their product-market fit and build scalable sales organisations from seed to series A.
Rather than hiring a head of sales or a sales coach, founders working with Nick benefit from a sales, marketing, and product marketing expertise that only a deep tech founder can offer.
We’ve adapted a startup growth process for the unique customer base, sales model and complex products that deep tech entails.
Book a free 30-minute call to discuss how these metrics apply to your sales organization. 📞