Sometimes the smartest scaling is the slowest.

How's that for alliteration?

As the great philosopher Clark Griswold once said...

I was recently working with a company that was so excited to grow and scale up - FAST. Within two weeks, said company hired six people to fulfill sales pipeline roles: two BDRs (business development reps), two AEs (account executives), and two CSR (customer service reps).

Scaling up is so exciting we just want to go fast! We want to build on the momentum and, for fear of losing that momentum, we want to capture the market by flooding the market with new staff member energy.

Sounds great, right? Well, it is great...until you get a handle on your actual prospects and contacts in your newly migrated CSM.

And so it was that said company had to lay off one of those new hires just two months after he was hired. Another person had to change roles or be let go. The entire BDR program was scrapped and, despite promises of "don't worry, you all are fine," those new hires were not fine, to no fault of their own. And, of course, that hiring manager...well...is no longer at the company.

The moral of this start-up story? SLOW. DOWN. Your speed is not what will be remembered, but your lay-offs and heartbroken staff will remember it all. Take a breath to really check your sales numbers and potential prospects. Are there dupes? Are there multiple contacts within the same company that you are counting as one, two, even three different prospects? Carry that across a book of thousands and you have yourself a serious sales dilemma.

Inflated numbers translate to inflated hires. It's a big deal, because in this job market, you have to be sure you need someone. A two month stint in employment does not bode well on a resume in 2025.

Be thoughtful. Remember that people are at the heart of your sales pipeline.