Another Sales Hire Probably Isn’t the Answer To Your Growth Challenges*

When a B2B company – especially an early-stage one – hits a sales plateau, the default, knee-jerk instinct is usually the same: “We need to bring in another salesperson”. The hope is that activity and motion, coupled with new blood and a new rolodex, will unlock stalled revenue.

Sure, there are times when a new sales hire can make a difference. But more often than not, adding a salesperson only masks bigger issues. If the engine isn’t humming, adding another driver won’t help – and can even make things worse.

Because what most of these companies are really experiencing is caused by faulty fundamentals and a wobbly foundation to sell from—including, a lack of or weak positioning and messaging; unclear targeting, segmentation, and customer insight; missing customer journey support and nurture, and beyond. And when you throw another rep at the problem, instead of addressing these deeper issues, you can exacerbate the problem.

Why Hiring More Reps Fails to Get to the Root of the Issue

Before hiring, first remember: onboarding a new sales rep often costs six figures and can take up to a year to reach full productivity. So before assuming “more people selling” will solve the problem, it’s worth determining if the real issue is lack of outreach activity. If your message, systems, or demand engine are weak, no amount of headcount will fix it.

Hiring more salespeople usually masks these systemic issues—leading companies to believe they’re doing something when they’re actually just delaying the real work. Here’s why this approach so often misses the mark:

• It amplifies noise, not clarity. When your value proposition is vague, generic, and doesn’t resonate or differentiate, spreading it more widely only amplifies the confusion and dilutes your brand.
• It undervalues customer understanding. If your team hasn’t defined their ideal customer profile (ICP), created distinct personas, segmented the market, or mapped the buyer’s journey, even “rock star” new salespeople will be firing blind at customers’ needs.
• It rewards activity over strategy. Without a strategic foundation or cohesive go-to-market motion, all that new activity and effort is unlikely to gain momentum.
• It ignores the real conversion challenge. As I’ve written here before, most companies have a bigger conversion problem than a lead gen problem. Hiring another rep won’t fix the fact a lack of a coordinated nurture strategy.
• Lack of a demand engine. Cold calls without branding, trust, or relevance are uphill battles. Sales needs air cover: awareness, education, and proof—so outreach lands with resonance, not resistance.

What to Do Instead

Before defaulting to another sales hire to address your need for growth, start by answering the tougher, more strategic questions. Your job is to help create the conditions and systems that enable salespeople to succeed.

Here’s what that work looks like:

1. Invest in Customer Insight
   Get clear on who your best customers are, what triggers their buying decisions, what frictions they experience, and what content or conversations unlock progress. Map the full journey—from awareness to decision—and align your efforts accordingly.
2. Sharpen Your Message
   Make sure your positioning speaks directly to your ideal buyer’s pain points, goals, and decision-making criteria. It should be differentiated, specific, and tied to outcomes, not features or attributes. Even a great salesperson needs a strong story to sell.
3. Build a Real Demand Engine
   Think beyond sales-led outreach. Create content and campaigns that educate, generate interest, and build trust over time. Your marketing should support long-cycle buyers, not just chase quick wins.
4. Focus on Conversion Systems, Not Just Lead Volume
   Marketing and sales should operate in tandem to track and manage how existing leads move through the funnel, developing nurture programs, email sequences, and integrated efforts.
5. Enable the Team You Have
   Focus on giving the current team tools to help them succeed. That includes sales enablement tools and assets like FAQs, objection-handling frameworks, testimonials, case studies, and beyond. These are nice-to-haves – they’re what modern selling relies on.

Final Thought

Hiring another rep may feel action-oriented and immediate. But it’s likely not fixing your sales engine, but instead just trying to drive it harder.

Real growth comes when you build the right conditions for sales to succeed: clear positioning, focused targeting, aligned content, and a system that builds trust over time. Only then will adding a sales rep actually have the results you’re looking for.

*Originally published in MediaPost’s Marketing Insider