A team of one is not a team at all

I am hearing in conversations and seeing on job descriptions this idea of a “team of one”. Can we all agree that this is yet another nonsense “marketing” term? There can be a department or business unit of one but that is not a team. There are some situations where it could make sense to have a department of one, such as Operations. This works because an operations person is normally working in collaboration with a business leader, whether that is Sales, CS, or Marketing.

One area where this does not make sense is Sales. Early sales teams are as much about data collection as they are about revenue generation. Any data analyst will tell you that the more data points you are able to collect, the more meaningful your results are.

So why is it that founders/sales leaders think it is a good idea to hire a single sales rep when first building a team?

The entire point of a team is that it involves multiple people working towards a common goal. Team members are able to share ideas, workload, and support with one another. What teams are also able to do is collect multiple data points.

Now to be clear, I am not advocating building large sales teams as a magic bullet for growth. What I am saying is that it makes sense to hire 2 or 3 reps, instead of just one to get the team off the ground.

Positive effects of having more than 1 sales rep:
✅ More data - more reps means more data being collected
✅ Cleaner data - more data points mean more reliable data
✅ Better decision-making - more reliable data means improved data-based decisions
✅ Better team morale - reps are happier when they have the support of teammates
✅ Productivity - reps are more productive when they have the competition with teammates
✅ Quicker ramp time - reps learn faster when they have teammates to learn with/from
✅ Longevity - reps who are happier and more productive are more likely to want to stay at a company

The one potential negative founders will speak about is the increased cost of hiring multiple reps. The reality is that all of the positives listed above both reduce costs and increase the speed of revenue generation. While paying multiple salaries will increase your immediate costs, having happy and productive reps around for longer is a net increase to your bottom line. Additionally, the ability to collect clean data quicker leads to huge cost savings from improved decision-making from the leadership team.