They won't generate enough leads on their own… at least not enough to feed themselves. (Okay, sometimes, some salespeople will. Some people win the lottery, too.) Here's why: 1. Experienced salespeople are terrible at prospecting. 2. Experienced salespeople hate to prospect. 3. Even if a salesperson does do some prospecting successfully, as soon as they generate some pipeline, they become too busy to prospect. It's not sustainable. Unless all I'm selling is big deals (>$250k), or I’m in an industry that truly is relationship-based (like the ad agency world), there is no way in hell I'm rolling the dice on my company based on the old-school idea, “hire some experienced salespeople, sick‘em on territories and let them sink or swim.” How Boards and CEOs Exacerbate The Problem As soon as a product is ready for market and there is some initial customer traction, the board and CEO tend to rush to set 100%+ growth targets. They arbitrarily pick goals (since there's no data to base predictions on!) and turn the screws on the VP Sales. The VP Sales sucks it up (especially when he had no voice in the goals) and gets busy hiring salespeople... who miss plan. Company misses targets. Executive team is refreshed. Why is it easier for people and companies to do more of what doesn't work than to take some time to figure out what does? By Q2, when the salespeople aren't making their 2010 numbers, there will be the push (from the board, CEO or VP Sales themselves) to hire more! "We're behind on our goals; we need to hire more salespeople!" How does that make sense?! Why do CEOs and boards keep making this same dumb mistake? People, when under pressure or stress, tend to retreat to the safe place of what they know rather than taking the risk of trying new things. People tend to do more of what is not working rather than stepping back, taking a breather, and trying to figure out a new approach. Some Answers