Scope
What a VP of sales actually owns
The question this role exists to answer: How do we convert interested buyers into signed contracts, repeatably, with a team that can do it without me.
Owns
- Sales team hiring, coaching and performance management
- Sales process, methodology and stage definitions
- Quota and territory design
- Forecast accuracy and pipeline inspection
- Deal strategy on major opportunities
Shares
Does not own
- Marketing strategy and demand generation
- Product roadmap
- Marketing budget
Timing
When to hire a VP of sales
Too early
Before founder led sales has produced a repeatable motion, a VP of Sales will usually fail. There is nothing to scale yet and the role is not designed to invent the motion.
The right window
Two million to fifty million in ARR with at least two or three reps already selling successfully.
Outgrown
Past fifty million in ARR the scope usually splits by segment or geography with a CRO above.
How much work this actually is
At Series B, with none of it covered today, the functions in this role's scope represent roughly 4.3 full time equivalents. The scope represents roughly 5 people of work at this stage. A leader can carry that only with a team underneath them. If the plan is a solo hire, the description needs to shrink.
| Function in scope | Group | Full time equivalents |
|---|---|---|
| Sales team leadership Hiring reps, quota and territory design, forecast accountability, coaching and performance management. |
Sales and revenue | 0.85 |
| New business closing Discovery, evaluation management, negotiation, procurement and signature. |
Sales and revenue | 1.70 |
| Sales enablement Onboarding, certification, playbooks, call coaching, and the content sellers actually use. |
Sales and revenue | 0.51 |
| Pipeline generation and outbound Prospecting, cold outreach, list building, meeting setting, top of funnel sales activity. |
Sales and revenue | 1.28 |
Run your own coverage grid to see what this number looks like at your stage, with your team and your existing coverage.
Compensation
What a VP of sales costs
Structure matters as much as the number
Roughly an even split between base salary and variable pay, which is standard for a role carrying direct revenue accountability.
Equity: Commonly 0.3 to 0.8 percent at Series B. On target earnings usually splits evenly between base and variable.
Bands are directional, for scoping a description or a target range rather than making or accepting an offer. Benchmark figures are triangulated from the sources listed and refreshed with the data file. Live posted ranges come from GTM Radar and are only shown once enough matched postings exist to be meaningful.
Title confusion
Titles a VP of sales gets confused with
Most mis hires in go to market are not bad candidates. They are the right candidate for a different job than the one the company actually needed.
VP of Sales versus Chief Revenue Officer
A CRO adds marketing and customer success to the mandate. If the company only needs the sales team fixed, the VP title is the honest one and it will attract a better fit.
VP of Sales versus Sales Manager
A VP is expected to build the system: hiring plan, process, territory design and forecast rigor. A manager runs a team inside a system that already exists. Companies with eight reps sometimes need the manager and pay for the VP.
Requirements
What to actually require
Non negotiable
- Carried and hit a team number in a comparable deal size and cycle
- Hired and ramped reps successfully
- Built or materially improved a forecast process
- Sold into the same buyer type
Genuinely optional
- Experience selling to the specific buyer persona
- Channel or partner assisted selling
- Experience through a similar stage transition
Everything in this column belongs under a preferred heading, or out of the description entirely. Requirements lists that mix these two columns filter out strong candidates who self select away.
Tools this role works in
- CRM
- Sales engagement and sequencing
- Conversation intelligence
- Forecasting and revenue intelligence
- CPQ and billing
Name the specific platforms in the description. Platform experience is not fully transferable in operations and automation roles, and candidates screen themselves in or out on exactly this detail.
Before you post
Red flags in a VP of sales job description
Screening
Interview questions that reveal fit
| Area | Question |
|---|---|
| Number | What was your team number for each of the last three years and what did you deliver. |
| Hiring | How many reps did you hire, how many ramped successfully, and what did you change after the ones who did not. |
| Forecast | Walk me through your forecast process. How accurate were you ninety days out. |
| Marketing relationship | How much of your pipeline came from marketing, and how did you work with the marketing leader when it was not enough. |
| Deal depth | Take the largest deal you lost last year. What actually happened. |
Measure the role on
- Team attainment against quota
- Forecast accuracy
- Rep ramp time and attainment distribution
- Win rate and average deal size
- Pipeline coverage ratio
First 90 days
First 30 days
- Ride along on twenty calls across every rep
- Inspect every open deal in the pipeline honestly
- Assess the team and identify who is ramping and who is not
By day 60
- Publish revised stage definitions and forecast process
- Fix the biggest process gap in the funnel
- Agree pipeline coverage targets with marketing
By day 90
- Deliver an accurate forecast
- Present the hiring and territory plan
- Show a measurable improvement in one funnel conversion rate
Questions
VP of Sales hiring questions
When should a startup hire a VP of Sales?
After founder led sales has produced a repeatable motion, usually somewhere between two million and five million in ARR with two or three reps already selling successfully. Hiring a VP of Sales to invent the motion rather than scale it is a common and expensive failure, because the role is built for scaling a known process.
What is a typical VP of Sales compensation package?
On target earnings commonly land between three hundred eighty thousand and five hundred twenty thousand, split roughly evenly between base and variable, with equity often between 0.3 and 0.8 percent at Series B. That even split is a defining feature of the role and it signals the accountability structure to candidates.
What should a VP of Sales be measured on in the first ninety days?
Not revenue. Ninety days is shorter than most enterprise sales cycles. Measure forecast accuracy, honest pipeline inspection, stage definition clarity, and whether the team assessment and hiring plan are credible. Revenue accountability starts once a full cycle has run.
Next step
Turn this into a job description scoped to your company
The reference above describes the role in general. The builder takes your stage, your team, your existing coverage, your territory and your stack, and produces a description scoped to the gap you actually have, with a scope load check before you post it.
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