The Field is a bi-weekly newsletter about how marketing is designed and run in eMobility companies. It's written from the perspective of a fractional CMO working with founders, CMOs, and commercial leaders in the eMobility field.
The most expensive mistake in B2B is hiring senior sales to fix a marketing problem.
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Hi Reader, When revenue growth slows, the reaction is almost always the same. Hire someone who can sell. A senior sales director. A seasoned business developer. Someone with a network, a track record, and the credibility to open doors. It feels like the right move. In many cases, it is the most expensive mistake a scaling company can make. What I'm seeingA senior sales hire in B2B typically costs between €150.000 and €200.000 per year. Sometimes more, once you include on-target earnings, onboarding time and the months before they reach full productivity. That investment can absolutely be the right one. But only when the foundation is in place. What I see in the field is different. Companies bring in senior sales talent before the positioning is clear. Before there is a consistent answer to what problem they solve, for whom, and why now. Before marketing has built any recognition or credibility in the market. The result is predictable. The sales director arrives and starts pushing. But the market does not know the company. The messaging does not land. Every conversation starts from zero. The senior hire ends up compensating for what marketing was supposed to build. That is not a sales performance problem. It is a foundation problem with a €180.000 price tag. The pattern underneathThis happens because sales feels tangible and marketing feels slow. A sales hire produces activity immediately. Calls are made. Meetings are booked. The pipeline starts moving. Leadership sees momentum. Marketing foundation work is different. Positioning takes time to settle. Messaging takes time to sharpen. Recognition takes time to build. The results are not visible in week one or month one. They compound quietly, until the moment they become impossible to ignore. So when pressure rises, sales gets the budget and marketing gets asked to do more with less. The foundation never gets built. And the next senior sales hire faces the same headwind as the last one. In many scaling companies, there is no one at the leadership level responsible for positioning, for messaging, for building recognition in the right market with the right story. Without that ownership, the foundation stays incomplete. And when results disappoint, the answer is always the same. More sales. More activity. More pressure. The cycle repeats. The foundation stays weak. The cost keeps compounding. How I'd approach itBefore adding sales capacity, I would ask one question. Will this person walk into a market that already knows you, or will they have to explain your company from scratch? If the answer is the latter, the foundation is not ready. No clear positioning. No consistent message in the market. No content that builds credibility before a sales conversation even starts. In that situation, a senior sales hire is not an accelerator. It is an expensive workaround. You are scaling effort before you have built demand. I would start by establishing ownership. Someone at leadership level who is responsible for the foundation, not just for campaign output. Someone who can answer clearly what the company stands for, who it is for, and why the market should care now. Then build the foundation before you scale the team. Define the position. Clarify the message. Create the conditions where sales can do what sales is supposed to do. Not explain the company from scratch in every call. But walk into conversations where the market already knows the name, understands the value, and has a reason to listen. That is what a strong foundation gives a sales team. Not leads. Credibility. A great salesperson cannot fix a foundation problem. They only expose it faster. Your perspectiveHave you seen this pattern? Where did the pressure land in your organisation, and what was the cost? See you in two weeks, Theo Reichgelt Connect with me on LinkedIn |
The Field
The Field is a bi-weekly newsletter about how marketing is designed and run in eMobility companies. It's written from the perspective of a fractional CMO working with founders, CMOs, and commercial leaders in the eMobility field.
Hi Reader, When growth slows down, most scaling B2B companies make the same mistake. They widen the target audience. It feels like ambition. It looks like a strategy for scale. But in reality, it is the fastest way to make your marketing invisible. What I'm seeing When I review the target audience definitions of scaling companies, they usually read like a wish list. They want to sell to enterprise, but also mid-market. They target the CIO, but also the VP of Operations and the Head of...
Hi Reader, Most scaling B2B tech companies measure marketing activity. Website visits. Content downloads. Webinar registrations. LinkedIn impressions. It feels like control. It looks like progress. But none of it explains why deals are not closing. When revenue slows down, those metrics rarely provide an answer. They only show that the engine is running, not whether it is going anywhere. What I’m seeing When I look at the marketing dashboards of scaling companies, they are usually full of...
Hi Reader, Most scaling B2B companies have marketing. Campaigns running. Content going out. A LinkedIn presence. Maybe some paid media. What most of them do not have is a marketing system. Those two things look the same from the outside. They feel completely different from the inside. One performs. The other just stays busy. What I’m seeing When I start working with a scaling B2B tech company, things break quickly. A few basic questions are enough. Does leadership tell the same story as...