How Foremind Hired Their First Two Junior Sales Reps With Earlywork Academy
Our journey helping Foremind hire 2 junior sales reps who are over-performing and staying in their roles.
Transitioning from founder led sales to a sales team is a huge challenge for every startup founder. Early work supported us to navigate this difficult transition by matching us with 2 exceptional team members and then provide ongoing support for them to accelerate their skill development.
The Challenge
In March 2024, Foremind had just finished a 1,000% growth period in the previous calendar year all from founder led sales.
They’d just taken on $500k+ in funding and to meet their lofty targets, they were excited to hire their first junior sales reps to work with the founder.
But in the world of junior sales hiring, where there were no degrees and set backgrounds, Foremind was looking at different alternatives to get started.
The Solution
Fortunately, Joel Anderson, the CEO at Foremind, met Buildpass founder, Matt Perrott, at dinner for the construction industry.
Hearing about Buildpass’ experience with Earlywork earlier in the year, Joel reached out to Earlywork to learn more about the hire & post-hire support.
After conversations with Earlywork, Joel was happy to go ahead with a trial of an upcoming Earlywork Academy cohort as an integrated employer.
Unlike other hiring solutions, Foremind received hiring support beyond a regular recruitment agency in three ways:
1) Assistance in designing their SDR hiring process
Similar to Matt at Buildpass, Joel didn’t come from a sales background and had never done any sales hiring before.
When signing up to Earlywork Partner Platform, our Employer Success Manager directed him towards the Earlywork SDR Hiring Guide and collaborated on the right profiles for their product and company culture.
Joel also leveraged the case study template to formalise a more comprehensive technical interview.
2) Seamless integration with the Foremind interview process
After a cohort of 25+ graduates, our Employer Success Manager worked collaboratively with Joel to curate introductions 5+ high fit fellows.
Joel was able to view detailed profiles on each fellow and schedule them into a group interview at their office.
Check out what Dylan & Conal’s profiles looked like:
3) 1:1 sales & career coaching for hired fellows
Founders in fast growing startups are often stretched for time, making it hard to provide the amount of 1:1 time required to help junior sales reps ramp faster.
That’s why all Earlywork fellows are put through our 4-week in-house graduate program, Earlywork Accelerator, and receive regular 1:1 coaching from the team alongside their company onboarding program.
The Results
Junior sales rep that love the problem space, product and sales
Dylan and Conal are both thriving in their sales roles, but more importantly, are enjoying the problem space.
In fact, check out one of Dylan’s TikToks where he details his day in the life working at Foremind:
Check out Joel’s post in August 2024 for an update on his last 6 months👇
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