From Grit to Success: Building High-Performing Sales Teams

Interview with Kevin Beaudette | Former VP of Sales, Kojo | Previously in sales at Sprout Social and Glassdoor

Originally published: September 9, 2024 ·  Updated to clarify a pipeline example.

A sales team that misses quota usually has a pipeline problem, not a closing problem. Kevin Beaudette, former VP of Sales at construction tech company Kojo, builds teams by working backward from the number: who to hire, how much pipeline each rep needs and which data the team can trust.

Read the Market Before It Reads You

Reading the market is central to Beaudette's approach, starting with his own career. He moved from Glassdoor to Sprout Social shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, which soon hit the recruiting and job-listings market hard. "It taught me the importance of reading the market and making timely decisions," he recalls.

At Sprout Social, he says his team posted some of its strongest results during a period when many companies struggled. For him, the lesson is that sales leadership looks both ways. "It's not just about selling in the moment; it's about understanding where the market is going and how your team can best navigate those changes." And: "Sales leadership requires a constant balancing act: reacting to what's happening now while also planning for what's next."

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The Three Traits He Hires For

Beaudette hires for three qualities:

• Grit. "Grit is about getting up every day, no matter how hard the previous day was. Sales are tough. It's not for the faint of heart."
• Curiosity. "Anyone can follow a script, but the best reps are those who truly care about why they're asking questions." Curious reps understand clients more deeply and keep learning as the market changes.
• A track record he can explain. "I want to know why someone was successful, not just that they were. It's about finding patterns and replicating them to scale success across the team."

Pipeline Is the Only Metric That Matters, Three Times Over

"Pipeline generation isn't just the most important metric, it's the top three," Beaudette says. His method starts from the revenue target and works backward to the activity needed to reach it.

"If you have a $100K quota, your average deal size is $20K and you close 25% of opportunities, you need a clear understanding of how many opportunities you need in your pipeline."

The math behind his example:

Opportunities needed = Quota ÷ (Average deal size × Close rate) = $100,000 ÷ ($20,000 × 0.25) = 20

In other words, the rep needs about $400K in qualified pipeline (quota divided by close rate), or 20 opportunities of average size, to expect to hit a $100K quota. Working backward again from historical conversion rates at each funnel stage tells the team how many meetings and first conversations those 20 opportunities require.

The model only works if the data is clean. "Bad data leads to bad decisions," he warns. He insists on CRM hygiene, monitors conversion rates to find bottlenecks and uses forecasting tools such as Clari, a revenue forecasting platform, to reduce subjective bias in the forecast.

The Reps Who Ask for Help Win

Early in his career, Beaudette saw asking for help as weakness. He changed his mind when he noticed who performed best. "The reps who ask for help the most are the ones I want to help the most. It's not about knowing everything. It's about being willing to learn and improve continuously."

He encourages reps to bring complex deals and difficult accounts to their managers early. "It shows that you're engaged and committed to finding the best solution." The leader's job is to build a culture where that is seen as strength. "Sales is a team effort, and we all rise by helping each other."

Sell What You Care About

At Kojo, Beaudette realized that while he was good at driving sales in construction tech, his real interest lay in finance. "You have to find the cross-section of what you're good at and what you love," he says. "If you're not passionate about the product or the industry, it's hard to sustain the motivation required to excel in sales." Pivoting, in his view, is part of the job. "Sales is a journey, and the more honest you are with yourself about what drives you, the more successful you'll be."

Kevin Beaudette is a sales leader with experience building and scaling B2B sales teams. He was VP of Sales at Kojo, a construction technology company, and previously held sales roles at Sprout Social and Glassdoor.

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