Compensation for head of sales at SMB

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January 09, 2025

by an investor from Harvard University - Harvard Business School in Cambridge, MA, USA

What compensation benchmarks do people have for a $1-5 mm EBITDA company. This person would manage 2-3 people, and so would be be selling in addition to managing sales people.

I'm curious on base salary, bonus (what they have to do to get this bonus), and equity.

Thanks!

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Reply by an investor
from Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, USA
I run a SMB manufacturing business - since our approach to sales is very team oriented and mostly in-bound, we have higher base and lower bonuses, no commission. We do a quarterly 'keep on the pace' bonus based on hitting the sales target for that quarter (cumulative) for the whole team. Then the sales leader also gets to participate in the management gross profit sharing plan. No equity component for us.
Hope that helps!
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Reply by a searcher
from Indiana University, Bloomington/Indianapolis in Atlanta, GA, USA
Phil - great question. I've run sales teams at several SMB's as well as mega caps. I've also been that first line leader in the SMB business too. Nick makes some good points above re: no commission structure. Happy to chat with you if it would be helpful to walk through a few options I've seen. Text me anytime###-###-#### or I'll try and check back here.
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