The 5 Hiring Mistakes That Are Killing Your Revenue and Stalling Your Growth

In this solo episode of Predictable B2B Growth, Javier breaks down why hiring more people won’t fix a broken pipeline—and often makes things worse.

He walks through the common mistake founders and CEOs make when growth stalls: defaulting to headcount instead of fixing the underlying go-to-market motion. From unclear ICPs and weak strategy to broken handoffs and poor measurement, Javier outlines the real reasons hiring fails.

He also shares the five predictable failure modes of hiring too early and explains what a strong go-to-market foundation actually looks like—before you bring in SDRs, marketers, or sales leaders.

This episode is a practical guide to building a system that works first—so when you do hire, it actually drives revenue instead of chaos.

Key Topics

• The dangers of hiring too early
• Importance of defining go-to-market motion
• Building a foundation before leadership hires
• Hiring to relieve constraints, not overwhelm
• Measuring success before hiring

Chapters

00:00 The Hiring Dilemma: When to Expand Your Team
02:53 Understanding the Go-to-Market Strategy
05:46 Identifying Failure Modes in Hiring
09:10 Building a Strong Foundation Before Hiring
11:56 Measuring Success and Defining Roles
14:55 Hiring for Constraints: The Right Approach
17:46 Final Thoughts on Smart Hiring Practices

Thanks for listening to Predictable B2B Growth.

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•  Website: https://boldermediasolutions.com

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Transcript

Javier Lozano, Jr. (00:01.204)
What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of Predictable B2B Growth. I'm your host, Javier. Hope you're having a great day. So what I want to do today is start diving into hiring. And so this is an interesting topic because I typically see the hiring process hit more so for companies that are in a couple of different stages. Either they just raised around a capital. So

they got capital, they're like, all right, we need bodies. And they start hiring a whole bunch of folks. Or they are falling short of their revenue goals, they had already raised capital. They may have not been hiring for certain roles or whatever. And then they're falling short for a quarter or two, or maybe even three. And they're like, well, the only solution is hiring. And so what I wanna do is I wanna kind of give you an idea here, is that like a...

what a go-to-market team design should look like and why hiring more people often is the worst idea. It is not something that you should be doing immediately. So I'm not saying don't hire, I'm not implying that, but what you wanna do is you wanna kinda stress test certain pieces of your business before you start thinking about hiring anyone to bring into the team because like these are real, this is a real situation. Like if you hire the wrong people, that's gonna affect the business, you know.

revenue and their bottom line, that could also affect the person that you brought in because if you brought them at the wrong stage and they're more prepared for a different stage, like that can maybe create churn. Heck, that can maybe even create where they get fired, okay? Also churn, but you get my point. So the tension that I see like that founders typically go through is that, know, pipeline's inconsistent and everyone's busy, but revenue is still stressful. And so,

The founder's conclusion or the CEO's conclusion is that we need more SDRs or we need a VP of marketing or we need more reps or we need, you get this, right? And the truth is that Add-In Head Count is an unclear system that's gonna just amplify the chaos that has been created within the company. So hiring doesn't fix a broken motion, it scales it, okay? So I'm gonna say that one more time. Hiring doesn't fix a broken motion, it scales it.

Javier Lozano, Jr. (02:24.33)
And I'll actually even add this, implementing AI doesn't fix a broken motion, it scales that as well too. So that's for another topic another day. So the real reason that I believe that hiring fails is the undefined work, the undefined work problem. like, is true in my opinion. And I would say like, take a look at your own business. Like think about this, like most teams they can't clearly answer like, what's the actual go-to-market motion?

What's the ICP? What's the offer and path to conversion? What does qualified mean? What happens after a lead is captured? If you can't answer all those, and not just answer one or two of them, but you can't just say, literally say, this is our motion, this is our ICP, this is the offer and the path conversion, this is what qualified looks like, then you're gonna have a problem there. So the new hire is gonna typically be walking in with,

and they're gonna start guessing. They're gonna start kind of like wondering what to do. so guessing becomes random max marketing, which also becomes random max of selling. And that's also not good for payroll. Okay. And so that's where the issue comes into play here. So when you're looking at bringing somebody on board, like just take the time to answer these questions. These are just some simple questions. Like you're gonna probably wanna go in depth further. Okay. Depending on the role, like if you're thinking about like,

hey, we think the bottleneck is in operations, then we need to hire more people that can help kind of create more fulfillment. Is it really that or are we bringing in the wrong types of clients? Are we bringing in the wrong types of prospects? Like, analyze those things to see if it makes sense, all right? And so I kind of see it this way is that there's five, five predictable failure modes when you hire too early, okay?

And this is no particular order. I'm gonna have this kind of laid out here. So these failure modes are, in my opinion, if you see these, it's gonna be, you're gonna probably have disaster going on. So A, or number one, is that you hire a role when you actually need a decision. Okay, think about that. You hire someone to do something when,

Javier Lozano, Jr. (04:46.99)
All you really just need to do is just like have a decision made and who owns it. Like founders try to outsource clarity. That's not good, okay? Like if you're a founder, you should be the one creating clarity and positioning the team to be able to just go, okay? Like that's where you should be finding your area genius there. And so like positioning, ICP, emotions are leadership decisions, okay? Just understand that.

The leader, okay, CEO, along with the CMO and the CRO, you three should be mapping out the positioning, the ICP, the go-to-market motion. That is a leadership decision. That is not just hire someone to figure this out. Do you understand that? so you're hiring someone to bank a decision for you when in reality, you are the one that should be creating a clarity. Like, it starts from the top.

I don't wanna be rude by saying this, but I'm going to be anyways, so it's gonna come off. if you are the CEO or the founder or you're in charge of revenue, you own how clear the goals are gonna be. You own that, okay? You might do it with other members of your leadership team together, but you still own it, okay? Because it is your company. You have to own that. You can't...

just hand that off to somebody else, okay? So that decision has to be owned. And if it's wrong, that's okay. If the decision that you made on the ICP, the positioning, the motion is wrong, that's okay. Like it's going to be wrong, probably several times. But you can't just pass this on to somebody else. You have to own it, all right? But you do it with your leadership team together and you own it together.

and then you build from there. So that's failure mode number one. right, failure mode number two is that you hire a doer into a missing strategy, okay? This kind of piggybacks off of the last one. And so you need to have a strategy before you bring in people to do certain things like, and this strategy needs to be effective. So like the marketer becomes a content machine or the SCR becomes a meeting machine or.

Javier Lozano, Jr. (07:14.154)
Output goes up and outcomes don't. So like what I'm getting to is that you need to essentially build out that strategy and know that, okay, we're gonna run this strategy for the next 90 days to see if we can get any kind of learnings and information of what's going to work. And we're all gonna do a little bit and we're gonna see where the constraints are. Where are the pressure points? What is not really kind of working very well? And we're going to figure that piece out. So you don't wanna,

bring in somebody that just does all these things if you don't have the strategy built out. And so again, like the strategy should be built together with your CMO and CRO. Like that should be built together. They should be looking at, you know, the marketing, the sales and the success pieces of it and understanding those, how that all looks like so that you don't just, you know, bring in someone to do content. Like there's gotta be more to this, all right? So just kind of get that piece.

the strategy starts with leadership, okay? It starts from the top, okay? Everyone's gonna have a little bit of opinion, but it starts from the top, and then you start deliberately executing on who should be doing what. So then, now we move into failure mode number three. The third problem is you hire a leader before the foundation exists. This one is huge, okay? So I'm gonna make a point,

This is my opinion, but I believe that you should probably be looking at hiring a fractional CMO, go-to-market leader that is gonna help build the foundation first before you bring in any kind of VP of sales CRO. That is my opinion. And the reason is because if you can build that foundation correctly, then people will be successful when they come in.

But when the CRO VP of Sales is in charge of building the foundation, that, not saying they can't do it, but there's certain things that's not in their wheelhouse. And so you might be like, all right, we're gonna bring in a VP or a head, but they can't lead without goals, and they can't lead without definitions, and they can't lead without a funnel ownership, and they can't lead without budget constraints, and they can't lead without a motion they can actually execute. Does that make sense? So like you're hiring,

Javier Lozano, Jr. (09:41.25)
the wrong people at the wrong time. So my recommendation is always to build this foundation first. Build everything so that you then know what goals to set up. How to create your definitions of what a lead is, what an MQL is, what an SQL is, a close one is like if they gave you money. But you have definition at different stages. You have someone that owns the whole funnel.

Like you understand like this is owned by marketing and this is why, or this is owned by sales and this is why. You know what the budget constraints are so that you don't go in asking for more money and more resources. You basically like, this is the same box that we have to operate and this is how we're gonna go. And you basically have a motion that you can execute, that you can actually execute. like you need to create that foundation for the team that you bring in.

but more importantly for the leader so they can lead correctly so that they can lean into any kind of enablement that's been created for that team, for that company. And so I see this all the time where companies hire like a VP of, or a CTO or VP of tech or whatever, or a sales leader when that person is coming in with not a ton to lean into.

So they're making the wrong hires at the wrong stages. And so my opinion is you hire leaders that are going to help build that foundation. So failure report number four is that you create handoffs before you have rules. Okay, so what I mean by this is that like marketing to like say SDR to AE is breaking somewhere and the definitions are just really fuzzy.

or speed to lead really starts slipping and then everyone starts blaming everybody else. So like what I'm getting here is that you need to know where the handups are. So like if marketing is in charge into here or if marketing is in charge of everything but like it starts kind of like going down a little bit. So maybe marketing is in charge of like top of funnel. Maybe they're in charge of getting them captured. Okay, maybe they're in charge of.

Javier Lozano, Jr. (11:56.588)
moving those leads to kind of like raise hands at different stages or show interest, but then sales is also in conjunction working those accordingly as they come inbound after they're captured. Like you've got to define those things, okay? The other part is you also have to define like what, know, how quickly you should be contacting these leads. Like they shouldn't be just sitting in the database, just kind of sitting there. So you have to create clear handoffs and sometimes this is like an SLA, okay?

And so the last failure mode is you hire into a bad measurement. So what I mean by this is that if reporting is weak and you can't tell if the hire is actually working, like that is huge. Like you've got to know what success looks like before you bring somebody in. Like this is what success looks like. They should be able to define A, B and C, okay? And then you either overreact, you fire them, or you over hire, you add more people.

So I don't have to go into detail about this, but like you have to measure this stuff, okay? So what is a good go-to-market team design and what does it actually mean? So again, this is what I believe in and you should start thinking about this is that a go-to-market team design is not an org chart, okay? So it's not literally CEO, CMO, CTO, like it's not that. It's making sure that the critical jobs are actually owned.

Okay, like who owns demand creation? Who owns demand capture? Who owns sales execution? Who owns enablement and proof? Who owns rev ops? All of these things, like someone has to own this, okay? That is the critical piece. And so the point is that a repeatable motion is where each role has a clear job. Okay, does that make sense? Let me get some water really quick.

Javier Lozano, Jr. (13:55.598)
Excuse me. All right, so, and the goal is really to tie back to what you're trying to do here. Like, you've gotta understand that when you're building out your go-to-market team, you gotta tie it back to some of these goals that you're creating. So make sure that there's ownership and make sure that it's just like people are owning different pieces of the puzzle of this, right? The sequencing is what to fix before you hire.

And so what you want to do is like before you start hiring people, excuse me, got a dry throat right now. So before you start hiring people, it's how I look at this is that you want to lock these down. You want to make sure you have locked down like ICP and the motion that you're running for the next 90 days. Like this has got to be locked down. I already mentioned this earlier. You're messaging in your proof that reduce buyers risk. Okay, like this has to be locked down.

it resonates with folks. Like this makes sense. A clear funnel definition, like what qualifies as a real lead? What's an SQL? What's an opportunity? Like you have to clearly define these things. A basic follow-up system, like you might have to create some sort of service level agreement and a cadence on how follow-ups should be taking place. And then one weekly scorecard that leadership can actually trust. So when you are creating the sequencing,

to fix all of this up before you hire anybody, then all of a sudden, this is gonna help you know if you're ready. And so if you can't define what's a qualified meeting, then you're not really ready for an SDR. And you'll just pay someone to book a whole bunch of junk. Do you see what I'm saying there? So you've gotta make sure that you're putting in the right motions here before you start actually bringing in the bodies. And so the right way to hire is to hire for the constraint.

where there's like, something is like holding you back from going to that next level. that is, I would say, one of the most important pieces that the constraint is the stage where the deals are stopping or they're not moving forward. So either not enough demand or demand is converting or deal stall late or onboarding retention is really undermined.

Javier Lozano, Jr. (16:21.277)
and doesn't really help grow and then ops and reporting isn't just complete chaos and disarray. So you want to hire to relieve the constraint, not because you're overwhelmed, okay? So understand that, like it's not because you have a whole bunch of work to do, it's because if you unlock this one piece, this constraint, this will help you open more floodgates. Now keep in mind that you might have to hire something down funnel more, but you'll address that whenever you get to...

as you're going through all this, you'll address that as it goes through. So picture this, like let's say that a founder wants to hire two or three roles to fix pipeline, as just as an example, okay? And then the audit reveals that a bottleneck is upstream, okay? So like maybe it's because they have unclear ICP, maybe it's because they've blended messaging, maybe it's inconsistent qualifications or no clean handoff.

You don't hire first, you install an operating rule and emotion first. Then you hire one rule aligned to the constraints that is inside of that work. Does that kind of make sense? So we don't wanna hire more people. We need to basically find fewer decisions that are gonna help us make better decisions down the road. And so that is my kind of like, know, way of kind of...

Helping you understand that when you're looking at hiring folks, it's not just hire to solve a problem, it's to ensure that are you really ready to hire somebody? Are you really ready to hire more SDRs? Are you really ready to hire that VP of sales? And so here's a quick little litmus test that might work for you. if you can say yes to any of this, then you might be ready. All right, so listen.

You can explain the motion in one minute. All what your go-to-market motion is, you can explain that in one minute. You can define qualified stages in plain English. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. All right, all of them. You can show where pipeline is leaking. You know exactly where the issue is. You have proof and assets that support the motion. Excuse me. And you have one scorecard that you trust, that everyone trusts. If not,

Javier Lozano, Jr. (18:45.451)
Your new hire will spend 90 days just creating their own strategy inside your company.

Javier Lozano, Jr. (18:55.115)
Sorry, man, my throat is really dry right now. So with that said, I hope you have a better understanding of exactly when to start hiring folks for your team. And really a lot of the time, you may not be ready. You need to really start thinking about building that foundation first. And so if you're considering hiring someone, before you do so, just come to take these...

this exact kind of model that I helped you build here, take it to heart and put yourself through this. Like these are the things that I do when I do a go-to-market audit for a company is that I start auditing your entire company in different stages. And I'll start saying like, hey, these are the constraints of your company. And if we don't address these things, then what's gonna happen is that things are gonna start breaking down funnel or things are gonna be breaking up funnel or whatever the case is.

And then I'll start making recommendations of saying like, hey, you need to hire someone probably in the next 90 days. But before we do that, I'm going to help you build a foundation to make sure they're going to be successful so that you don't have a lot of churn and we're not wasting our time. And so the idea here is that we're hiring smart for, you know, different stages or points of the business that's going to unlock more volume or unlock some more opportunities. And if you're able to create more of that unlock, this guy's the limit. And so,

this is how I can help you is I can create this audit, okay? And it's not just the hiring piece, there's like more to the audits that I typically do when I work with clients. And that is the number one way of helping your business really start getting more success, okay? So if you have any questions, let me know. I hope this resonated with you and I hope you understand why I'm kind of passionate about this because I see this a lot where business leaders are making the wrong decisions. They are...

hiring folks and teams at the wrong stages and they think the hiring is gonna unlock more opportunities and it truly isn't. It's gonna create more chaos in my opinion. So I hope this kind of unveiled a little bit more clarity for you and if you have questions, if you wanna jump on a complimentary discovery call where we can discuss this a bit more to see if it makes sense, then let's do this, okay? Other than that, I hope you have a great day and I'll talk to you soon.