Why Business Owners don’t Invest in Sales Teams ( and It’s costing them!)

I’ll be honest—this has always bothered me.

I’ve sat in rooms where a company will confidently approve a $100K salary for a software developer without blinking… and then hesitate, debate, and sometimes completely stall when they have to invest in sales. The salary is less for sales and there is a possibility of revenue growth with that $60K investment. The $100K is a sunk cost. Will you get it back? Well that depends how good your sales team are. So, either way, recouping both salaries depends on that $60K investment.

The Double Standard We Don’t Talk About

If I hire a developer, nobody expects them to “pay back” their salary in the first quarter, next quarter, or even the first year, if ever. It’s accepted that you have to hire developers if you’re going to create a product to sell to the market.

We don’t ask our operations or developer teams:

• “Show me exactly how your code generated revenue this month.”
• “If we don’t see ROI in 90 days, we’re cutting the role.”

Of course we wouldn’t ask these questions. We understand that investments have to be made with a long term view of profitability because we know:

• Good code compounds over time
• Systems take time to build
• Output isn’t always directly measurable in cash

But the moment we invest in sales, It’s a completely different conversation. For some reason, we only give that investment 6 months to produce a return which makes no sense. Have you ever invested in anything expecting a return in 6 months?

Sales Carries a Unique Burden

Let me put it simply:

Sales is the only function in most organizations that is expected to both deliver and justify its existence in real time.

• Marketing? We talk about brand, pipeline, long-term impact.
• Product? We talk about roadmap, user experience, innovation.
• Operations? We talk about efficiency and scalability.

Sales? We talk about numbers, right now, and because of that, we end up applying pressure to sales that we don’t apply anywhere else and if the numbers there, we fire them and hire the next one. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard owners tell this story. It’s a great way to spend 2 or 3 times the salary on sales and guarantee you won’t get results.

Why Owners Hesitate on Sales Investment

From what I’ve seen, there are three big reasons.

1. Sales Feels Unpredictable

A developer produces something tangible. You can see it, test it, measure it.

Sales feels less certain:

• Deals slip
• Prospects go quiet
• Results vary from one rep to another

So, owners perceive sales as risky.

But here’s the irony: revenue itself is uncertain. Sales isn’t creating the uncertainty—it’s just where that uncertainty becomes visible.  Nobody ever asks:

• Does the product meet a need?
• Is the product priced to fit its value?
• How come people don’t want our product?

2. Sales Performance Is Transparent

This is a big one.  With a developer, it’s hard to directly connect their daily work to revenue.

With sales, you can’t hide:

• Calls made
• Meetings booked
• Deals closed

Everything is tracked. Everything is visible. So, instead of appreciating that transparency, we use it to scrutinize the role far more aggressively than others.

3. Many Businesses Have Been Burned

Let’s be fair—owners don’t just make this up. They’ve had experiences where:

• They hired salespeople who didn’t perform
• They invested in sales without a clear system
• They expected results without proper support or process

So now, every new sales investment feels like a gamble instead of a strategic move.

The Real Issue Isn’t Sales—It’s How We Invest in It

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Most companies don’t actually invest in sales properly.

If your sales team isn’t delivering results, in my experience, it’s usually the business owner’s fault. Why?

• They hire one or two junior people because they’re “cheap” and ask them to do account management, prospecting, cold calling, marketing, CRM system setup, and manage email marketing.
• They give them a target that’s been made up and does not take into account how long it takes to close a deal which can be 3 months or more depending on the solution.
• They provide minimal structure or support to the sales team because they don’t know what they need. This is compounded when they hire the junior sales people.
• They provide no direction to the team and just hope it works

Then when none of this works, they conclude: “Sales is expensive.”

Imagine doing the same with engineering:

• Hiring one developer instead of a team and asking them to do QA, UI Design, etc. and get it all done in 6 months.
• Giving them no roadmap or plan as to how you want the solution designed.
• Offering them no guidance or support.

Of course it wouldn’t work.

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Sales Isn’t Different—We Just Treat It Differently

Sales has the same requirements and patience as any other area of the business. It still:

• Needs process. Sales is 80% science and 20% art, and the art is knowing when to apply the science. The science is in your process.
• Needs training. Hiring junior sales people to speak to the C-Suite is both intimidating for the junior rep, and uncomfortable for the prospect. Match the skills needed to the value proposition you’re selling.
• Needs time to mature. If you’re planning on a 6 month window, don’t bother hiring. It requires the same investment window as you would apply to any other role in the organization.

For business owners, the difference is psychological.

• They’re comfortable spending on things that feel stable and predictable.
• They’re cautious about spending on things that feel variable and exposed.

Sales happens to sit right in that second category.

It’s the Only Role That Brings in Revenue

This is the part that always makes me pause. We’ll protect budgets for: tools, systems,     Internal functions, but hesitate on the one area responsible for bringing money into the business.

If sales is underfunded or unstable: Growth slows; Pipeline thins; Pressure increases elsewhere.

And suddenly everyone’s trying to fix a revenue problem without properly investing in revenue creation. At some point, if you want to grow faster than just organically, you must invest in revenue creation.

So What Should Change?

From my experience, it starts with one shift in mindset:

Stop treating sales spend as a cost to control, and start investing in it as a system that creates predictable revenue.

That means:

• Expecting ramp time, just like any other role
• Investing in structure & systems, not just individuals
• Evaluating performance over a realistic timeline
• Accepting variability as part of growth, not a failure

Final Thought

I don’t think sales should be immune to accountability. But I do think we’ve gone too far in the other direction. We’ve created a world where: Sales has the highest expectations and the lowest tolerance for ramp time, and the most scrutiny on spend, while other functions are allowed to develop and compound over time.

If I’m being honest, that imbalance doesn’t just affect sales teams—it limits the entire business because at the end of the day, you can build the best product, the best system, the best operations… But if you’re not willing to invest in sales and in the people responsible for generating revenue…

Well,  you get what you pay for.