The tougher half of sales. In other words, 90% of your potential customers are concentrated amongst the half of leads that are difficult to close.
I don't know if that specific ratio is true, but it feels right. The OP's scenario is vivid to me. So many salespeople just want the fish to jump in the boat...
Feels right to me. Getting my enterprise to spend money on anything they didn’t before is a multi month affair costing tens of thousands of dollars in wasted salary and nearly 6 months to make a purchase with a yearly price lower than my monthly salary…
But I agree the first few sales people are crucial, that’s why the founders do it usually