Episode Summary:

Join us on this episode of Next Gen Sales Leader as Benjamin Reed sits down with Kristie Jones, founder of Selling Your Way In and seasoned SaaS B2B advisor. Kristie shares her unconventional journey from retail management to leading a revenue-growth-focused sales consultancy.

Discover how she pivoted into subscription-based sales in 2000, built deep connections in the St. Louis startup community, and transitioned into the consulting world, where she specializes in helping early‑stage SaaS founders formalize and scale their GTM motion.

Kristie reveals her playbook—from building fractional leadership, crafting sales hiring systems and playbooks, to a unique mindset around matching candidate fit to roles. This episode highlights the importance of knowing your differentiation, going beyond generic lead generation, and hiring for grit, alignment, and process maturity to avoid misfits and churn.

What You Will Learn:

• How Kristie made the leap from department store retail to subscription‑based sales and SaaS leadership.
• The importance of embedding formal processes, documentation, and sales training into early-stage growth.
• How she turned fractional sales leadership into scalable consulting frameworks for documenting processes and hiring.
• Insights on effective hiring: using assessments, behavioral traits, candidate ICPs, and the “three‑day challenge.”
• Why lateral thinking about sales hiring—like athlete backgrounds or unrelated high‑pressure roles—can signal grit and match.
• The nuance between billing people into roles vs. matching their natural drive and strengths.
• How founders and consultants can focus on micro‑segmentation, ICP clarity, and leading workshops to align sales teams.

Featured Guest: Kristie Jones – Founder of Selling Your Way In, SaaS sales consultant and advisor to early-stage B2B founders.

Connect with Kristy:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristiekjones/

Host: Benjamin Reed – Host of the Next Gen Sales Leader Podcast.

Connect with Benjamin:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-aaron-reed/
• Work with Ben: https://www.nextgensalessystems.com/

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