The one thing I do strongly recommend is letting each VP you hire pick her core tools and system of record.
Forcing a VP of Sales to use a CRM she hasn’t used before or isn’t comfortable with is a huge tax on her time. Don’t do it. Same with your VP of Marketing and your Marketing Automation system, etc. If you like Hubspot but your VP of Marketing likes Marketo … go with Marketo.
Given Salesforce’s overwhelming market share in tech companies in particular, your VP of Sales, once you hire her or him, is likely going to want to use Salesforce.
So at least plan on using Salesforce once you hire your VP of Sales.
Forcing a VP of Sales to use a CRM she isn’t comfortable with is a significant drag on productivity — and thus, sales. Don’t do this.
Should you use Salesforce before then? Well, that depends on what’s easiest on you while you are interim VP of Sales. If you haven’t used a CRM before, use something like Pipedrive. Pipedrive is basically Trello for Sales. You can figure it out in about 5 minutes and it is very elegant software. It’s what you probably think CRM is/should be, if you haven’t used a CRM before.
If you’ve used Salesforce before, or want to, well it’s overkill for between 0 and 2 sales reps. But if you’re going to end up there anyway, it may be worth using it early. But again, while you are the VP of Sales — pick what’s best for you.
Just be ready to change when you hire your VP of Sales, that’s all.
