20Sales: The Best Sales People Are F***** in the Head | The Unspoken Truths All Sales Leaders Need to Know in 2026 | Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruiting | How to Improve Sales Team Performance in 24 Hours with Chad Peets

What It Covers

Chad Peets, CRO advisor at XAI and Sigma Computing, explains why elite sales talent requires obsessive work ethic, how to identify grit in interviews, why European recruiting differs, and setting quotas at three times OTE minimum.

Key Questions Answered

• •Hiring for Obsession: Elite sales reps think about work constantly, even at 3AM. Interview questions should reveal whether candidates work to fund external passions or because they want to be world-class at their craft. Ask about life challenges faced to assess grit, prioritizing military backgrounds or self-funded education over privileged upbringings.
• •Quota Setting Formula: Set productivity targets first, then add 20% to establish quotas. Reps should produce minimum three times their OTE in new ACV for unit economics to work. Always err toward setting quotas too low rather than too high to avoid losing top performers who quit when they cannot earn.
• •Firing Discipline: Shoot bottom 10% of sales organization annually as standard practice. Total attrition for scaling companies should reach 25% including promotions and voluntary departures. Fire fast when mistakes are identified rather than pretending the hire will improve. A players quit when surrounded by underperformers who face no consequences.
• •New Logo Priority: Evaluate candidates exclusively on net new account closures, not upsells or inherited customer expansions. Startups require pipeline generation skills above all else. Use compensation levers strategically: pay 12% on new logos and 17% on expansion if reps over-index on easier expansion deals, reversing typical behavior patterns.
• •AI Impact on Sales Structure: SDRs and BDRs will disappear within five years as AI handles outbound prospecting. Forward-deployed engineers replace traditional presales engineers for implementation. Enterprise sales roles remain because executives buying million-dollar solutions want human accountability. Presales function shrinks as LLMs enable salespeople to conduct technical demos independently.