In my experience, big wins don’t come from stretching your team too thin. They come from focused, strategic efforts that address real problems for your prospects and build lasting partnerships. This is especially true if you’re not competing at the bottom of the market for the last pennies but instead operate a brand that provides genuine value to your clients.
If you’re serious about building a world-class sales team in the web hosting and cloud industry, you need to throw out the old playbook. Forget about hiring people who try to appeal to everyone or push as many leads through the pipeline as possible. That approach might bring quick wins, but it will never deliver the kind of consistent, game-changing results that define real success in this space.
Instead, the most effective strategy is to focus on depth, precision, and teamwork.
Mastering accounts is the foundation of success
The best salespeople aren’t just good at talking to clients—they’re masters at understanding them. They know more about their accounts than the employees who work there. And this isn’t just a nice-to-have skill; it’s essential in an industry where technical expertise and tailored solutions drive buying decisions.
If your team isn’t deeply familiar with their target accounts, they’re going to struggle. A top performer knows exactly:
- How their target accounts make money.
Are they subscription-based?
Are they chasing enterprise contracts or SMB volume? - How their target accounts make money.
Are they subscription-based?
Are they selling to SMBs or enterprises? - How they acquire customers.
What’s their strategy?
Paid ads?
Partnerships?
Are they dependent on organic growth? - Who their ideal customers are.
What industries and company profiles do they target?
What problems are they solving? - What their risks and priorities are.
Are they dealing with outdated infrastructure?
Growing competition?
Leadership shifts? - What their leaders are saying publicly.
Have your reps listened to the CEO on a podcast?
Seen what executives are posting on LinkedIn? - What industry chatter says about them.
Are analysts or experts flagging them as a rising star—or a company with vulnerabilities?
Your sales team needs to have this level of understanding because it’s the only way to have meaningful conversations with prospects. When a rep can walk into a meeting and surprise a decision-maker with how much they know, it builds instant trust.
I’m self-taught, but I’ve developed this methodology over the past few years and have occasionally received responses like:
“How do you know this topic? Were you in our leadership meeting?”
That level of respect isn’t earned through surface-level research. It’s built through dedication, curiosity, and an ability to connect the dots.
The truth is, you can’t spread this effort across 100 accounts. If you’re building a high-performing sales team, they need to focus on fewer accounts with bigger potential. Sales leaders need to empower their teams to prioritize depth over breadth and invest their time in high-impact opportunities.
The quarterback mentality: because selling is a team effort
The web hosting and cloud space is too complex for a lone wolf approach. Success here isn’t about a salesperson closing deals on their own. It’s about knowing how to bring the right resources into the process and orchestrating a win.
Your sales team needs to think like quarterbacks, not just sales reps. The best ones are incredible at internal selling. They know how to make the case for why a deal matters—not just to their own quota, but to the entire company.
When they spot a big opportunity, they don’t hesitate to get the right people involved:
- C-Suite Leaders: To bring strategic alignment and build trust with client executives.
- Pre-Sales Engineers: To navigate complex technical conversations and address objections.
- Customer Success Teams: To show the long-term value and support prospects can expect.
A strong sales team knows how to leverage every department in your organization. But for that to happen, they need to be great storytellers internally. They have to sell the vision to their own colleagues, whether that’s explaining the strategic importance of landing a key account in a new vertical or how a new client could become a flagship case study.
When your team gets this right, the result is more than just closed deals. It’s an organization that operates like a single unit, where everyone feels invested in winning together.
Why this approach works in our industry
Whether you are into web hosting, XaaS or Cloud sales, relationships matter more than anything. Companies are trusting you with critical parts of their infrastructure, and they’re not going to make that decision lightly. They’re looking for partners, not just vendors.
If you want to build a sales team that thrives in this space, they need to:
- Go Deep – Empower them to do the homework and know their accounts better than anyone else.
- Focus on the Right Accounts – Teach them to prioritize fewer opportunities with massive upside.
- Work as a Team – Train them to quarterback deals by bringing in the right people at the right time.
In my experience, big wins don’t come from stretching your team too thin. They come from focused, strategic efforts that address real problems for your prospects and build lasting partnerships.
If you’re building a sales team for the web hosting and cloud industry, this is the approach that works. Every great sales organization knows it’s not about chasing volume—it’s about chasing value.
