For most of the European businesses I speak to, the United States is the biggest prize on the map, and it’s easy to see why. The EU exported €531.6 billion of goods there in 2024, making it the bloc’s largest export market, as Eurostat figures show. Since the Turnberry agreement of July 2025, most of those goods face a US tariff capped at 15%, as Euronews reported a year on, so getting a US launch right first time matters more than ever.
Most of the US plans I’m shown start with product and pricing. Far fewer start with the person who will actually sell, yet in my experience that’s usually where a launch succeeds or stalls. When data company Collibra first expanded to New York, its first ten American hires turned out to be mis-hires, as Index Ventures’ guide to winning in the US recounts. The company found US candidates hard to judge and lacked the brand to attract the people it really needed.
Why Selling in the US Is Different
The first thing I tell clients is that the US isn’t one market but dozens of regional ones, each with its own competitors. Buyers are also harder to reach, and a Gartner survey published in March 2026 found that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience. That means every conversation a seller does get has to count.
Communication style matters just as much. In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer places the US at the extreme low-context end of her scale, where good communication is explicit and direct, yet Americans tend to soften criticism. A European seller who reads polite enthusiasm as a buying signal, or builds up slowly to the point, will lose ground, and collateral and pricing built for Europe usually need rewriting as well.
VP of Sales or Account Executive First?
It’s usually the first question clients ask me. A senior leader can build the plan and the team, but costs more and is harder to unwind if the fit is wrong, while an experienced Account Executive is closer to revenue but needs strong backing from headquarters.
My rule of thumb is that if a founder can spend real time in the US, an experienced Account Executive is usually the better first hire. If not, look for a sales leader who is happy to sell before building a team. Whichever route you take, I’d always hire a pioneer over an operator.
Investors quoted by Vestbee warn against making a high-profile corporate executive the first US employee, because someone used to a large, well-resourced machine often struggles without marketing support or a known brand.
Dave Kellogg, a former software CEO writing for Balderton Capital, adds two warnings. Don’t hire the VP of Sales you’ll need in three years when the business needs someone for today. And be explicit about scope, because Americans tend to assume a VP of Sales title means worldwide responsibility.
What US Sales Compensation Really Looks Like
US sales pay is usually higher than the European boards I work with expect. The Bridge Group’s 2026 Account Executive study, based on 158 B2B companies, found that median on-target earnings for an Account Executive now stand at $200,000, up from $167,000 in 2022. It also found that the average rep takes 6.2 months to reach full productivity and that only 48% hit quota.
On top of that comes health insurance, where the KFF 2025 survey puts the average family premium at $26,993 a year, around three quarters of it paid by the employer.
My advice is to resist the temptation to hire cheaper. Kellogg’s rule is to pay local market rates, even if your first US seller earns more than some executives at home.
Legal Points That Catch European Employers Out
I’m not a lawyer, so do take proper advice, but these are the points that most often surprise the European clients I work with.
- At-will employment. Either side can usually end the relationship quickly, so retention rests on the role and the plan far more than on notice periods.
- Written commission plans. States including California and New York require commission terms to be set out in writing.
- Pay transparency. More than a dozen states plus Washington DC require a salary range in job adverts, according to Brightmine’s tracker, and several extend that to adverts placed by recruiters.
- Non-competes. The FTC abandoned its national ban in September 2025, as Foley Hoag explains, so state law now decides. California, Minnesota, North Dakota and Oklahoma are among the states that ban them wholly or in part.
- Employer of Record. Many companies make their first US hire this way before setting up a US entity.
How to Assess American Sales Candidates
US CVs are written to sell, and Kellogg recalls a European CEO who took several quarters to learn how to read them. When I’m assessing candidates, I ask for quota, attainment, deal size and sales cycle year by year. With fewer than half of Account Executives reaching quota in the Bridge Group study, a perfect record deserves a closer look.
It’s also worth finding out whether the pipeline came from strong inbound demand or was built from nothing. Behavioural questions help here, and so do off-list references, since many US employers will only confirm dates and job titles.
Setting Your US Hire Up to Succeed
Even a strong hire will struggle if headquarters treats the US as a side project, so I’d keep a founder or senior leader close to the market and fund marketing as well as sales. Your website and your seller also need to tell the same story, because Gartner found that 69% of B2B buyers notice inconsistencies between the two. I’d also set a first-year quota that reflects a ramp of more than six months, and consider testing your message in a proxy market such as the UK or the DACH region before crossing the Atlantic.
Location matters more than people think, too. The East Coast is usually six hours behind Central European Time, which leaves a working overlap in the European afternoon, while the West Coast, nine hours behind, leaves almost none.
Getting Support With US Sales Hiring
Selling in the US comes down to a people decision, and the cost of a wrong first appointment is usually measured in years.
At Hanson Search, our Sales & Commercial practice helps European organisations hire sales and marketing leaders in the US, and American organisations build commercial teams in Europe, across all industries.
Our consultants in the US work alongside colleagues in London and Paris, combining talent mapping and executive search to benchmark pay and test your brief before approaching the right candidates confidentially. If you’re planning your first US sales hire, I’d love to talk it through, so please get in touch.
Hanson Search Group is a global talent consultancy providing executive search, recruitment and leadership advisory services. Built on more than twenty years of trusted relationships, we operate as a connected global platform of specialist practices with expert consultants embedded in key markets.
Nils Geradin is Principle Consultant, Sales and Marketing, at Hanson Search.
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