A BELAY Sales Assistant takes CRM updates, list building, scheduling, and meeting prep off your top reps' plates so they spend more hours selling. On the Sales Gravy Podcast episode Sales Team at Capacity? Grow Revenue Without Hiring More Reps, BELAY VP of Growth Kyle Willis tells host Jeb Blount Jr. that the fastest path to more revenue often runs through the best rep you already have. On one professional services team, a top rep climbed past 150% of quota with that help.
Jeb and Kyle recorded the episode live at BELAY headquarters ahead of OutBound Conference, happening November 9-12, 2026, at Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas. BELAY is a sponsor of the event.
A Sales Assistant handles the administrative work around a sale so the rep can stay with the client. Kyle named the tasks BELAY Sales Assistants take on most often: CRM updates, prospecting and list building, proposals, and agreements.
Most reps already know they need that help, and Kyle says many feel like they're "drowning in my CRM." Finding and hiring the right person is the hard part when there's no time to start. BELAY handles that search and matches you with the right Sales Assistant.
Kyle was clear about the assistant's role: "This sales assistant is not going to come in and be the high-level sales rep that you have." He estimates reps can gain 25% to 75% more capacity for the work only they can do.
Many sales leaders assume their best rep is tapped out once they pass 100% or 120% of quota. Kyle thinks that assumption leaves revenue on the table. Hiring more reps is the usual next move, but he points out how hard it is to copy a top performer's tenure and client relationships.
He suggests a better question:
"What if they're not at max capacity? What if maybe their quota potential is 150%, 200%, whatever that number is. I just need to get them the right help to be able to do that."
That help should complement what Kyle calls the rep's superpower: "the client-facing work, the actual salesmanship of what they're doing." Everything around that work can move to a Sales Assistant.
Sales leaders also push reporting tasks to their best people, because leaders need that data for executives and for spotting patterns worth repeating. Those reports still matter. A Sales Assistant can pull the data, so the rep keeps selling and the leader still gets the numbers.
Kyle's advice is to support your highest performer before adding headcount. By his estimate, a new rep needs at least three to six months of onboarding before reaching quota. During that ramp, the team takes what he called "a proverbial step back."
A Sales Assistant supports a rep who already produces, so the team skips the step back that comes with a new hire. Kyle believes the right help can lift the rep with the highest close rate a few percentage points higher. For the signs your team is ready, read When Should You Hire a Sales Assistant?
He also calls this a joint decision between the rep and the sales leader, since both share the return. To see if it fits, ask your top rep how many hours a week go to CRM updates and prospect research. If the answer is several hours, you've found room to grow without a new hire.
Kyle shared a recent case study from a professional services company with recurring revenue. Most of its reps averaged 70% to 100% of quota, and the top rep consistently hit about 130%.
The sales leader was weighing a new hire against coaching the rest of the team up to 100%. Kyle asked what would happen if the top rep's number wasn't her ceiling. She was spending 5 to 10 hours a week updating the CRM and researching prospects.
BELAY matched that one rep with a Sales Assistant to handle list building and prospecting. The work included leads older than six months that hadn't converted, plus lost deals worth reopening.
The top rep climbed past 150% of quota. Prospecting also grew from 20% to 27% of her revenue.
Those self-sourced deals helped marketing too, since the team didn't have to spend budget generating them. Kyle noted the Sales Assistant came at a fraction of the cost, and the rep was happier doing the work she does best.
Yes, for small teams. Kyle recommends placing one Sales Assistant in the middle of three to five reps, a setup he calls a sales assistant team admin. Much of what reps need repeats every day and every week, so one assistant can handle it for the whole group.
Kyle's target is 5 to 10 hours back per rep each week. Across a team of three to five, that adds up to 15 to 50 hours a week for selling.
An assistant working with several reps also sees how each one operates and can spot processes that save the whole team time. Jeb Blount Jr. tied this to a question he asks sales leaders often:
"Do you know what your best salespeople are actually doing?"
Often they don't, Jeb said, because top reps follow the process with their own nuance. An assistant who sees that nuance up close can help turn it into a playbook.
Kyle hands off meeting prep to his own Sales Assistant using what he calls the 10-80-10 principle. As VP of Growth, he works several partnership deals each month and leads an internal team of sales reps and RevOps staff. RevOps, short for revenue operations, manages the systems and data behind the sales process.
For a team presentation, the first 10% is Kyle's: an audio note with his vision and who'll be in the room. His assistant takes it 80% of the way, pulling data from the CRM and sales dashboards she works in every day.
Kyle covers the last 10% in a 15- to 30-minute review. If he built every deck and sent every invite himself, he said, he'd show up to his sales meeting with a cup half full. Now he stays fully present for strategy and the next partnership call.
Losing a top performer is expensive, and Kyle connects that risk to how reps spend their nights and weekends. He wants his reps to build full lives outside of quota:
"There's a high, high cost for me to lose you. So I want you to play golf. I want you to work out. I want you to make your kids' games."
Kyle gave two examples of what a Sales Assistant makes possible. A rep could fit in a 30-minute midday workout that recharges them for afternoon calls, or make a 4 p.m. kids' game while someone keeps an eye on deals in motion.
Evenings and weekends go back to rest. For a sales leader, that's how great reps end up staying for a really long time.
Kyle wants sales leaders to treat delegation as an offensive strategy, a way to raise their ceiling. When reps hand off admin, they get more hours for the priorities only they can handle. He also wants leaders to see how much more they could delegate beyond the two or three tasks they'd hand off today.
That's the conversation BELAY is bringing to OutBound Conference. Kyle's goal is for reps and leaders to look back 90 days or six months later and say, in his words, "I can't imagine life without my sales assistant."
BELAY's fractional model lets you add a Sales Assistant part time while BELAY handles the hiring. Packages can start at 10 hours a week and grow from there. They're hourly and month-to-month, and Kyle said a team planning to grow from three reps to five can build that growth into its package from the start.
BELAY has served more than 25,000 leaders since 2010. It accepts only the top 3% of applicants, and its first-match success rate is 93%.
Every engagement also includes a Client Success Consultant. Kyle described a partnership where the sales leader, the rep, the assistant, and the consultant work toward shared goals: "We actually walk alongside you throughout the entire time of that engagement."
Sales Assistants are one part of what BELAY offers. Leaders also work with Executive Assistants, Operations Assistants, Bookkeeping, Full-Service Payroll, Fractional Controllers, Fractional CFOs, and Full-Service Accounting Teams.
Listen to Kyle Willis's full conversation on the Sales Gravy Podcast for more on Sales Assistants and growing revenue without hiring more reps.
A Sales Assistant is a remote professional who handles sales admin work like CRM updates, list building, proposals, and scheduling, so reps spend more time selling. BELAY Sales Assistants are U.S.-based and matched to your team.
Kyle Willis said BELAY aims to give back 5 to 10 hours a week per rep.
Yes. In Kyle's case study, a Sales Assistant handled list building and prospecting into older leads and lost deals, and the top rep's self-sourced revenue grew.
A new rep takes three to six months to reach quota, according to Kyle. A Sales Assistant supports reps who already produce, and in Kyle's case study it came at a fraction of the cost. BELAY engagements are month-to-month with no long-term contract.
Kyle recommends one Sales Assistant for no more than three to five reps.
BELAY packages can start at 10 hours a week and scale as your team grows.
Get matched with your right-fit BELAY Sales Assistant. It takes about 2 minutes.