What The Barbell Company Actually Costs

In partnership with

A barbell team keeps the strategic layer in the US and places execution in LATAM.

In the last issue I laid out the 14-person GTM team.

Today we price it across 3 hiring models, with headcount fixed in all 3.

The team:

• 1 Head of Sales in Austin.

• 4 AEs across Colombia and Mexico.

• 6 SDRs across Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina.

• 2 CSMs in LATAM.

• 1 person owning RevOps and AI operations.

Every figure below is an annual, fully loaded employer cost, which means salary, target commissions, employer obligations, and included benefits.

A salary number alone does not answer what this team costs, and neither does a recruiting quote that leaves commissions or employment costs out.

The comparison also needs the same job scope.

A junior appointment setter cannot stand in for an experienced SDR.

A CRM administrator cannot stand in for someone who builds and maintains revenue workflows.

The annual difference between All US and Barbell is $1,398,000 to $1,476,000, a reduction of 62 to 70 percent.

Apollo ran this in 2019, at 11 employees, starting with support.

Those hires converted to full time, and 2 of them now run Support as VP and Senior Manager.

The 2026 shift is that AI companies are doing the same thing to the revenue team.

What the delta buys

Measure the difference against the Austin leader's full compensation, because that gives the comparison a concrete test.

Do the savings across the execution team cover the strategic hire?

The leader is already inside the Barbell total, so this comparison measures savings against an expense you are already carrying. It does not add a second leader to the plan.

Use the same compensation assumptions in both columns, because lowering the leader's package in the Barbell model would muddy the comparison.

Keep the execution roles intact as well, since cutting responsibilities while changing locations creates a different team.

The point is to understand what the proposed organization costs, and then decide whether that organization matches the work.

Do not automatically spend the difference.

A hiring plan still needs owners, clear responsibilities, and a manager with time to coach, and a lower annual total answers none of that.

The trap

Companies read LATAM and move the Head of Sales there too, and that is the mistake. Keep that leader close to your US customers.

Before product-market fit, someone has to learn why customers buy, so put the sales leader in customer conversations testing the offer alongside the founder.

If nobody owns that work, the execution team inherits assumptions.

After product-market fit, keep the leader close to enterprise buyers and capital, and make sure that access shows in their calendar.

An Austin address alone does not justify the expense, because the leader has to use the proximity.

You are paying for access and judgment, and geography supports that work rather than replacing it.

Reply ORG with your next 5 hires. Include what each person will own and who they will report to.

I read every reply and send back a split: US direct hire, LATAM hire, or removed by AI.

Michael Sanchez
VP Sales, CloudTask

Everything GTM. One platform.

Small teams don't have time to stitch together five tools and hope it works.

Apollo gives you everything you need to find leads, reach them, and close deals — all in one place:

• 230M+ verified contacts

• AI-powered outreach

• Data enrichment

• Inbound lead capture

• Meeting scheduler

• And more

Stop juggling tools and start building pipeline that scales.

With Apollo, the AI revenue engine powering 4M+ users.

Sign up for free