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Im thinking of posting an ad on gumtree that asks for sales people to apply for the job of areas sales manager. Then paying them on a commision only basis.
They would work on their own initiative in generating leads etc.
The work would be both face to face and cold calling.
Maybe I could advertise for each big city.
Just a thought...
So how would you start and what would you do?
First, the idea of just hire a salesperson with no commitment on your part is going to be a struggle. if they're good, exactly what are you bringing to the table? Not much. Hiring a salesperson isn't generally quite as simple as 'I let you sell my stuff, if you happen to do all the work and then actually sell something I give you a cut'. Sorry if that sounds harsh - but it's a common attitude and I'm not immune to it myself. But you should flip it around - it's not that you have a great product that'll sell itself; A good salesrep can sell whatever they want, so exactly why are they going to sell your stuff for you?
I advertised in a lot of places, the online job banks did the best. Do the big ones like craigslist, but also local or regional job boards.
Have you sold this stuff yourself in the fashion you're expecting someone else to? Generate your own leads, cold calling and so on? If not, you really *really* should consider doing so before getting into the hiring. It'll educate you a whole lot on all the questions you just asked. Don't want to pick up the phone and cold call? Why is someone else going to do that for you when you're not even confident enough in your services to do it yourself? Not because they like doing it, that's for sure. (My sales experience recently was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It was also one of the smartest things I've done.)
The first question they're going to ask is what your commission structure is, and how that translates into their annual pay. If you're not doing the cold calling yourself, you're going to be pulling numbers out of your backside. How many leads do they have to work to get a sale? No idea? Then you can't predict an income, and the good salespeople will walk. They'll sense you're looking for all the sales with no risk or committment on your part (and if I may be blunt, I suspect you may be thinking along these lines). Salespeople are used to being told that 'you'll make $100K per year!' then when they start work there they find out everyone makes $35K per year. Yes, that PO'es them. When I got hit with that, I had hard numbers to back it up - my bottom estimates were based on my numbers. And I assured them they should do better than those estimates since that's what a techie webmaster (me) can do picking up the phone and selling.
So, the first thing you need to do is do the sales yourself. But I expect you're going to ignore me on that - that's fine, but I told you so :).
Once you've advertised, the top sales folks will sell you on the interview themselves. Only get someone with sales experience, not someone that wants sales experience. The people you are going to want to interview should *make* you interview them. i.e. they should call you and ask 'so when's a good time for us to discuss the position further'. The very first thing they need to sell is themselves to you - they should be doing all that plus following up.
In the interview, ask them to sell you your services. It's tough to say what to look for if you don't have sales experience, but they should be doing things like 'creating urgency' and not asking questions where you could possibly answer yes/no (since you might answer no, and kill the conversation). i.e. you say 'when can I come in for an interview' not 'can I book a time for an interview'.
Right now your job description offers a good sales rep absolutely nothing. Here's what you might consider:
- good salespeople like to sell, not prospect (there's a difference). So what you could bring to the table is the leads. If you've got a steady supply of leads to keep them busy, now you've got some skin in the game. And the idea of having a ready list of warm/qualified leads will get a salesperon's blood hot.
You should be developing leads off your site. If that's not enough leads, start developing more in other ways. Consider how to do more website stuff, or back it up with offline marketing (again, hiring a salesrep isn't a cure-all, you're going to need to back it up with some stuff, and lead generation is the best bet).
- if you're doing B2B sales consider hiring a telemarketing company to book appointments. They cold call the business and book a time. Then your salesrep comes in and closes the deal.
And really what you might consider is using the telemarketing firm to start booking appointments, and then *you* do some sales. I guarantee it'll teach you more about your business than you ever thought possible. And it means you will be able to answer your own questions about hiring a salesperson.
(In my situation, I provide all the qualified leads a rep can handle - names and phone numbers of people who've approached us for services. And I back it with full admin support and office space, they're employees for all intents. The good salespeople I interviewed all loved that. They're used to getting hung out by themselves, there's the phone book go make me some money. The top reps I interviewed had other options for work but they all hounded me to work here. )
[edited by: wheel at 11:42 pm (utc) on May 5, 2008]
I am certainly going to try the sales side of things my self. Just to see what kind of response I get.
In the first instance I will need the hired sales person to work from home initially. I dont know if that is very common but its the only viable solution for my new company.
You raised some interesting points...
