Lee Salz is a Featured Columnist for The Business Journals.
A business owner is often the sole salesperson for the business. When it comes time to hire a salesperson, who should a business owner hire?
In most instances, a business owner’s plan is to hire someone to take on the full sales function, but that approach has several issues associated with it:
Because there hasn’t been a salesperson in place before, nothing is written down. There isn’t a documented sales process. All of the information is in the business owner’s head.
While the intent is to hand the reigns over to the newly-hired salesperson, few business owners can really do it. Many micromanage the salesperson right out of the company.
Hiring a highly skilled salesperson can be very expensive, especially when pursuing those from within the industry.
Just because a small business owner is now ready to hire a salesperson, it doesn’t mean that there are candidates on the doorstep. It could take three to six months to find that salesperson — maybe even longer.
Structuring sales compensation for an initial salesperson is tricky, as it is hard to set realistic expectations. Chances are, someone is going to lose — either the salesperson starves or the company overpays.