Marketing!
HIRING SALESPEOPLE
MAKING IT WORK FOR YOU
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 37, Hiring Salespeople, of our book, “Getting in Business to Stay.”
How do you increase the odds of success with salespeople?
The answer is that you become their teacher, coach and parent, all wrapped up in a package called “The Boss.” You do not become their friend, buddy or “father confessor.” You need to be their authority figure so that they perform for you. Do not nourish the fantasy that they will perform for themselves. A few will, but the majority won’t. They need you to make them perform.
You make this happen by teaching them how to prospect and close deals. You praise them when they do a good job and encourage them when they lose a sale. Some will react well to criticism and many will require a push. You reward good performance to encourage more of the same. You don’t reward poor performance. It sounds as if I am suggesting that you treat salespeople like children. I am.
There is one big difference; they are not your children. They are your employees. You choose them and you can get rid of them. Don’t fall in love with them just because they work for you. Value the ones who make you money. Get rid of the ones who don’t.
What I have just written sounds harsh. In reality, putting it in place will make you a stronger and more effective boss. You need to be able to set the limits of acceptable behavior and then be able to enforce those limits.
Many pages have been spent teaching you to understand the selling process. It is very difficult to get others to sell for you without this knowledge. I am now going to give you suggestions on how to put that knowledge to work in getting salespeople to make you money.
A GENERAL SYSTEM OF SELLING
The fifth part of this book is “A Systematic Approach.” Let’s get an early start by taking a look at what works in selling and designing a simple system you can use.
A system is something that works and can be repeated. We know that prospecting is a required element of the selling process. What kind of system can we use to make sure our salespeople prospect?
DAILY SALES REPORT
Let’s design a daily report so that we know our salespeople are prospecting. The report is simple and might look like the following:
- 1. Number of contacts attempted
- 2. Number of contacts made
- 3. Number of times a prospect was asked to make an appointment
- 4. Number of appointments made
Learn how to make such a system work for you and much more by reading Our Book, “Getting in Business to Stay.” It describes the complete small business solution.
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