When Should You Hire Your First Salesperson?
As your company continues to grow, you have likely considered whether or not it’s a good time for you to hire on extra sales help. In fact, if you are reading this article, there’s a good chance that you are considering hiring your first salesperson to help your business continue to scale. But how do you know when it’s the right time? In this article, we will look at 5 tale-tell signs that you are ready to hire your first salesperson.
You Have Generated Consistent Interest
Before you consider hiring your first salesperson, it’s important that you are generating a consistent stream of leads organically. In other words, you should be getting a lot of emails or calls about the products or services that you provide. If you aren’t seeing an influx of these calls and scrambling to find help, there’s a good chance your business doesn’t quite need a salesperson yet.
You Have A Clear Revenue Path
Do you have a consistent base of customers that is continually growing? Can you see a clear path to making at least $1 million dollars in bookable revenue in the upcoming year? If you answered yes to these questions, there’s a good chance that you could benefit from an experienced salesperson. If you aren’t quite there, waiting will probably be your best approach.
You Have Facility Space
A salesperson will need their own office or work area that is quiet enough for them to spend a lot of time on the phone. This means that you will need the space in your current facilities or will need to consider upgrading to a new location. If this isn’t available, your salesperson will likely become overly distracted and not perform at the level you expect them to.
You Have Time To Onboard And Train
You likely know your product inside and out; however, a salesperson coming in might not. Unfortunately, this means that you will have to dedicate as much as 4 months of training the proper person to handle your sales inquiries. If you don’t have the appropriate amount of time to train a sales employee or team, there’s a good chance their efforts will quickly fail.
You Have Implemented A CRM
A CRM system, or customer relationship management, is a tool that will ensure your salesperson is able to reach the right people and follow up with existing clients to further meet their needs. Choosing the right CRM will ensure that you have the tools and resources needed to make forward and positive progress. Without a tool in place, your salesperson will likely be in the dark throughout their daily tasks and outreach efforts.
You Are Ready To Focus On Other Aspects Of The Business
If you founded your business, it is important to ensure you are ready to move into a management or ownership role instead of promoting the products at the ground level. It can be hard to give away your role to someone new if you aren’t ready to. For this reason, you have to be in the right mindset before hiring a salesperson and you absolutely have to be willing to let go.
Matthew Maennche
Chief Strategist
With over two decades of in-the-trenches marketing experience, Matthew Maennche’s views on developing and supporting a successful business are fundamentally different from the norm. As a developer and strategist, Maennche has helped thousands of businesses of all sizes, both domestic and international, take their organizations to the next level.
Matthew also spends time giving back to the local business community as a volunteer, mentor, and leader for the local chapter of SCORE.