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There is no pre-defined time at which a business should hire a salesperson. Every business has its own requirements that can be influences by seasonal patterns and economic shifts. However, certain triggers might suggest that hiring your first salesperson would benefit your business.

Missed opportunities 

If you're noticing missed opportunities, it might be time to recruit a salesperson. An experienced salesperson can take advantage of prospects  you might need more skills or time to pursue effectively.

Lack of resources 

Running a business demands your attention on multiple fronts. As your business grows, these demands increase, leaving you with less time to seek new business. Hiring a salesperson can help you continue growing without spreading yourself too thin.

Entering a new market

Are you thinking of entering a new market but need more expertise? A skilled salesperson with knowledge in that area can successfully drive your business in a new direction.

Increasing sales and market share 

it's perhaps the simplest reason for hiring a salesperson, but one of the most sensible. Once you have established there's a demand for your product or service, a professional salesperson can help maximise your revenue by targeting new customers and closing more deals.

Preparing for increased sales

Once you consider hiring a salesperson, you should consider whether you can deal with an increase in sales. There is no point paying someone to bring in new customers if you don't have the resources to meet the demand.
 

If you're taking on salespeople for the first time, it can be difficult to know the right pay package. Sales roles are target-driven, so their pay packages tend to be based on results. Packages usually include lots of incentives.

You should spend time finding the right mix of base pay and incentives. Getting it right can help you to attract, keep, and motivate the right candidates, informing them of what is available from the start.

Pay structures for sales staff

The typical pay structure for a salesperson is composed of a relatively low basic salary with extra commission. However, at most levels of seniority, salespeople are amongst the best-paid employees in a business. Plan your recruitment strategy and budget accordingly.

Salespeople's standard pay package is usually called OTE or on-target earnings. This means if the salesperson meets their set targets, they are guaranteed that amount of money. A higher commission can be paid if the person performs beyond this target. Such incentives naturally help to instil a desire for sales.

You can customise pay incentives to align with your business goals. For example, if the company's future depends on the success of a new product, you might want to offer a higher commission for sales of that product. Linking sales with commission in such a way can boost your product's market success.

Non-financial incentive 

Don't overlook non-financial incentives as these can be more effective. Securing an order provides its own sense of achievement for salespeople, but when orders are not so easy to secure you need to think of incentives to motivate your staff. Consider various motivational strategies to keep your sales team driven and engaged.

Before recruiting sales staff, you should establish what skills, experience or training they will need. Will they need knowledge of a particular market or the ability to use a certain piece of equipment or software? Or is it preferable for candidates to show a strong sales record?

Identifying recruitment methods

Once you have identified your requirements, the next step is to choose the most suitable recruitment method for the business. There are four main recruitment options to consider.

Newspaper or magazine advertisements

Advertising in newspapers or magazines can be a relatively cheap and direct way of recruiting. For example, advertising in a trade magazine gives you a good chance of finding suitable applicants, but the response could be quite low. Newspapers might reach more readers, but you could receive many unsuitable applications.

Online advertising 

Posting job adverts on your own website, on specialist online recruitment sites or on social media can reach a wide audience at a relatively low cost. Adding a link to your website can drive traffic and provide more information about the job role. However, you may receive lots of applicants, making shortlisting time-consuming.

Recruitment agencies

Using recruitment agencies can be efficient as they have experience in matching the right candidates to the right jobs. The fees can be high and you might have to pay the agency a percentage of the candidate's salary. However, they should save you time by conducting the interview selection process for you.

Networking

Networking is a cheap way of finding suitable staff. You could offer an incentive for recommending suitable candidates or approach a good salesperson you know. You should still do the necessary checks if you act on a recommendation.

Look at the applicant's CV and check references. This could prevent misunderstandings and potentially costly tribunal claims. A disadvantage of networking is that it's unlikely to identify a large number of potential candidates at the right time.

Interviewing sales staff is an excellent opportunity to see how good they are at selling. If they are unable to sell their own abilities, then it's unlikely they'll be able to sell your goods or services to your customers.

When considering the personal qualities that make a good salesperson, you should look for:

• resilience - someone who bounces back from rejection
• urgency - a competitive character who wants to get on with things
• persuasiveness - someone who wants to bring people around to their point of view
• assertiveness - a person who makes their point firmly but not aggressively
• sociability - someone who's friendly and bonds well with others
• enthusiasm - someone who really wants to sell your products
• self-motivation - someone with the initiative, drive and ambition to find and close deals for you

Ask about the candidate's past achievements. How many sales did they make for previous employers? How did they help develop the business? How did they target and win sales from potential customers? To guard against exaggeration, ask for confirmation of their claims.

The image your candidates convey is very important. Would you - and your customers - be comfortable with this person as the public face of your business? Are they appropriately dressed? Do they listen well and speak articulately? Do they ask smart questions about your business?

Remember that different sales techniques can be appropriate in different businesses. You need to hire a person with the specific sales skills you require. For instance, a rapid-sales technique may be ideal for high-volume cold-calling but not if you're selling a complex and high-value product or service requiring significant account management.

New salespeople will need to learn about your business. They will need to learn about its products or services, its employees, and its customers. Your induction process should cover the following:

• Your industry - give them the basic knowledge they'll need about your business sector, your position in it, and most importantly, who your competitors are.
• Your products - make sure they're completely familiar with the goods or services you supply - and how these might differ from the rest of the marketplace.
• Your customers - provide them with lists or databases of customers so that they know the types of individuals or organisations that you cater for.
• Your business objectives - explain to them where you want the business to go. Are there any new markets into which you aim to move or types of customers you want to attract? How do you intend to get there?

Tailoring the induction process

Some salespeople will need a longer induction process than others. If a recruit is new to your business sector, they'll need more coaching than someone who has worked in your industry for several years.

If the salesperson is experienced but new to the industry, teach them how to adapt their existing sales skills to your sector. This might include industry specific jargon, sales cycles, and customer expectations.

Consider going with a new salesperson on their first few visits to current or prospective customers. You can make introductions and see how well they are settling in.

It's important that your sales staff are managed properly and given direction to allow each salesperson to achieve maximum results and fulfil their potential.

Develop a clear sales strategy

Begin with the basics and develop a sales strategy that everyone is aware of. This should make clear what your sales objectives are. For example, is the priority to target new or existing businesses? Which products or services are you most keen to promote?

Clarify roles and responsibilities

Your staff should be clear on what their roles are within the sales team. It's usual to allocate responsibility so that one member of staff looks after a particular account, product or service or territory. This allows customers to build a relationship with a particular account manager.

Use data to track performance

Use data such as sales-activity reports to keep track of how well your sales staff are performing and combine these with reviews where you can discuss results face-to-face. This will give you the chance to address any problems or issues.

Leverage sales staff feedback

Feedback from your sales staff can be very valuable in shaping business direction because of the close contact they have with customers. Of all the staff within your business, they are likely to have the best idea of what your customers want.

Tailor management approaches

It's important to tailor your management strategies to meet the individual needs of your team members. You should offer personalised 91Ï㽶»ÆÉ«ÊÓƵ and training, recognising each salesperson’s strengths and areas for improvement. You can encourage continuous development through training sessions, workshops and seminars.

You need to set clear data-driven sales targets for your salespeople, linked to incentives such as commissions and bonuse. This motivates your team and provides a clear indication of the kind of performance expected of them.

This process is crucial to business success and should be closely integrated with your overall business strategy and planning.

Be specific when setting targets for sales staff. Break your requirements down into different areas, for example:

• New sales - base targets on projections from your business plan and sales forecasts, which should incorporate market analysis and economic trends.
• Renewals - selling isn't only about new business - it's also about retaining your existing customers. A typical renewals rate is in the region of 60% to 70%.
• Lapsed customers - a good salesperson should be able to recover some of your past customers who have not bought from you for some time.

Balance short-term and long-term sales targets to sustain growth. Short-term targets can help achieve immediate results, while long-term targets focus on strategic growth and development.

Look at your business and identify the factors driving its profitability. You should use these to drive your sales targets too. Different businesses may require very different targets. For instance, winning 200 new customers in a year might be a poor performance for a supplier of low-margin foodstuffs. On the other hand, recruiting just two new customers might be a very good performance for a manufacturer of luxury yachts.

Make sure that the targets you set for your new sales staff are reasonable for the territory they've been allocated. Making targets too easy may lead to complacency and lost sales, while making them too difficult can be demotivating.

Sales activities are all daily tasks and steps that your sales team carry out as part of their jobs. These activities should ultimately lead to sales. The theory is that if enough sales activities are carried out, they will significantly improve the likelihood of sales.

What are sales activity targets? 

In addition to setting your salespeople targets for the number of sales you want them to make, you should also set specific targets for their sales activities. 

Activity targets might be:

• Completed phone calls - ask your sales staff to record the number of calls they completed with potential customers.
• Face-to-face meetings - get staff to record the number of appointments they make with customers where they attempt a sale.
• Leads generated - measure how effective your staff are at extracting new leads and generating potential new contacts.
• Leads followed up - see how successful and fast your sales staff are at following up on sales enquiries generated by your marketing activity.
• Qualified prospects - ask the sales staff to let you have the qualified prospects that they have identified. These are people who need your products or services and can buy them. Yet, they haven't approached you, or been approached.

Why are sales activity targets important?

Setting activity targets is an important part of the sales process. They offer metrics for evaluating sales performance. So, you may wish to monitor this area of your salespeople's work as closely as the actual sales figures. Your sales team's ongoing work to get new business leads may help keep sales steady or growing.

Tracking activities helps you see which actions lead to sales and which do not. Activity targets can show areas where salespeople may need additional training or 91Ï㽶»ÆÉ«ÊÓƵ. For example, if a salesperson meets their call targets but needs help getting qualified leads, they may need a training to improve at lead generation.

One method of measuring salespeople's performance is to analyse a salesperson's conversion rates. This is the number of visits, contacts or phone calls it takes to secure a sale from a customer.

For example, if a salesperson typically closes a sale after 25 approaches, it provides a useful benchmark for assessing their progress. If you employ several sales staff, you can compare their conversion rates to identify which of them is performing most effectively and where coaching may be needed.

Missed targets

If you establish that sales targets are being missed you should investigate the reasons. You can't just assume that it is because the salesperson is ineffective, although that may be the cause. It might just as easily be caused by one or more of these factors:

• the sales territory assigned is too wide or difficult to cover
• there is a fundamental problem with the product or service they're selling
• there is a broad slump right across the market
• you are not giving the person the right kind of marketing 91Ï㽶»ÆÉ«ÊÓƵ

Whatever the source of the problem, act quickly to remedy it.  Where appropriate, let your sales staff know if their sales abilities are not the issue.

Customer feedback

From time to time, find out what impressions your salespeople are making. 

Effective methods include:

• surveying customers for their opinions on the sales experience
• calling customers to listen directly to their feedback
• accompanying salespeople on site visits to observe their customer interactions firsthand

If you decide to call or visit customers, it is a good idea to tell your salespeople that you are doing so. You should also mention it in their contracts from the beginning. You should make it clear that this feedback is for all your salespeople's customers. This is to avoid them feeling singled out for attention.