This question is similar to the age-old question, which comes first, the chicken or the egg. The answer to both questions is “both”.
When you as a business owner are at capacity for your operations, product delivery, and sales time, you must hire someone else.
The key is to pick the right time, and have a concrete plan in place that helps that salesperson “win” quickly.
Here are three factors to consider when deciding whether or not this is a good time to hire your first salesperson.
- Competency – What is your most profitable skill. Are you the best in your company at product delivery, or a sales rockstar? If you are better at product delivery or operations, outsource your sales immediately. You’ll see an uptick in sales within 3 months.
- Time – Are you feeling pressed for time? Take a look at your blocked calendar, and if your time is actually full of productive sales and operations activity, leverage your time by hiring out your sales. If you want to outsource sales just because you don’t like doing it and you’re being lazy, buck up and make some phone calls.
- Growth – You have done the selling for years, and it’s time for explosive growth. If you want to grow quickly, develop a strong business development plan, and then hire a commission only salesperson to execute that plan.
Hiring your first salesperson can be scary. If you time it right, do it for the right reasons, and hire them with a concrete plan to attack the market, you will succeed in growing through hiring a sales team.
Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a business development strategy and implementation expert, and the President of Rainmakers Marketing Group. For 6 Business Development Must Do’s You’ve Probably Missed, please visit jamarspeaks online.