Hiring and Managing Sales People

Everyone sells. Whether selling your spouse on a new purchase idea, selling your kids on eating their veggies, or selling your idea to your work team, we all have to sell. Hiring a salesperson and managing sales people is just plain hard. In our book, How Business Gets Done, we have a great chapter on hiring and managing sales people written by Katie Roth of Portico HR.

Key Points on Hiring the Right People

• Start with the end in mind. What result do you expect the salesperson to achieve in the next three months, six months, 12 months? Having the specifics in place before hiring can help in the interview. You can ask specific questions on how they would go about accomplishing that goal.
• The best sales job the potential salesperson will do is on you. If they are not effective in "selling" you and the do not try to close you by the end of the interview, how do you expect them to sell to and close your prospective clients?
• Sales people must be held accountable at all times. With a new salesperson require a daily report until you are sure they are on the right track. As you become assured they are, back off to a weekly then perhaps monthly report. 
• Randomly join your salespersons on a sales call. Make sure they know that you may do this at any time. 

There are many more great nuggets in Katie's chapter. It is well worth a read.