Hi guys

Whats the general things to do when hiring a sales person

Whats there to take into consideration?

Whats a good method of payment?

What else is there to do?

Thanks

1. Credibility (ensure that they have the ability to sell and market your product; check resume)
2. Knowledge (ensure that they know some technical aspects of your product)
3. Time (ensure that the person has the time to work with you)
4. Communication skills (needs to be able to speak fluent and write in the general language your co. speaks and to be clear in everything he/she says)

Payment methods: PayPal, Check/Money Order

Anything else?

Ken pretty much listed everything that should be took into consideration. I think the most important of all is communication skills and if the sales person can type with perfect spelling, punctuation and grammar. There really is nothing worse than hiring someone that types like a 6-year old!

Make sure their trusty if they get access to the billing system and around 10% for first few sales then go up to 15% and work like that ;)

I also agree that Ken touched on all of the major stuff. I'd like to respectfully expand on each point with my own experiences.

Regarding credibility, if they're really that good, don't be afraid to wonder (and ask) why they've moved on. Regardless of whether their answer was either "simply to find better compensation though I loved my last/current job)" or "My last/current job sucks and I want out", do call references and the previous employer. Remember that they may be quite limited in their responses, depending on applicable laws. Do your best to find out as much as you can. Remember that this person is going to be representing you on a personal level.

In my opinion, training and education are no less important than having the ability to simply sell. When I was working for a (very) small Web hosting company some years ago, I was often tasked with traveling with our sales guy so as to answer any technical questions that the potential client may have during the pitch. I would usually end up taking over the sales pitch entirely within a few minutes. When the sale person doesn't know which version of .NET the Web servers support or what a .htaccess file is able to do for a client when used with Apache, there's little point in that person being there. That being said, everyone learns sometime. You may want to start out by hiring someone who is fantastic at sales then simply teach her or him some of the more technical aspects of the job.

A sales person having coffee with her or his friends during work hours doesn't necessarily count as "being out selling" just because they're doing it during work hours. I would strongly recommend that you set up policy regarding the way the sales person spends her or his time and how that time is tracked, be it traveling, pitching, telephone follow-ups, etc. Let them know that results = pay but wasting time does not.

I would bundle communication skills with displaying a sense of confidence as well as knowing when to say "I don't know, but let me find out for you." Test the sales person during the interview with a few vastly different sales situations where the sales person is forced to improvise and find a way to provide information that she or he may not have available to them. At this point, it may not be as important to have the knowledge but to be able to not freak out when they don't.

My two cents. Yup.

This is probably a stupid question but where do you guys find you sales people?

Cheers for that Bill brown

@ Vamphost

The best place to look is to post an ad in the employment section by employers.

The best way to pay is commision based until they start doing a good job and then they can be put on a fixed salary

This is probably a stupid question but where do you guys find you sales people?

In the UK we have recruitment agencies, but they tend to be expensive and usually take 10% of the hired sallery as their fee which is a bit of a rip off...

really it depends how much business you want, market your targeting, business module and how much you can afford to pay.. a friend of mine works for a large ISP/Messaging filtering Provider in UK and he gets paid commission only and is on very good money as he manages some big clients... he brings in plenty of business too..

There is various software available that allows you to track what each sales person is doing -- from outgoing calls to client meetings. At several hosting companies, I've noted that generally management is only concerned with whether a sales person met his or her respective quota. Beyond that, the sales people get a lot of flexibility on what they do day-to-day.