Hiring a sales rep

Sales
1

Do any of you have experience with sales reps, either at your previous job, current company or anything, or perhaps you’d like to hire one soon.

Basically I may be switching one of my techs to being a sales rep, he has years experience in it and that was my goal bringing him on the team for anyways.

So we’re talking of possibly getting ready to launch in January his new position after working out his duties, also I’d like to hire another person so that we can actually have two competing reps.

I had him write up a rough draft of the duties, here is what he wrote:

Sales Agent:

Pay base would be 600 a week plus quarterly bonus based on performance. And commission based on percentage.

Min of 125 calls a day and should equate to 15-20 % retention of calls.

Meaning out of 125 there should be 25-15 recorded call, emails, appointment, or quotes ect… all calls will be managed appropriately and accurately. Every call each agent will fish for as much info and always ask for decision maker.

They should work 9-530 Mon-Friday. With lunch.

Responsibilities are:
-to maintain a professional approach every call every person every time.
-Answer any and all questions leading to a quote/appointment
-gather any and all information required for CRM
-managing of all calls based on end, file all information for closed deals
-maintain CRM
-provide customer service for all deals associated with the agent
-prepare monthly report based on numbers
-follow up with existing/new clients
-answer incoming calls from source
-make at least 125 outbound attempts per day
-Attend outbound/field quotes with field tech
-schedule appointments based on availability of schedule
-Dispatch work
-Reminder/ end of service call.

So based on this info he gave me, it kind of sounds a bit more than a sales rep, I know he has desires to be manager but the position we need is a sales rep, so I may not have him handle certain things listed there.

I have a few questions for you:

  1. are those things you’d have a sales rep handle?
  2. are there other things they should do? less things?
  3. Also the pay seems a bit high, is this normal? can I offer less?
  4. Should the quarterly bonus be fixed % rate? if so how much?
  5. How much should the commission % be? based on first job only? or all scheduled hereafter?
  6. Should they answer THE company phone line? or should I give them a new number?
  7. Should he get a % off existing clients if he calls them to schedule work?

If you can answer these or other question please do, you may private message me if you so desire.

Thank you for your time.

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2

Sales paycheck should be 100 percent commission driven . But allowing for a weekly draw is ok because the heat and pressure is still on.

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3

Yea, he mentioned the other day about the draw, (where the sales rep gets to pull out of future commissions)

But I guess he omitted that in this email.

At the same time I don’t mind having a base pay, maybe half what he’s asking, just so that he can cover some bills off the bat
(I may be too gracious though)

4

Most car sales companies pay their salesmen with a draw every week, unless they sell and make money… @florida_condo_cleani has the right idea ! All my guys get paid commission…

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5

My background is sales 10 years as a sale manager at a family of car dealerships. I’ve trained over 100 sales people to make between 70000and 120000 annually. On thing I can tell you with 100 percent certainty. Sales are motivated by money. If the money is coming anyway the need for the sale is no longer there. Base salary plus commissions is good in situations were the salesman has to invest their own money into the sale. Such as using their own vehicle and fuel.

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6

When I worked in finance for 3 years I worked for 2 different companies. Both paid commission only, bonuses for production, and renewals.

I’ve thought about this a lot myself, but I love the sales and marketing stuff so it’ll be awhile before I give it away. (Minus the social media and SEO lady I hired)

My thought when I do hire is:
Commission
Bonus for production
And a small repeat customer bonus. If they hire us again next year for $500, they get $15 or whatever. A substantial chunk of my business is repeat so if a sales person locks that down they get a piece.

As far as the responsibilities listed above they’re mostly the same as in finance. My only question is about 125 outbound attempts. Is he cold calling? In our business, I think a door to door approach is a better approach. Commercial only obviously, but on the residential side I’d get new yard signs and door hangers with a code or new phone number or website link or something that lets you track who is calling you based on his efforts.

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7

@florida_condo_cleani is spot on about money being a driver for sales oriented people… but even still. There have been a lot of articles and studies on “time off” bonuses for hitting goals and Gary Vaynerchuk gives an unlimited vacation option. If their people hit their goals and get their bonuses they can take the rest of the year off if they want to. There was another experiment done by a Japanese firm who gave non-smokers double the vacation time because they were picking up 6 days of slack for the smokers. The time off incentive is leading employees to quit smoking.

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8

Excellent points, I concur that only commission would be the way to go.

Now what % should that be for residential and what % for commercial?
Our residential services bring in more money than commercial, but the latter is more recurring.

9

I would take this any day. So I’d likely commission the recurring revenue at the same rate, but every time a check comes in they get a piece as long as they’re servicing the account. Aka, making the annual or bi-annual check in calls, taking the calls from those customers, follow up with those customers etc.

I’d likely give a bonus too for my past customers they call every year and lock in business.

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10

That’s really up to you. It’s a tough thing to figure out.

What does he make hourly now? How much more than that are you willing to pay for him to book a job a day worth what amount?

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11

Bonus should be half their pay check. And should come in levels. Easy bonus. Build moral
Another bonus based on results. Should be realistic to hit every month. Top level should be hard to achieve and only rewards maximum results from maximum effort. These bonuses should be substantial $500/$750/$1000 . This is how sales people are motivated.

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12

Essentially the commission would be his pay for being the accounts manager? But I think this position would be different from managing the work being done there, correct? he would only cover the financial income, not the spending, purchasing the supplies or scheduling employees, etc. correct?

13

So these bonuses would come into play after maybe the first quarter, where we would draw data on efforts throughout the 3 months and compare it against itself so see how he can improve and pay him that bonus when he meets those goals?

14

Not as the account manager, at least not in the position I would create. If sales were their job, I’d give them the customer list from the last X years to get started with. Last year’s customers are this year’s best customers at the lowest acquisition cost and least effort. So I’d put in the description X number of calls daily to past customers and however many calls it takes per day to land one new customer. That’s a number I’d figure out before I set that description in stone.

If you’re not earning at least 1 new customer a day wouldn’t you be moving backward? I forget the actual statistic, but a sizable percentage of your current customer base will hire you again 7-8 more times over their customer life cycle.

15

I get it, he’d only be in charge of client acquisition and retention. Offering our services, creating quotes, adding folks to prospects and client list on the CRM, making calls, sending emails, etc.

Someone told me not to let the sales rep know how much profit you make, so to just pay % off gross. Operating costs are none of their business.
I suppose the bookkeeper would be the only one to know those numbers. This person would be the actual person taking payments, not the sales rep.

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16

Structure it the way you see fit there is no one way to do something. The only constant is money motivates.

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17

Commissions with a draw vs that commission will drive a sales person harder. Total commissions at the end of the month, subtract draw paid each week that month and pay the balance on the 10th or so the following month. Vacation and holiday days based on previous average weekly pay for whatever time you chose divided by 5.

Reread that list though and tell me if you think all that can be done in one day, every day. Seems like too much enthuiasm.

Maybe consider breaking up the week as 3 days with 125 contacts and 2 targeting larger commercial accounts set up the week before. Create a portfolio and bring along some pics of your jobs, equipment, etc. Landing some large accounts during the month will pay off and break up that hard grind every day for the salesperson. Just a thought.

Whatever you guys agree upon should be on a trial basis since you are creating a new position so that in the end you get a positive result and not just one side happy with the outcome. Even if it seems obvious it should be talked about.

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18

Another thought just came to mind. Your tech already knows his job well enough for you to put him in a sales role and represent you. Maybe you guys hash out the duties and you test the job by leaving him as a tech while you are testing the sales job role for a time. You will then have first hand experience of what its like to achieve the goals and can adjust it to where it works best without letting him fail or your business suffer.

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19

Good idea.

And great points. Thank you

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20

Good stuff, good advice

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