From Sales Nightmare to Sales Success

A two-tier process has enabled us to rise above our sales mistakes and post our best sales year ever.

By Kurt Sippel

I am a patient yet calculating man. That's the reason I have been able to grow my company to several million dollars in sales over the past 10 years, surviving the explosion of the technology bubble and the current recession. But I have no patience for sales staff. And that's why, after hiring six different salespeople over the past four years, I had to let them all go--and not one of them lasted more than 18 months. In 2008, however, our company had its most successful sales year ever--without a single dedicated salesperson on staff.

But that's now. Back in 2004, when I decided to hire a salesperson, I struggled with everything from developing an incentive program to hiring and managing. I actually asked our first sales rep to help put together the commission plan. Talk about putting a wolf in charge of the henhouse! I also struggled with personality differences; salespeople are motivated differently than me, being driven primarily by compensation. And there was constant conflict as to whether commission would be paid and what it should be, which I hate.

Some reps weren't technical enough to sell what we have to offer. When they left, I had to go back to their clients and resell them on our company and explain what we do. Others were too old school to successfully sell managed services-they focused on our products, hoping to get some consulting dollars along the way. What they didn't understand is that buying managed services is a business decision in which the product purchase is predicated on a relationship of trust.

A DUAL SALES MODEL
Then, in 2008, I split our sales effort by function. One group, made up of independent contractors, works specifically on lead generation. The other group-consisting of me, our operations manager, and two senior technical staff--focuses on closing deals. I knew our internal team could win deals if we got in front of quality leads, so our challenge wasn't one of sales, but of finding good leads.

We now pay a small base salary to a contract employee who researches companies we get from various list brokers. He adds other prospects as well, found by visiting the Web sites of SMBs in our area. Reps are provided with a prospect list, and they return a spreadsheet with the calls they made along with their notes. We pay them $25 an hour plus $100 for every call that leads to a viable opportunity, determined via a conference call with the prospect, salesperson, and our senior staff. If there's no opportunity for us--say the contact is an office manager with no buying authority--the rep does not receive a fee. When the outcome is less clear cut, there is some fee negotiation involved. A good opportunity then goes to someone on our internal team, who enters it into our CRM system and takes ownership of it.

Page 1 2 Next »