Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

OK, so my business has been open for almost two years now. I own a sign and graphics company. I started the business with about 30,000 and now have sales at about 12,000 a month.

The problem I have is, I have done this on my own, no employees or sales people. I have made zero sales call from day one. I have a certain amount of customers that keep me busy. This has caused me a problem, and I fear if those customers dry up, I will be in a bad situation. I don't make enough to hire a sales person, but believe if I had a sales person things would grow better.

I have thought about going to the bank to ask for a loan to cover the first year of a sales persons salary, and work real hard to make sure the sales person is successful.

I don't know if that is the best way, and would love to get some feedback or ideas.

Best Regards,

Mike

One option is to add a commission-only salesperson who can then work as much as they want, and you only owe them pay when they sell. (There are a multitude of ways to structure payment, you can decide ahead or negotiate it as part of the overall negotiation).

I would recommend you work out several scenarios based on projected increases in sales and determine what level of additional sales you could still handle on your own and where the break point is for hiring additional operations help. Then determine how much of those additional sales you could afford to spend as the pay for your sales rep.

Best regards,

Molly Donaldson

Have you thought about partnering with another company that sells a compatible product and sharing a sales rep.  The rep would represent both companies no matter what sales call they were going on.  For example, a company that sells gate operators might partner with a company that makes gates.  Both companies would share the cost of the sales person.  You would then get increased exposure for your products

Do you do any sort of advertising at all? Local newspapers, online, etc. This could help you bring in new customers so you won't have to worry about keeping only the current ones.

Also hiring a salesperson on a commission basis is a good idea. The only drawback that I see with it is that not many people will want to work straight commission, especially since you're a one man company. Maybe it would be a good idea to pay a small base salary plus commission. This would still guarantee some money for the employee, but also drive them to sell more.

You can make money with Linkshare,
They have a lot of merchants. Try selling Ipods. It has worked for me!

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make money

The commissioned sales person would be good for you- and here is another idea but watch out for employee taxes when hiring-- they almost killed my business when i had just one employee. 

I worked for years with a "draw off commission".  We had a salary-- but had to sell enough to cover- or make it up the next week.   For example- If salary is $200 a week and I was on 10% commission-- I had to sell $2000 to cover my salary-  If I only sold $1500-- I had to sell $2500 the next week to make up for the loss.

karen  

There are lots of ways you could gain more business without hiring a sales person (not that that's a bad idea, but definitely an investment!).  You could advertise in you local paper, twitter, PPC.  Think about your budget first.

I am intrigued by Affiliate Marketing (e.g. Linkshare), but I am afraid as I don't entirely know what I'd be getting into.  Can you explain more?

I have just started with some affiliate marketing and it sounds interesting. Just think about an other channel to commercialize your products.

There are a lot of affiliate systems, check those at your niche market.

L

I've hired salespeople on a commission-only basis.  It was a disaster, because at  the first hint of difficulty they jump to another commission-only job, all the while looking out for a secure sales position that pays a base salary.

There are a lot of business owners who are clueless about marketing and want a salesperson to sweep in and bring in the customers... for a commission.  Most salespeople who have a clue would laugh at such an arrangement unless they were exceptionally well supported by your organization.

What I'm saying is:  you'll waste your time trying to get other people to market and sell your product if you aren't paying them for their time.  This is because salespeople have to eat and times are tough - which means greater buying-resistance from prospects and a longer sales cycle in general.

If you did hire such a commission sales person chances are he would make half-a-day of calls and if he didn't make money he'd walk... perhaps without even telling you.

Most business owners have "ostrich syndrome" in regards to marketing.  They don't do it at all, they dont't treat it as an ongoing process, they do it in stupid ways - the list goes on, but fundamentally you're in the business of MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS and that, not  making signs, is your primary job if you want to have growth.

So get a clue.