Hiring a sales rep eventually becomes necessary in the life of a manufacturer, whether in the long- or short-run. Usually, this need arises when it’s clear that your business doesn’t have enough staff, skill, or time to sell your products directly to independent retailers.
Interestingly, hiring a competent sales rep may be as difficult as getting your products on retailers’ shelves. You have to ensure you are employing the best candidate who’s going to perform. However, hiring this excellent applicant depends on you as much as them.
Read the following steps to find the most suitable sales representative for your products.
Assess your Selling Process
There’s a high possibility that you already have a few customers before opting to hire a sales rep. These clients may have come through contacts and previous ads. Regardless of how you acquired them, you should know what it takes to sell your goods. Remove the murky words like “highly energetic person” from your list and replace them with specifics like “a proven track record selling to independent retailers.”
Listen to Existing Clients
Asking your existing clients about the changes they want to see in your sales process and how they’d like to be served is a crucial step that you just skip — even if most businesses ignore it. When you listen to those you already sell to, you have a clearer idea of how the ideal candidate would be. Also, your customers will feel important and pleased when you ask them for clarity on this issue.
Draw up a Precise Job Description
Your job description ads have to be concise and highly specific. Spell out the essential needs without any of the usual jargon job ads contain. Include lines like:
- This position requires preparation of above-average pitches to independent retailers.
- This job involves generating at least ten leads daily.
Have a Complementary Compensation Plan
You need to realize that selling your products isn’t as easy as ABC. If it were, you wouldn’t need a sales rep. It takes remarkable skills to get retailers to ditch familiar products for offerings they haven’t tried out before. Therefore, be willing to compensate reasonably.
Use Your Network and Run Ads
A good entrepreneur must have a network of some sort, and now is the time to use any that you have. Spread your job description among people you know to find a suitable candidate. An applicant recommended by an acquaintance is likely to perform better than one who responds to your ads. However, don’t shelve people responding to ads unreasonably. The conciseness of your job description means that a lot of qualified persons will apply.
Interview to Figure out Character
A sales rep will come across lots of rejection, so your staff has to be someone with the character to shrug off disappointments and press ahead. This quality is necessary because you need results without excuses. Certifications and qualifications must have been sorted out before the interview, so character is the focus here. You must conduct due diligence on your applicants.
Hire on Trial
Regardless of how impressive applicants perform during an interview, you aren’t sure of their ability to perform until they are hired. Therefore, hire a sales rep staff on trial. Have a numerical value that they must meet within a period before hiring on a long-term basis. You may demand that the rep must score at least one independent retailer within three months.