New Business

[WayneTurner]

We have started a new online training website. We have spent the past 12 months developing this site and are now enjoying the early days of promotion, sales, further developments etc etc... Basically we now need a sales person. I am undecided whether to go telesales (yawn) or telesales followed up by a personal introduction. Money is tight so I am thinking commission, but I obviously need to compromise. Interested in peoples thoughts as to whether it would be a worthwhile exercise employing someone for say 15k +commission, or whether I would need to go to 20-25k + commission for it to be worthwhile. What is the 'norm' and what sort of commission % would be realistic? Would most sales people have their own car and fuel is paid? Or would the employer usually sort a car? Would any of you recommend getting a sales person who is self employed?

 

[Montaigne]

What commission rate would you pay?

Why the (yawn) for telesales?

 

[WayneTurner]

Because I am unsure as to how effective telesales would be. I have been on the receiving end of telesales for the past 10 years and they have to be really on form to get my interest.
As for commission, well that is my question, I wouldn't know what to offer and I wouldn't want to offend. In my opinion (obviously) my product should be fairly easy to sell buuut, I think everyone thinks that of their own product/s.

 

[Black Country Delivery]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of training are you offering?

 

[WayneTurner]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of training are you offering?

We have specialist training available for a huge range of industries including health and safety training, HR training, finance etc.. etc..

 

[Black Country Delivery]

Interesting. Are you looking to target businesses or private individuals? The reason I ask is a friend was recently made redundant and mentioned just the other day that she was looking to enhance her CV by studying, and Health & Safety training was mentioned...

 

[WayneTurner]

Our primary custom is the commercial sector. If I knew what level of Health and Safety training she required I may be able to help out a bit. Health and Safety is my area of expertise.

 

[Black Country Delivery]

I'll be seeing her on Friday, so I'll have a word with her and if she wants to persue it further I'll PM you if that's ok?

 

[WayneTurner]

Be pleased to help out, or point in right direction any way I can.

 

[Montaigne]

Because I am unsure as to how effective telesales would be. I have been on the receiving end of telesales for the past 10 years and they have to be really on form to get my interest.

Wayne, the thing about telesales is that it's not a generic service. There are bad and good telesales people and so it's not a question of whether or not telesales would be effective but rather if you would train/embody your telesales staff with the right qualities to do the job effectively.

In terms of paying commission it depends on your company expenses, what you think is a realistic monthly target, how difficult or easy it is to hit that target, how long it will take to build a suitable pipeline etc.

A good way of working it out is to try doing telesales yourself, which will give you an appreciation of the difficulty (or ease) of the role and what you can expect from an employee i.e. use your own performance as a benchmark for your telesales team.

 

[WayneTurner]

Thank you for your advice, I will most certainly consider your suggestions.