Where do I find a salesman?

[Deleted member 54413]

It's been donkeys years since I've had to employ a salesman. Now I need one. I started my own business manufacturing labelling machinery 4 years ago and started with a great salesman that I've known for years. Unfortunately due to his personal circumstances he is now unable to spend as much time selling for us as I would like. As the business is totally dependent on him for sales it leaves us too exposed, so we need some new blood.

Where on earth do I start? 20 years ago it was easy, an advert in the local rag (or the Telegraph if you needed national), but with the new-fangled interweb does anybody use newspapers any more? With the ability of spotty youths to set up web sites that look like multi-national top-flight recruitment agents, how do I tell who is worth talking to if I need to go the web route?

We've got a good product in a growing and successful business. We will look at anyone from keen youngsters to experienced older people, we can fit the opportunity to the person if we feel they are right for us. So where do I start?

Any advice gratefully received.

 

[Geoff T]

sod 'interweb! you've got the market coverage...ask around - without giving the game away..."who's out there that you think is any good" type thing...

 

[BronwynDurand]

There are a LOT of options for hiring these days, although they do bring issues about managing a large amount of unsuitable rifraf with it.

If you have the time to sort through the replies, you may want to experiment with putting an ad on a major job search engine like monster.co.uk. There are a lot of very specific job search engines that focus on sales specifically - try typing sales job into Google and you will start to spot them. It may be more useful to you to search for results based on your specific industry, and pick up either recruitment agents or job sites. Trouble with sales type industries is finding quality people. Recruitment Agents are useful to a point (especially if you only pay on hiring, and can give an excellent brief about who you want). They take away the initial pain of screening suitable people to interview.

All things considered, if you have a small industry - with the way the job market is now there is bound to be someone brilliant that has lost their job that one of your suppliers, customers or peers know of. No fees and personal recommendation is ideal - as per Geoff T's recommendation.

I've worked with a bunch of small businesses that have had pretty good quality results from using odd websites, even Gumtree, for placing recruitment ads.

 

[profitxchange]

Try calling visiting local job clubs (aimed at prefssionals)- there are a number of private sector ones. they tend to get pretty good people. Ask the job centre they may know them.

 

[GeorgeM]

I would have thought that asking your own contacts in the industry would be more likely to yield people with the sort of experience you need, rather than seeking a general sales person.

 

[maxine]

Have you considered using a telemarketing agency (such as ours) as this could help to make the most of your existing salespersons time. The idea to this is that someone like us would generate qualified leads for your existing salesperson to close making the most of their specialist product and industry knowledge.

It can help to take the pressure off and make the most of valuable resources leaving someone else to get data, obtain decision maker names, make initial contact to generate interest, send information by email and post, make follow up calls for appointments and so on.

In terms of recruitment, I have always found totaljobs good value where you can pay to access CV's for a month and then search for suitable candidates by keywords, location etc.

Good luck

 

[Deleted member 54413]

Thanks all for the advice, there are some sound ideas there that I will explore.

Maxine, I've used a telemarketing company which was very succesful, from that we hired our own telemarketeer. My problem now is the salesman is not around enough to follow up the leads adequately.

 

[Deliberator]

Thanks all for the advice, there are some sound ideas there that I will explore.

Maxine, I've used a telemarketing company which was very succesful, from that we hired our own telemarketeer. My problem now is the salesman is not around enough to follow up the leads adequately.

Why don't you follow up the leads then ?

 

[Deleted member 54413]

I've been doing that for too long and it is impacting on my time. Our sales follow-ups lead on to capital equipment sales which can take months of leg-work to follow through. I already have one predominant role that takes up most of my time and I can't do his job, my job and run the business whilst giving all three aspects the attention they need.

 

[Deliberator]

Fair play, I thought that it would also balance the onus more for you too but that was my assumption !

Finding a new salesperson could be a challenge for you - don't use an recruitment consultancy unless you really have to, so try the localish channels first if you can.

 

[Alcsl]

Give your local gumtree a try, it's generally free or very cheap to post a job on there, and their regional sites seem to get a surprisingly good level of traffic on them. Might be worth a look?

Al

 

[tdonald]

cd sales recruitment or BMS are the big players but not cheap

 

[Mellijelli]

You could try job boards, there are quite a few good ones out there you could have a look at Careers & Jobs UK is one iv had a look at recently and they have many resources you could use, this way you have a variety of candidates to choose from and ensure you get exactly what you are looking for, some other agencies to use are Monster and Total jobs, good luck

 

[chez]

Maybe You could try local colleges if they are doing sales courses.

 

[tdonald]

Are there any colleges out there running course?

 

[chez]

I am not sure if specifically sales orientated courses are available, but I know when I did my Marketing Diploma with Chartered Institute of Marketing we had quite a few people who were sales reps looking to further their knowledge, just thought it may be worth a shot - or people attending courses may know of someone looking for a sales job.