Over the past 20 years on at least three occasions I have filled a role as salesman for a company; I’ve been asked more times than three. Each time was a disaster. The recipients APPROACHED ME and asked me to sell, they said I’d be great.
I was awful, and I knew it.
Over the past 10 years on at least seven occasions I have approached someone else and asked them to sell for me. In the latest case I offered 50% of the gross revenue from sales, not net, Gross, but no, she wouldn’t take it.
“With your skills you’ll only have to work 3 days a month to sell me; you can spend the remaining 17 days doing whatever you want!”.
Nope.
Probably just as well.
I have come to realize that for a very small business – and especially a solo-entrepreneur, the chance of an external sales person making any sense at all is zero.
Here’s why:-
Until my one-man organization is firing on all 8 cylinders, I am running a day-by-day operation. As pointed out in Marketing 101 – Again , I can and do carry everything in my head. I am privy to stuff that can’t be communicated to a separate individual.
Only when the marketing and sales functions are running as smoothly as clockwork can the task be handed over (and even then only to someone who is half as passionate (1) about my niche as I am).
Not until I have the source of leads lined up and feeding me properly; not until I have the marketing pitch perfected; not until I have proven customers for my products and services will I be able to hand off to a professional sales guy or gal.
Until that time it is my passion that sells; it is my glib tongue that sells; it is my 4-in-one knowledge of everything about my organization that let’s me be nimble and responsive to every response my contact makes.
(1) If they were 100% as passionate, they’d have started their own business, right?
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