nickhumph

Hey Warriors,

So I'm thinking of hiring a few salesman on an online outsourcing site such as odesk or elance, or even craigslisting.

Have a few questions for y'all:
1. Have you hired salesman to sell mobile related products for you? Or even in general with other products/services. What was your experience? Good/bad?
2. Are good salesman happy with no hourly pay?
3. How much is a reasonable commission for a product that costs $500+ ?

It seems stupid to me not to hire salesman. I mean the way I think about it, if you hire them and pay them on commission basis, you could get 1000's of people to work for you and your sales would skyrocket! I know you could do this with an affiliate marketing program, but talking to each salesman individually and "training them" will have to be more effective surely.

Thanks!
Nick

Increase Page Conversions by 72% through the most underrated marketing tool out there!

cashflowsmobile

Hi Nick, to answer your questions I think you should explain how these salesman should operate in the market? Do they need to sell the products to companies on the phone? On the street? Online? I´m not asking you to reveal your idea but a little bit more information what you mean with "mobile related products" would be highly appreciated. Do you mean mobile devices, equipment, apps, contracts etc.?

Kind Regards

Steven

nickhumph

Mobile Apps, Mobile websites, SMS Marketing, etc - although open to other fields as experiences with salesman are pretty universal.

Salesman could do whatever they like to make the sale.. it would probably end up being a lot of cold calling.

Increase Page Conversions by 72% through the most underrated marketing tool out there!

cashflowsmobile

I worked as a senior sales executive in europe for a couple of years, usually over here salesmen receive a base salary + commission. Usually you receive a company car if you have to work in the field, but it´s also common that the salesman uses his private car and works from the home office.
To hire and work with salesmen it´s highly about direct marketing, the direct approach and usually it´s about complex services/solutions/products which need explanation. It´s more related to offline businesses where it´s about client relationship and a specific amount of investment on the client´s side. Of course Salesmen make sense if you run an big sized online business, for example to build up key accounts or enter new markets and the big enterprise business.

The salaries of enterprise salesmen vary around 30-70k Euros + commission a year, the best of them go for around 100k-140k Euros a year in total.

Looking at your products I think it would be way better for you to start an affiliate program and generate some good affiliates as they are in fact online salesmen. I can´t imagine that you will find high performers that rock in the field for just some bucks commission. In fact you may give it a try but don´t expect too much and keep your business focused.

Kind Regards

Steven

nickhumph

Thanks! But do any work solely on commision?

Increase Page Conversions by 72% through the most underrated marketing tool out there!

everge

Hi Nick, I'm venturing done the same path as you looking for commission based sale people to go out and sell mobile sites, sms etc.

I'm also based in Australia and I placed an add on Gumtree looking for sales consultants offering them 50% commission based on their sales. Needed them to call, prospect, visit etc and I picked up 2 consultants by just doing that.

Thought I would let you know.

Cheers,

Graeme

JohnE

Hi Graeme,

I'm looking to hire some sales people to do the same thing. I also plan on doing a 50% commission on each sale; however, I've yet to figure out how the payment process would work.

Will they (your sales people) be directing the client to an online payment processor, or will they be accepting paper checks? If the latter, how are you planning to handle that? Will the sales people be sending you the checks by mail, meeting with you in person to hand them over, or is there another way to work it?

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks,
John

Mo Goulet

I'm finding great success promoting through Facebook local business pages.

Find local pages, like them, follow and interact with positive non promotional replies to their updates and watch what happens.

Domain Names For Sale. Make an Offer.

beeswarn

This is an example of the #1 problem with this forum.

The OP asked about recruiting, hiring, training and compensating salespeople for his business. The guy above me doesn't know anything about it, so he tells him to go spam businesses on facebook.

Ridiculous.

Here are my answers to your questions::

1. Have you hired salesman to sell mobile related products for you? Or even in general with other products/services. What was your experience? Good/bad? Yes, I have. Results so vary have been mixed with nothing to excite me much.
2. Are good salesman happy with no hourly pay? Yes. In fact, no intelligent salesman will work for an hourly wage without commissions or a bonus schedule.
3. How much is a reasonable commission for a product that costs $500+ ? I cannot answer this question with the information you provided. Commissions are paid from gross margins. Calculate yours, and consider the length of the sales cycle, and you'll know what you can and should offer.

Mo Goulet

I simply gave him an alternative to cold calling or hiring salesman to market to local businesses. Last year I provided Text marketing services to over 100 businesses in 14 states. If you're successful at what you are doing, share it.

Domain Names For Sale. Make an Offer.

beeswarn

He didn't ask for an alternative to cold calling. He asked for help and advice in recruiting, hiring, training and compensating new salesmen.

If your methods of recruiting are based upon spamming real businesses on facebook, you should have made it clear that's what you use and recommend.

Otherwise, people who read your replies now are bound to think that you fool around on facebook all day, you don't have anything meaningful to offer and that you make up stories.

Mo Goulet

You are really funny. Do you think anyone here takes you serious. No one spams Facebook and makes real money.

Domain Names For Sale. Make an Offer.

everge

Hi John,

No I don't have the sales people collect any payments.

The sales people complete the order form and then I email the company an invoice giving them an option to pay via direct credit via internet banking to my account or paypal.

They can also send me a cheque via mail but I don't get many, most pay directly via the internet.

If I'm looking to set up a ongoing arrangement for hosting or sms etc I use a company here in Australia called Ezypay and they are like a merchant who handle the recurring billing for me. They also allow you to collect the upfront fee as well, it's a one page authority your client signs to set up the arrangement. They do charge per transaction a small fee.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Graeme

lavalink

You obviously can't afford to pay a full-time salary, and it will be tough to find commission-only guys since you don't have a track record (i.e., you can't say "Our average rep makes $XXXX a month in commissions.") I think you need to do sales yourself until you can bring in entry-level people whom you can afford to pay a salary and train to become top salespeople.

JohnE

Very helpful, thank you Graeme.

John

nickhumph

Will they work for commission only? Provided it's a product they really see potential in?

Increase Page Conversions by 72% through the most underrated marketing tool out there!

Ernie Mitchell

I agree.

As a salesman and sales manager or 30+ years, I feel you need to get involved so you can talk first hand to prospective sales people about the temperament of the market, the market potential and how it should be approached. Until you have made some calls and closed some calls, you cannot walk in their shoes.

Consider contacting distributors and manufactures representative sales organizations that are already calling on the same market you wish to penetrate and offer them your line on a commission basis. Often times commission sales people rep multiple lines. The amount of commission you are willing to pay and the ease of making a sale will dictate how much of their time they will dedicate to your line.

Just food for thought --- good luck.

kimboslice

I've had close to 10 or so commission only salesman at once working for me at my company that netted low 7 figures. The only places I've ever had luck getting salesmen is from word of mouth or Independent Sales Reps Opportunities - Find New Lines for Manufacturers Representatives . It's easier said than done and it take a lot of time screening and training the right type of person. I spent so much time burning through bums who did not want to work and I paid xxx to x,xxx commsiisions. Also, I just never had any luck with salesman working remotely. All the successful ones showed up at my office 3 to 4 times a week and this was selling a service that could be sold anywhere.

IWelcomesocialmedia

Good luck with that.

To find a great sales person with commission only is rare indeed. You probably end up getting a high turnover in sales people.

Try Linkedin or Ecademy.com.

It probably best to put a small Ad in your local paper.

Regards
Claudine