As businesses grow and expand there will inevitably be the need to expand its workforce. Or maybe the business has gone stagnant, sales have dropped slightly or even worse, the business is in free fall. While it appears to be common practice to cut sales and marketing in hard times, truly the only way to rebound is to invest in those areas. Think about it logically for a second. In order to attract new customers the business needs to create awareness. Well, who writes those ads or determines campaign messaging? The answer should be relatively obvious…marketing! While it can be difficult at times to track real ROI of marketing campaigns, awareness and lead generation campaigns are essential to any business whether it’s B2B or B2C.
Sales rep recruiting and nurturing is a necessity to growing any business. But don’t think it’s as easy as hiring someone and letting them flail aimlessly until they fall flat on their face. It’s just not that simple. It takes time, patience, planning, and marketing to help these folks succeed. Think of it in terms of baseball pitchers: You have the starter (marketing), the middle reliever (marketing), and ultimately the closer (sales).
Here is an infographic that focuses on sales rep recruiting based on data collected by Advantages Magazine from 2013. This is a great starting point to understanding how compensation is structured for most sales reps.
