
Ask HN: What was your biggest challenge in creating a sales organization? - davidlee1435
How did you overcome those challenges?
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chi17
Some sales-related challenges faced by companies I've worked for:

1\. incentive plan - you'd be surprised at how much a poorly-thought out plan
can screw things up. For example, let's say you're growth focused and don't
have a lot to spend, so you think it's appropriate to only pay 20% commission
on order revenue if the order belongs to a customer within the first 3 months
after a customer's first order was completed. Genius right? Wrong. After that
3 months, your sales team is going to ignore that customer, and that unhappy
customer at best won't be coming back as you burn through all of your leads;
at worst they'll disparage you to everyone they know which includes your
potential customers.

2\. recruiting pool - this is not just a sales problem, but if you choose a
crappy location because it's cheap or an easy commute for you personally,
you're in large part defining the edges of your recruiting pool to reasonable
commuting distance to your office. This is a great reason to embrace remote
sales, but then you have to ensure a lot is in-place. Also, be aware of the
general culture where you're recruiting. Do you accept it? Will the rest of
the company and your customers?

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11... many other things like: cell phone plan(s),
travel reimbursement (don't give them a hard time about buying bottled water,
do set realistic common-sense ground rules to ensure you have a sustainable
plan through good and bad times, show them how to use a cellphone app to
quickly scan and collect receipts, etc.), SalesForce licenses (or at least
don't reinvent the wheel when it comes to CRM software), quality leads (ABC
doesn't stand for "always be cold-calling"), automated contact resolution,
sales training (and training for everything else!), customer training (and
ensure that everything is legal in every way as it relates to the customer
which is public exposure), network, IT/app support, product planning and
ongoing FULLY RELEVANT communication about what is and isn't possible to do
with your products/services.

...

9999999999\. Last but not least, the selection process and effective sell of
the position itself. You have to be ready and able to sell the position to a
salesperson that you expect to be better than you at sales. You also need to
recognize when they can't sell. You probably can't really accomplish this
easily during selection, at the very least, ensure there's a clear
understanding of quota, etc., and, like the reimbursement plan, it needs to be
sustainable. If you keep changing the quota and they get pissed, they will
know how to use Glassdoor, Google reviews, and tell every customer they run
into at their new company about all your faults.

Some extras:

* Your smartest salespeople are going to make mistakes, probably be sneaky at times or try things that don't make sense. Encourage the creative things they do, but also listen to the others that provide better ways to handle those things. These are the ones to keep if they can really sell.

* Sales is about the company's success, not each sell itself. A bad sales staff will tank a company if told to do whatever it takes to make the sell, which includes selling at a loss.

