Start-Ups: Don't Hire Salespeople

Salespeople are the heart and soul of business. No sales calls = no sales. It’s hard to imagine a business growing and thriving without a competent sales force. More salespeople, making more sales calls, landing more orders is a formula for success. That is unless you are an Entrepreneur getting a start-up business off the ground.

Wait

My advice is to wait until your company is off the ground and running before entertaining the idea of building a sales force. There are a handful of reasons to be careful beefing up your sales department.

They Don’t Understand

First of all, most businesses are founded on a great idea. The great business idea is typically a byproduct of the founder’s subject matter expertise. Most start-ups know something that others don’t. They solve problems and are then paid to deliver their products or services. Over the last few years, I have worked with dozens and dozens of new businesses and most of the founders, owners, entrepreneurs do not understand the ins and outs of employing salespeople. They shouldn’t hire salespeople because they don’t know what they are getting into.

Risk

The risk facing a company when hiring salespeople early in the life of the enterprise is great. First of all, like other employees, they want to be paid. Unlike other employees, there is no guarantee that a salesperson will deliver a return on investment. An investment in recruiting, hiring, and training, equipping and managing a salesperson is a one that can backfire on a start-up company. The setback in money, time and lost opportunity could be fatal.

Disruption

When a salesperson is hired the first thing an entrepreneur will find out (the hard way) is that salespeople are needy. They will make work for their bosses. That’s just how it is. So, instead of relieving some of the workload burden they become extra burden on their time and checkbook. Again, not only will the entrepreneur be answering questions, asking questions, helping with proposals and running sales meeting with their new salesperson, i.e. doing it all themselves anyway, but there is still no guarantee that he or she will sell their products or services anytime soon, if at all.

Message

Unless a salesperson is schooled in the subject matter being sold, it is unlikely that they will be able to correctly tell the story or the value proposition. They won’t likely be able to answer questions and could probable get some facts distorted. Again a start-up business doesn’t need problems like this.

Later Than Sooner

Make some sales, get some traction, get off the ground and then hire salespeople.