When’s the best time to hire a salesperson? Should we hire folks that work for commission only when we’re early on if we’re not good at selling? These are questions lots of business founders ask, especially as they are scaling up. In today’s episode, April answers them. Her answers may surprise you. She also cautions you to never hire salespeople out of fear. She reveals the harmful consequences that can happen if you do. Let’s face it: selling is critical to your company’s success. No sales means no income. No income means you go out of business. So hiring the right sales pros at the right time and having the right mindset about selling are critical to your success. Want to discover what April thinks about this crucial topic? Tune in now to episode 60 of the Winning Mindset Mastery Podcast. Here’s to your success!
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Doing THIS Out Of Fear Will Cause You To Fail!
I was on our panel in the UK answering all sorts of questions about scaling up businesses. I was talking to solopreneurs and entrepreneurs with small to medium-sized businesses and giving them advice on when to launch products, when to hire marketing, and how to get marketing and sales to work together. One of the questions that I received was when is the best time for a founder to hire a salesperson? Should they hire folks that work for commission only when they’re early on if they’re not good at selling?
I had a different answer to this question than the rest of the panel was expecting. I don’t believe that a founder should ever hire a salesperson until they themselves are comfortable with selling their product or service. The biggest logical reasons are the following. One, no one is going to be more of an evangelist for your brand and your product than you are as the owner or founder. Think about it. Steve Jobs with Apple. Who could have described that better than he could have in those first days?
Hiring Salespeople: A founder should never hire a salesperson until they themselves are comfortable selling their product or service.
The other more logical reason is that clients will feel very special talking to the founder. There’s a definite benefit there. Understanding those clients, answering their questions, hearing what they say, and seeing how they receive that brand’s story helps you understand what it should be in the marketplace. It also helps you develop it for the salespeople that you eventually hire.
The other part of that is you get to start to come by all these great stories about what your product or service did for your clients. That’s something that you can share with your entire sales team as you scale. If you happen to be selling your product or service and getting greater revenue, you’re going to be able to hire a higher-quality salesperson.
They ask the question about people working for commission only. In my experience, and I spent nearly a decade in professional sales, the only people who are going to be willing to work for commission only are folks who are working somewhere where there’s a very short sales cycle. In addition to that short sales cycle, they’re compensated well. They either have great savings from having done well in previous roles or maybe they’re single and they have great savings. Otherwise, folks can’t afford to do that for that long, or they wouldn’t choose to because there are lots of other places that would compensate them better.
Hiring Salespeople: The only people who are willing to work for commission only are those who are working somewhere where there’s a very short sales cycle.
Those are all the logical reasons, but this is mindset mastery. You know there’s another reason that I said this. That reason is fear. You cannot hire anyone as a business owner or a founder, or even someone in the corporate world out of fear. Here’s what I mean. When you’re hiring someone because you don’t believe you can do something, you are setting yourself up to hire someone who is subpar to not be able to call them on it when they don’t perform well. You’re setting yourself up to take some steps back instead of taking those steps forward that you want to take.
One of my earliest clients had started another business in an industry that he didn’t know anything about. He’d also started that business with some family members or had them work for him, which made the dynamic more complicated. Fear drove a lot of his decisions. He had someone in a position doing something that he didn’t believe he could do. Spoiler alert, he could do it, but he didn’t feel like he could. He was afraid of it.
That person went on to undermine him with the rest of the staff, ignore the things that he said as the owner and the financial backer of the company, and even embezzle from the company. Since that owner was so hands-off and so afraid, and this is what happens when you hire people out of fear, he can’t say, “You are not doing your job well. I know it should be done differently.” Your fear is that you don’t know how it should be done. The best thing that you can do in those situations when you know you’re afraid is to step in there and learn enough to know that you could do it. It is not that you’re the best person at it or that’s the position you’re going to choose to have in your company. Know that you can do it well enough to be able to put someone else in that role and be confident that they are doing the right things.
You might say to me, “I don’t want to do it. I’m not afraid.” Here are some questions to ask yourself so that you know for certain that that’s the case. Our ego and fear can be tricky. It can tell us that we’re not afraid and that this is the only decision we can make, but that is one of the clues that it’s fear-based. If you feel like you have to hire someone else, you have no other option, or you’re stuck if you don’t, none of those things are true. We are never truly stuck. There is always something we can do.
We are never truly stuck. There is always something we can do. Share on XWe never have truly only one option. There are always at least two and usually multiple options. We may not like any of them, but there are options. That is an indicator of when you have a limiting belief because that’s what you tell yourself. There’s nothing else you can do. You have to do this. This is the only way out. Limiting beliefs tend to be black and white. It’s like, “We’re doing this or we’re doing this.” When you feel yourself in that place, that is the best indicator that you have to grab the bull by the horns and do that thing that you’re afraid of. Even if you don’t do it well, do it because otherwise, you’re going to set yourself up to be on a failure loop because you’re not getting in there and not doing it.
If you’re asking yourself these questions and you’re still not certain, I have two other pieces of advice for you. The first one is to find a friend who’s an entrepreneur and ask for their objective opinion. It’s not any friend or a family member. Ask an entrepreneur. They’re going to be objective. They’re going to be dealing with some of the very same things you are, and they’ll be able to answer the question for you.
Hiring Salespeople: You want to get to a place where doing something feels like the right choice, not the only thing you can do. That will make a world of difference, not just for your business but also for your mindset and success in every area of life.
If, for some reason, you have no friends who are entrepreneurs, it happens. Being an entrepreneur can be lonely sometimes because you’re surrounded by people but none of them do exactly what it is that you do, then go out on social media. Go out on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok. It doesn’t matter. Find someone who’s either in your industry or a similar industry. Find a coach or a consultant. Go and ask me on any of my social media. Go on my website and ask me a question and I’ll answer you personally.
Give them the situation and let them give you their objective feedback so that you can get another take on your situation. If you feel limited that way where you have to do something and this is the only way for your business to move forward, chances are, that’s fear-motivated. You want to get to a place where it feels like the right choice, not the only thing you can do. That will make a world of difference not just for your business but also for your mindset and for your success in every area of life. Let me know what you think about this. Tell me how it’s going for you. I can’t wait to hear about it. Here’s to your success.