Save yourself the sweat

When any small business gets its start, the stereotype of the overworked owner wearing every hat in the company is usually accurate. But if you do things the right way, you’ll eventually have to hire someone to help you sell or manage the new business you sell yourself if you want to continue to grow. These next two stories will help you understand if you need to hire someone and how to do it.

When to hire

By Ed Laflamme

I firmly believe that nothing happens without a sale. It’s the lifeblood of the business. You, the owner, started the company selling to one client at a time. But as your fledgling company grows, all of the other tasks need to be done as well and you quickly come to the realization you can’t do it all.

DECISION TIME

At this point in your business you are faced with making many decisions. Should I hire a salesperson to replace me, or an operations person to oversee the work or a bookkeeper to handle the paperwork that is piling up in the office?

In thinking about this, there are many questions to consider before hiring another key manger or dedicated salesperson.

• Do you want to grow, and if so, how much?
• Do you enjoy selling?
• Are you good at it?
• Can the company afford the initial overhead?
• Can operations keep up with the sales a full-time salesperson can generate?

Let’s think this through. One of the first things you should ponder is whether or not you want to grow, and if you do, how quickly and how large. You, as the owner, should create a clear written vision to clarify in your own mind your goals and the future direction of your company.

With your vision in place, the answers to many of the above questions become obvious. Granted, time and circumstances can change your vision, and that’s OK, but don’t let that stop you from creating one to begin with.

TIME TO GROW

If you want to grow at a relatively brisk pace, then let’s think about how you will do it.

If selling is one of your strengths and you enjoy it, then I would suggest hiring well-qualified managers to fill in the other positions one at a time as you can afford it. That’s what I did. My operations people had a difficult time keeping up with what I could sell. If, on the other hand, you don’t like selling, then you know what you need to do. It’s always best to do what you enjoy and what you’re good at and it will feel like a job.

It’s important to understand there are two different types of salespeople: order takers and business developers. I call them order takers because they follow up on leads as potential customers call the office. These folks are generally landscape designers and work in the residential segment of the market.

Business developers do as the title suggests and develop new business within certain segments of your market. These professionals make cold calls, join networking groups, call on property managers and work to begin relationships, usually within the commercial segment of the business.

So with this understanding, let’s go back to the original question: When and how many salespeople to hire? I think you can see it’s really a function of how quickly you want to grow. Can your operations handle the volume of work and the type of salesperson you need?

Before closing, I would add that, generally speaking, good salespeople don’t cost you money once they begin selling their sales budget. That’s usually after the first year. Some companies I work with have three full-time salespeople and the owners don’t consider them overhead, but an investment in reaching their growth goals. As long as you can perform the work they sell profitably, then it’s all good.

The author is a professional speaker, author, business adviser and coach serving landscape owners nationwide with The Harvest Group.

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By Brian Horn

A few years ago, Matt Bellows saw his sales team enjoying work, or the lack thereof, a little too much.

“They were drinking beer and hanging out,” says Bellows, CEO of Yesware, a sales software company based in Boston. “I think they were taking a break, but it was an extended break.”

Instead of focusing on his more than relaxed employees, he reflected on what he was doing wrong.

“It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back in the sense that it gave me the feedback that I wasn’t doing a good job with them,” he says. “I wasn’t doing a good job in inspiring the team to close business.” Bellows eventually realized he couldn’t manage the sales team and run the company, so he hired a vice president of sales to manage the team at the then $2-million company.

Yesware now generates $10 million in revenue. Belllows spoke with Lawn & Landscape about what he’s learned from his years in business about hiring your first salesperson. 

1. Before you think about hiring a salesperson, you need to have some type of success selling jobs yourself. It will show the person it can be done, but can be done better with more time. “You want the feeling from the salesperson that if that owner can do it part time, I’m going to clean up,” Bellows says.
2. Along with the new hire having sales skills, you’ll need them to have entrepreneurial skills like you. There’s a good chance they will be inventing a lot of processes since they are basically starting from scratch. “You need somebody who is willing to learn on the job, who is creative and flexible and motivated enough to figure it out,” he says. To find this type of person, you can ask questions like: “Can you tell me about a time you solved a problem you didn’t know the answer to?” or, “Can you tell me about a time you thought something was impossible and you did it anyway?”
3. Your first salesperson doesn’t have to have landscaping experience, but they have to have an appreciation for what you do and the benefits of a well-maintained lawn. They need to be able to convey what a nice lawn can mean to property value compared to one not cared for by a professional. “You’re looking for those kinds of people who can relate to the homeowner that is your customer,” he says.
4. Once you hire the salesperson, you’ll need to have them shadow you for about a month, and you should introduce them to your suppliers or dealers to familiarize them with your network. Help them build a little network in your community of buyers so they can talk about sales with other people that are their peers who don’t have the built-in advantages of being an owner,” he says.
5. You should pay a base that is half of what you expect the position to generate. The rest should be commission. “Basically what you are looking for is for them to have paid back their costs in about six months,” he says.