marketing profs knowledge exchange : sales rep knows product, good followup, no numbers - can we save?

marketing profs knowledge exchange : sales rep knows product, good followup, no numbers - can we save? marketing profs member login | become a member | become a premium member join over 297,000 marketing professionals your email:   password:  remember me   forgot your password? home marketing resources online seminars newsletters conferences research careers blog forum about us member benefits forum homepost a questionsearch questionsquick start guide advertising/pr | book club | branding | career/training | copywriting | customer behavior | e-marketing | research/metrics | strategy | other | taglines/names | website critique | seo/sem | student questions | just for fun | our forum | conference networking marketingprofs khe sponsors in 3 minutes a day... ... you can now keep informed about all your competitors! watch360. try it now, free! other       this is a closed question. points have been awarded. sales rep knows product, good followup, no numbers - can we save? posted by: pacsales on 7/17/2004 2:23 am (est) 250 points we're a small company who has had one sales rep for almost 2 years. the rep has effectively learned the product line and is great on followup but cannot generate leads on his own in order to meet the monthly goal. we pay a tremendous amount in payperclick marketing and have now just hired a full time marketing person in order to help w/ leads. he's currently on a base salary plus commission program. after almost two years, we feel we must move onto another sales rep, but we of course lose all of the training. do you have any ideas on how to salvage? posted by: mirna accepted answer 7/17/2004 5:01 am (est) hello!if his only problem is that he is unable to generate new leads than it is simple. you have two options.1- force him to fill out a referral letter of at least 3 names from every sales he makes. or 2- get someone in the company, specialised in obtaining new leads. this person will help out all of your salesforce and he/she will earn a small percentage of the commission if the sale paid off. the sales person in this case will earn a lower comission than the one he would make if he were to generate a lead on his own.all leads must be centralised and registred under every salesman's name so that they do not get mixed up.hope i was of some helpmirna k   posted by: jim deveau/catalyst accepted answer 7/17/2004 8:22 am (est) hi pacsales:how does the rep feel about his performance? i can only offer a guess here - it might be that your rep just likes the other stuff better and has figured out how to make enough money to be happy.suggestion - look at your compensation plan for the rep and re-structure to place a higher value on new business generation. the rep has already proved himself at business renewal/existing customer sales - so why not "push" him into the challenge area. the arrival of your new analyst can be positioned as the company's investment behind him to help make him sucessful.i hope this helps.   posted by: jett accepted answer 7/17/2004 2:19 pm (est) i would suggest keeping him on the team to do what he does best: sell and follow-up. let the marketer drum up leads for him. it is extremely difficult to spend time on lead generation and excell in the sales process. even the largest companies direct their sales force on who, what and where. where does this info come from? the marketing team. maintaining a clear distinction along with encouraging strong communication between the 2 departments will help ensure success. perhaps you can promote the salesman to "director of sales" in combination with bringing on a few purely commission based sales people to work under him. this will do several things:1. re-ignite the fire under your salesman2. make him feel appreciated and important to the process3. give him time to learn from the marketer in order to develop strategies.4. broaden your sales force without an upfront expense or salary lock-up. i hope this helps! good luck!   posted by: telemoxie accepted answer 7/17/2004 6:01 pm (est) i know some great salespeople who can't prospect worth beans. but if you feed them qualified opportunities, they close the business.i'm personally a professional lead generator, and i can tell you from personal experience that what jett says is true - it is very difficult to simultaneously both generate leads and sell. the analogy i like to use is that of a fireman - he or she is either thinking long term, cleaning the fire truck, preparing and studying, making sure everything is in order, or he or she is fighting a fire. you will never see them do both at the same time.when the alarm bell goes off, there is no longer a concern about preparation or cleanliness - it is time to fight the fire. marketing is a long-term, patient process, similar to the preparation and training. but sales is like firefighting, and that is the mindset you want in your sales person. they need to be focused on putting maximum effort into immediate opportunities which will benefit your bottom line.just going on what you have said so far, if it were me, i'd be much more concered about the "full time marketing director". if you only have one sales person, you don't need a full time marketing person. there are about 50 experts on this forum who can probably get you more results (leads) than your full time person at half to a third of the cost of your new hire.naturally, i'd need lots, lots, lots more information before i'd be comfortable reccomending a course of action. i do not know anything about your product, your collateral, your competition. but based on the limited info, i'd probably be more comfortable using the money to hire a second salesperson.if you would like to discuss further, check out my profile and give me a call.   posted by: davidathaley accepted answer 7/18/2004 11:23 am (est) if great on follow-up means your rep closes a high percentage of leads, then by all means save him! put your efforts into developing a lead generation process through direct marketing and telemarketing, and then turn over the inquiries to your rep.also, you may need to refine your current lead gen process to focus on qualifying leads. while pay per click may get inquiries, what % are good leads? would other marketing avenues prove to be better investments?however, if great follow-up means persistent, but not an outstanding closing percentage, why do you want to keep this person? i understand you've made a big investment in training, but what's the cost of not closing business?good luck,david   posted by: kevin* accepted answer 7/18/2004 8:13 pm (est) hiif you spend a lot on ppc then another option is to start an affiliate program where you pay on sales only generated from clickthroughs.if you get lucky and sign up a few super affiliates with websites already ranking high for your keywords and willing to send traffic your way, it could be very profitable.depends on your target market, how much do you pay now for pcc top keyword, also check out the potential of keyword marketing through the free engines using a toolsuch as www.wordtarcker.com or for free at www.nichebot.com if you get leads from ppc now then you have a proven technique which others could follow or even improve.....hope that helps, any questions e-mail me atkevin@emagic-marketing.com   posted by: nucopro accepted answer 7/19/2004 4:44 pm (est) if your sales rep is meeting sales quotas, which you don't really state, and if your marketing person is being compensated partially on lead generation, i don't understand why you have to make a change right now. wouldn't it be better to let the marketing person do their thing and see if the sales person closes an exceptable percentage. its been noted in other posts that lead generation and sales are often done by different people. while some sales people can "do it all", others just don't have the lead generation gene. perhaps this person's prior experience was in situations where they weren't expected to generate leads.training is certainly an option, if you are happy with everything else that is being done. another option is to bring in a sales consultant to work with your sales and marketing people to help them grow into their roles. i've seen situations much worse that what you're describing that were completely turned around within a few months by a good sales consultant.there is hope!   posted by: deremiah, *cpe accepted answer 7/25/2004 8:25 pm (est) pacsales,sorry i've arrived a little behind the great post you've hopefully read above. having spent seven years in sales i can honestly tell you that what jett says is true! very few great salesmen can do it all. the question is are you satisfied with his ability to close sales at a ratio that makes him valuable to your organization? my personal suggestion to you is to keep him. if he closes sales, shows up to work on time and customers love him why not just keep him and slowly teach him how to generate a few additional sales leads a year. whatever you decide to do pacsales is totally up to you. but if i were you i would just keep him, save the money, time and education you have already invested in him and continue to train him to increase his closing ratio. is there anything else i can do for you?your servant, deremiah, *cpe (just back in from disney world)   posted by: phild accepted answer 7/31/2004 2:01 pm (est) there is a sales training program that i would recommend. it is high probabiltiy selling http://www.highprobsell.com/. the reason people dislike generating leads or cold calling is the discouragement. hps focuses on disqualifying prospects to find the ones that have the need, want and budget. it is contrary to most sales training which wants you to get the meeting and trying to convince the prospect to buy just because they could use your product, which is a huge waste of time. that time is better spent finding the ones who are ready for your product and to meet with them. i have been in sales for over 20 years and this has made the most sense of all the training i have taken.   posted by: val (moderator)* staff response 8/8/2004 11:57 am (est) hello all. i am closing this question, since its more than 2 weeks old. we do this to make sure members' contributions are rewarded in a timely manner and to improve the visibility of newer questions. thanks, so much, for participating!val (moderator)   would you like to post a response? 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