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Should I hire a Salesperson? (alien.top)

submitted 2 years ago by Scieboy@alien.top to c/entrepreneur@indiehackers.space

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I have a government contacting business and am struggling to find the balance between doing sales for my day job (which is supporting my family and providing great insurance) and selling for my business which is also a demanding process. I'm thinking about hiring a 1099 sales person working straight commission with a tiered approach (20%, 30%, and 40% of margin) based on hitting certain sales goals. I'm in a lucrative industry where the average contract is ~$200K and last 18 months with good margins for the construction industry.

What are your thoughts? This is eventually my corporate exit strategy but going full time right now is completely out of the question with a couple kids and one being a newborn. Can y'all help me think through this?

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[–] Ok_Shop_7369@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Governement contracts are a special skill. We do some governement contracting and mostly B2B and the product we sell is almost the same. We tried to have the same aales people do both some years ago and that was a disaster, so now one team for governement contracts and one for B2B.

I say that yo make you aware you need to look for governement sales experience.

My opinion on hiring sales people is that you need to pay tem well enough (fixed), so they don't need to worry about paying for their mortage, food and their kid's school and do the rest on commission. Too much pressure -as in needing to close a deal to pay for the mortage- leads to bad behaviors (and can you really blame them?). Also good sales peoplr are wanted and don't have to put up with bad employers (so if you don't take care of them, don't expect them to take care of you).

At the same time, I can't look into your personal motivations, but if you have been successful yourselfs selling your service, the better job opening would be for a nanny.

[–] Scieboy@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

As a Salesperson myself I agree with you on basically every point. Thankfully, this is a labor only service I'm offering which eliminates most the risk I've traditionally ran into. Rarely have I ever messed up having too little labor but I can't tell you how often I've gotten a part of a piece or forgot to size a budget item....

[–] Adventurous-Woozle3@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you want to hire commission for this try to make the position fully remote if at all possible. Fully remote sales is such a unicorn that it makes up for some of the risk of being a straight commission 1099 that you are asking for. A good sales person should be able to sell just about anything so with a solid track record from the company it's also not much of a risk to a good agent.

[–] Scieboy@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah this is huge. The nature of this role is that it's 100% remote if you want since geographically I'm covering anywhere the DoD is. Good point the stress if I'm putting out applications.

[–] jacksdogmom@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes, hire! Sounds like you have found a niche that you can grow and scale and that you have a pain point. Keep hiring 1099 to keep the momentum going until you can exit your day job.

[–] Scieboy@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

I absolutely have. In fact I feel into it at my old day job.

[–] Temporary-City4189@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

I think a great solution could be leveraging custom AI & Automation software. This is more dependable , affordable , and could be more lucrative and longer lasting than a salesperson who tends to burnout. I recommend scLean Labs to explore this more. Happy to help see what that could be - calendly.com/janoma or email janoma@scleanlabs.com!