Business Opportunities Weblog

Hiring Salespeople

By on April 6, 2006 in Ideas

Q at work. Photo by waffler.

Terry Gold:

Here’s where I think a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly those that are bootstrapping, make a big mistake. They hire a VP of Sales and Marketing, capable of growing a large sales force. Maybe. The New VP spends a lot of time thinking about Positioning. They talk about Executive Selling, Leadership Alignment and Developing Value Propositions. What they probably won’t talk about during the interview or after being hired is how many phone calls they are going to make to new prospects every day. When the sales don’t happen, it’s a product or market problem. (They say)

If you are leading a Rocket-fueled, VC-Backed Start-Up, maybe it makes sense to go right for the leadership who will then build out a real sales force. But if you are just hoping to get some sales help so that you can focus on the job of building your business, then you need someone who can first and foremost, SELL STUFF.

Photo by waffler.

employees sales

Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

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