I promise that I am not trying to burst the bubble here, but…
Give a little more time for this post to be seen by some of the heavily experienced guys/gals here on WCR. Most, including me will tell you that hiring a sales guy won’t be as productive as you’d think. Let the heavy hitters comment on this issue.
Regarding hiring an outside salesperson, first of all, where are they gonna work? from your office? their home? on the side with a cell phone? All of these have been proven to be no-so-effective regarding obtaining new customers. You’d have very little control over them. Most wouldn’t last long even if you did.
Another thing is, if they are window cleaning virgins, they won’t have a clue about what to say when asked a technical question. Customers get really mad when you cold call them and then can’t answer their questions, especially about prices. And, even if you do get super lucky and find someone that does well on the phone for you, what if they give a price for a job and turns out they totally under-bid the job. Now you’re stuck with a low paying job that you need to do because your hungry or no job at all because the customer won’t allow you to do it for the higher price you present when you discover the problem.
If your work is all close to home, hit the streets and deliver some fliers. Right now, my guys are a little slow, and we have a full day of passing out fliers/brochures tomorrow. We can hand deliver, on foot, over 500 marketing materials, to businesses or homes, in one 8 hour period. That is with only two or three people. You can’t call that many folks in one eight hour day over the phone. Get some nice fliers made, printed up nicely, and wear your tennis shoes for all the walking. I promise you that it will yield more results for the amount of time and money spent. Besides, then when you get the work, you won’t have to pay anyone but your employees and yourself.
Stark had the best idea, IMHO. Walk in, tell them your name, and tell them you’d like to clean their windows. They’ll ask for a price. Give it to them, and offer them the service right then. Don’t wait til tomorrow unless they ask you to come back. They may not be there or they might change their mind. Hell, maybe another WC’er might offer them a better price later that day.
Make the deal juicy for them without low-balling you or others. Tell them you’ll do something for free if they use you. Ceiling fans, A/C vents, signs, lights are all great cleaning freebies for new customers. That way also, you still get the most money out of the deal but not offering them such a low price that you can’t afford to eat lunch that day.
I also have a little incentive for my guys that do route or residential work. For routes, if they hustle (I use that word loosely) new business, and the new business signs on with us for at least a monthly cleaning, my guys get the dollar value of that first job right then. Either I give them the cash, or write a check if one is written to me. MY guys love it and they get me new business all the time. The cost of me giving them the first pay is small compared to the benefits of receiving the monthly business from now on. If my guys get houses, I give them 5% of the value of the job, too. Same deal, just different way of paying.
Try it out before you hire someone to make cold calls to businesses.