Is your construction business thinking of hiring new salespeople?
There comes a time for every construction company when they have to hire a salesperson or expand their current sales team.
Perhaps you have been the person going on all the home visits and doing all the quotes, but as you’ve gotten busier, you are spending too much time in the business and want to start growing the business.
The other reason you may be considering hiring someone in sales is that perhaps your business isn’t doing so well and you think hiring a salesperson will help with sales.
Heck, no-one would blame you, as I thought of the very same thing until I discovered Inbound Marketing.
I understand the challenges you are facing right now, as I myself have been through this and I wanted to write this post today to highlight things you might want to consider before hiring a new salesperson.
Is lack of sales your motivation?
The reason you are considering hiring new salespeople is an important indication to what your current challenges are.
If your business is in need of more sales – and to be honest every business could do with more sales – then I wanted to talk to you about a different way.
First, I wanted to tell you a little story of my experience with a business I once worked for.
They wanted to get more sales through the door. They were doing okay buying leads along with just one salesperson, but they calculated that if they could hire another four people they could reach their sales targets.
Fast forward a few months, and all the salespeople were made redundant while financially, the business was in real trouble. The main reason was due to lack of an aligned sales process, and the selling ability of some of the new hires.
The moral of this story is: if you want to grow your business, hiring new salespeople may not be the best answer ( or at least not to start with).
Now, think of inbound marketing coupled with your website as your best salesperson.
Think I’m crazy?
Yes, many people in construction do think I’m crazy when I point this out to them, but they soon realise that this is the best way to see real growth.
Your customers start their journey online when they are looking for services like yours, and they have questions; lots of questions. In most cases, they want answers before they even contact you.
This is why you need to provide these answers on your website or blog in a helpful, educational manner without trying to sell.
This will build trust with them and if you are smart, you can use this content to turn these website visitors into known leads so you can nurture them into customers.
Is needing more sales people your motivation?
This is a much better situation to be in than not having enough sales, but it still comes with its own set of challenges.
This is what inbound marketing can also help you with, because your sales team will be spending lots of time on people who don’t actually buy.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could only speak to the leads that were most likely to buy?
This is possible with the help of inbound marketing, as inbound can help you increase the quality of your leads so your salespeople are only spending time on leads that buy.
Imagine the time this would free up!
You would not need to hire salespeople as quickly, and your close rate from quotes will increase. So when you do go out on a home visit, it’s not a waste of time.
Conclusion
If you are thinking of hiring a new sales agent, then perhaps you should take a look at inbound before you do. If you are hiring someone because your sales numbers are poor and want to improve them, inbound is one of your best options.
If you are getting sales and want to increase revenue by adding more sales agents, inbound marketing could instead help your sales team focus on leads that are more likely to buy.
What is your experience with hiring salespeople? Let me know in the comments below.