Hire Slow, Fire Fast.

In today's economic downturn more than ever acquiring and keeping the best sales people is a major challenge for small & medium sized businesses. SMBs too often do not put a concerted effort both in looking for and recruiting the best talent. This can be attributed to a number of factors such as the owner who continues to take it upon himself to be the go-to person for everything including the company's marketing & sales - He's the "closer". The systemic mistake made in sales is the one that permeates through other operational aspects of an SMB and that is the boss' inability to let go of some operational control to others such as his designated gun-for-hire, sales expert.

Mistake one, is hiring too fast. Sales people are in the business because they can sell and when a salesperson seeks a job with your company they are selling to you. Owners need to be deliberate in assessing the quality of the candidate. So what if the person pulled in $10 million in sales at that Fortune 500 company. In that company he had an enormous infrastructure support and a huge brand when he walked into a prospect. How much of those sales were from an existing client base versus new account acquisitions? Hire that animal that has proven himself in new account acquisitions and has experience in selling with limited organizational resources. If you are able to pluck a gorilla from an enterprise firm, assess if his client base would be transferable to your SMB. In other words will those clients buy from a smaller organization? Are those clients loyal to the brand or salesperson? The best opportunities are in acquiring a top performer from a competitor with an offer greater than their existing situation is providing.

Mistake two, is firing too slowly. SMBs do not have the same room for error as do larger corporations. They can neither wait as long for results nor can they afford it. The salesperson sold himself to you and you took a big chance on them. If you believe you were honest in your organizations' representation to that person and you provided the resources you indicated you would, then assess their performance fairly & quickly. Lack of results mean they have to go. Remember, in the end you and your other employees are relying on that sales revenue.

Finally, pay for quality people. Simply putting a body in sales will not provide a security for generating sales revenue. You will spend more time and resources in the end on a less qualified person than you would on paying a premium for a closer. There is a reason some can ask for "$X+1" versus "$X". Top performers for the most part care little about your personal reality or about the potential as so much as they are motivated by dollars and they will only leave where they are living well if they can live better with you.

See CBC's Dragons' Den judge Arlene Dickinson and Leyland Brown, VP of Commercial Solutions at HP discussing the hiring challenges for SMBs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz3MvPYIiUk