3 reasons why you may not need a full-time salesperson if you are an agency or tech firm.

When you Google the search term "why salespeople fail" you come up with over a half million results. Many of these results talk about sales process and sales training which all can make a difference in a salesperson's success.

What they don't mention (and what has a major impact on small business owners in the business-to-business sector) is that the first thing you can do to avoid sales failure is to not hire a full-time salesperson. Why?

1. A full-time biz dev person won't stay long enough to be successful. They don't see the career advancement opportunities in your company that they would have with a larger organization.
2. Unless you have a strong sales or sales management background yourself, you might not know how to effectively support and manage a full-time salesperson so that they can be successful.
3. A full-time salesperson is "too much" of a sales solution for your small company. There are other, less expensive options to drive revenue.

Look at your existing internal resources and you'll most likely find that you or your business partner or senior team members have the knowledge and expertise to effectively handle a sales presentation with a prospective client and to take this opportunity through the rest of the sales cycle.

The resource that is probably missing in your company is the part of the sales process that most people don't like to do: driving the front end of the business development process with lead generation and lead nurturing.

By hiring a part-time person to execute this part or even outsourcing this activity, you will:

• Save money by avoiding the cost of an unnecessary and expensive full-time hire.
• Have the flexibility of cost-effectively adding more part-time or outsourced lead generation resources when you need to scale up.

Consider part-time options before potentially over-hiring for your sales needs.