Former MSP Leaders Urge Clear Metrics And Close Management To Make New Salespeople Successful

Solution providers should get their new salespeople used to making calls quickly and pay them to leave the company if they're unhappy, according to a panel featuring former MSP executives at CompTIA's ChannelCon in Austin, Texas.

"Hiring salespeople is the hardest thing in the world," said Crash Lowe, Alpha Dog (leader) of Waterdog Technologies. "Because if someone's really good, why on Earth are they leaving where they're at?"

Waterdog typically conducts 10 interviews before hiring a salesperson, one of which will usually take place in a bar so that Lowe can get a better sense of what a prospective employee might be like when they're not trying to impress him. And from the get-go, Lowe warns applicants that being a salesperson for Waterdog isn't a 9 to 5 job and that employees are often expected to put in 12-hour days.

[Related: Solution Providers Told: Don't Leave Developers Out Of Business Conversations]

"Then you get just a small number of people that apply, and those are the people that are really hungry," said Lowe, who previously worked at an MSP.

Within the first 90 to 180 days, Lowe said solution providers should have a pretty clear picture of how the new salesperson if working out. At that point, Lowe recommends offering the new rep money to leave the company to facilitate an easy exit if the employee is no longer than interested in working at Waterdog.

"It will cost you less to pay that person to leave in 90 days or 6 months if they're not working out than to have them bleed you dry for a year or two," Lowe said.

Waterdog's vetting process has apparently worked well, as no employee has taken the Springfield, Mass.-based distributor up on its offer to leave, according to Lowe.

Solution provider CEOs should also outsource oversight of their sales reps to an account manager to free up time for the top executives, according to Len DiCostanzo, senior vice president of community and business development for Autotask. Many channel partners likely have an engineer or someone else already on their staff who would be well-suited to fill this role, DiCostanzo said.

"Have someone take that load off your back," said DiCostanzo, who founded and run a technology consultancy business for 17 years. "Go sell some more, and bring some more revenue in."

Autotask historically threw its new sales reps into the fire, DiCostanzo said, and would have them on the phone talking with prospective customers on their second day in the job despite knowing very little about the business.

Conversely, Waterdog likes to set the expectation that new sales reps will be on the phone, sending emails to customers, or even making site visits to prospective clients within their first week, Lowe said.

"There's no expectation from it, but just to get them in the habit of doing it," Lowe said. "It's okay if they don't know all the answers. It's okay if they fail miserably."

Metrics – such as making 50 calls per day – are key for new salespeople, DiCostanzo said, along with a sales quota they are expected to hit every month.

"Your sales rep better know what the number is," DiCostanzo said. "And they better know what they have to sell to hit that number."

But making a new salesperson successful is about more than just metrics or quotas, according to Nadia Karatsoreos, manager of channel development and enablement for SolarWinds MSP. Instead, she said much of it has to do with the screening during the initial hire process.

"You can train them on everything except being hungry," Karatsoreos said. "If they're not hungry, they're just going to do the bare minimum."

To assess hunger, Lowe said he likes to open up certain projects to multiple members of Waterdog's staff and see who bites at the opportunity.

"The thing that every human wants is to be fulfilled in their work," Lowe said. "If you combine passion with your work, you're going to be successful."

Techvera has been getting better quality salespeople since switching from using free job posting websites to a staffing and recruiting agency, according to Chief Technical Officer Leland Turnispeed.

The Denton, Texas-based solution provider has shifted its focus during recruiting from technical skills to fit and culture, Turnispeed said, focusing in particular on how well the prospective employee would get along with Techvera's existing workforce.

"By finding the people with the right attitudes, we've created a more cohesive process," Turnispeed said.

Techvera has also reaped dividends from adding more structure to its training process, Turnispeed said, particularly as it relates to processes, storing documentation, and operating procedures. The company has attempted to create documents that walk new hires through every component of their job, he said.