Growing Your Business Without Hiring a Sales Team

Growing Your Business Without Hiring a Sales Team

If you own a small business, there are a few key functions that you just can’t get wrong.

• You need to have a good product or service.
• You need to have a reliable method of distribution.
• You need to be able to collect money and pay your team.

And you need to be able to sell.

A great product and a great company without sales will be done quickly. But lots of entrepreneurs would rather have a root canal than go on a sales call…let alone do cold calling and prospecting.

Hiring a sales team is both expensive and high risk.

So how is a small business supposed to grow?

Consider sales outsourcing. With sales outsourcing, you find independent sales professionals who already selling to your target market. The sales professionals learn your product or service and then offer it to their existing client base, sometimes growing that base around your offering as well.

So let’s say that you are a small business owner, and your company makes custom jewelry. You can hire a sales rep who will offer your jewelry to retailers and through trade shows within his territory. You will pay him a salary for his time and efforts, and you will probably pay him a bonus for meeting or exceeding his sales goals. And of course, you’ll pay payroll and other employee taxes. If his starting salary is $60,000, then his fully loaded cost with taxes, expenses, etc may well be $100,000 or more. He’s going to have to sell a lot of jewelry…and fast. You own 100% of that risk.

If you outsource your sales, you’ll probably contract…not with ONE sales rep, but with several sales pros. They won’t represent you jewelry exclusively; they may carry other partner products and services – like different kinds of jewelry and accessories; maybe belts and scarves and watches. You will pay a commission to these sales reps when they close sales. You pay them from received revenues. There are other costs, like company literature, samples, communications and field support, but generally these costs are fixed, regardless what type of sales team you have. With outsourcing your sales, you accomplish two key elements of successful business ownership:

• You hold onto your cash, not paying salaries/taxes/expenses where you can hold your money until the sales are completed
• You pay on performance. Just like you are paid, as an entrepreneur.

If this is such a great strategy, why doesn’t everybody do it? The harsh truth is that it’s hard work to have a successful outsourced team. Independent sales reps are demanding and time consuming and often push you to grow your product in new ways. Great independent sales reps are not great ‘team players’. They are just great ‘doers’.  There are trade-offs with sales outsourcing. But the rewards can be so sweet.

If you want to learn more, we’re here to help. We’re all about independent sales reps and the companies that contract with them. http://www.repright.com.

TEDxYouth@PaloVerdeStreet

Jan 19th 9am – 12 Noon at The Wright Place

Invitation only and the seats are sold out!!

Please email me or get on the mailing list for information about the next TEDx event!

4 Ways You Could Still Be Sabotaging Your Savings Accounts in 2013

 

4 Ways You Could Still Be Sabotaging Your Savings Accounts in 2013

Now that the Christmas spend is over, you’ve got a great chance to get a fresh start on your savings in the New Year.

But you could still be destined to fail. Sure, you’ve set yourself a budget and you’re cutting back, but you could still be wasting money on senseless expense and needlessly wasting money in other areas.

Why not put your mind at rest by making sure you’re not committing these savings sins with your financial accounts?

1)    Not Keeping Cash for Emergencies

The most expensive problem is the one you can’t afford to fix.

Keeping a decent amount of cash on hand could be your secret savings weapon, as having the cushion to soften the blow of any unexpected disasters could prevent you from getting into serious problems.

There are two major benefits for keeping some cash around; primarily it means you can afford to deal with any unexpected problems without having to take out a dreaded short term loan or borrow from someone else. The secondary benefit is that you’ll have the funds to fix the problem right the first time, rather than opting for a cheaper solution as a temporary solution which will end up costing you further expense later on.

2)    Avoiding Your Bad Debts

While putting money into your savings accounts is a smart move, if you have a high interest credit card debt or an outstanding loan, you could be on the verge of financial disaster

Most credit card and short term loan companies have insanely high interest rates that dwarf the return on most savings accounts, so your debt could be growing faster than your savings.

Best practice is to start paying off your higher interest debts first, then any other priority debts before you start saving.

3)    Being Brain-Dead With Big Buys

Everyone’s definition of a big purchase is different, but if it’s in the triple figures you should be asking yourself a few key questions before paying.

Ask yourself 5 simple questions before you purchase: Can I afford this item? Do I need this item? Do I need it right now? Is this the cheapest place to buy it? Would it be more worthwhile to buy this than a cheaper product?

 If you find yourself answering no to any of those questions, make sure you think about whether it’s really worth buying it at all. You should consider spending a couple of days thinking about a must-have purchase to see whether it’s still an essential buy after a cooling off period.

4)    Forgetting to Plan For Your Future

It may be tempting to focus on your financial well being for now, rather than in ten, twenty or perhaps even thirty years.

If you’ve stayed away from bad debt and you have a healthy looking emergency fund, why don’t you think about putting something away for retirement, or investing?

While some companies will offer a pension it’s very rarely anything substantial, so putting some cash away in a high interest savings account or you could even consider fixed rate bonds if you’ve got the commit.

What Now?

Now you have a great idea of what financial behaviour has been letting you down, here’s to a financially frugal 2013!

Author Bio

About Author :

Geoffery is a personal savings blogger in the UK market.  He specialises in comparing the Fixed Rate Bonds (fairinvestment.co.uk/fixed_rate_bonds) market writing for sites like Fair Investment Company – a high interest savings and investment plans specialist.

« Previous Page — Next Page »