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Originally Posted by BossMan
Bald Dog, I'm interested in your perspective. What did you mean when you wrote that companies want to save money so they hire an army of salespeople... ?
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I've dropped off for a while, so here is a belated explanation.
Instead of focusing on developing a consistent marketing programme, many companies just hire an army of peddlers and hucksters (professional salespeople would be too expensive to hire) on pure commission, so there is no upfront investment in those people. And with zero training they send them out to roam the land and hunt for new business.
The whole commission structure is flawed because it promotes short-term thinking. There is no incentive in building the future.
And what many of these salespeople do basically is they start antagonising and intimidating the target market with their old-fashioned bulldog approach. I've seen far too many ads where aggressive hunter type salespeople were sought, not salespeople with people skills, diagnostic skills and emotional intelligence to build relationships and then nurture them into sales.
Besides. The world in general has a high level of resistance to salespeople. So, if I had a company, instead of hiring a large sales force, I would hire a good copywriter who can generate preponderance of sales leads and nurture them into conversion by sitting on his arse and banging on his keyboard. It's a bit more profitable.
Let's just think of McKassen Co. the medical company. With 500 employers they produce $12 million gross sales per employee. No way they have 500 salespeople.
Also, let's not ignore the difference between gross sales and net profit. As a farmer (that I used to be) I don't care how many piglets my pig mamma delivers. I only care about how many I deliver to the market. I also don't care about the total weight of the beast. I care about the weight of the lean meat.
Thoughts? Any clearer? Or even more confused? Let me know.
