9 Tips To Help Avoid Hiring
A Payroll Salesperson Who Can’t Sell
By Glenn Fallavollita, President - SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.

• Word Count: 446
• Read Time: 1.8 Minutes

There is an epidemic failure in the payroll industry when it comes to salespeople, as 66%* of all payroll service salespeople quit or get fired in their first 4 to 12 months of employment. In fact, I saw one payroll service owner hire and fire four salespeople and one sales leader at the cost of $200,000+. By the way, each person was employed, on average, for 6.4 months. Ouch!

9 Tips To Help You Avoid Hiring The Wrong Salesperson.

If you want to hire a sales professional, I have listed several tips for you to consider below.

Tip #1: Review Your Hiring Process – Before you hire a salesperson, review the following:

• What are your interviewing, reference checking, and onboarding processes?
• What type of marketing database do you have on file for them to leverage?
• How do you plan on training the person?
• What sales reports do you want them to use (which will help you manage them)?

Tip #2: Pay A Bounty - Go to your staff, database of contacts, and vendors and say, “I will pay you $5,000 if you can help me recruit a salesperson.”  By the way, you will only pay the $5,000 if the salesperson produces $X in revenue in their first 12 months of employment (a lower amount based on employment/revenue produced).

Tip #3: Check References – Reference checking is critical when hiring a salesperson as 57% of all people embellish their resume when it comes to their “skill set,” according to a careerbuilder.com survey.

Tip #4: Ask Their Past Employer(s) This Question - “If you had the chance, would you hire <first name> again?” Their response, or lack of an answer, will be eye-opening.

Tip #5: Look Deep Into Your Rolodex, LinkedIn Contacts, And Vendors - When you have an open sales position, reach out to your contacts to see if they know of anyone who might be interested in a sales position at your company.

Tip #6: Test Candidates On The Computer – Before you hire a salesperson, test every candidate on their ability to type as there is a direct correlation between technology skills and sales success. 

Tip #7: Don’t Hire Salespeople Who Will Work From Home - If you can avoid it, hire a salesperson within a reasonable driving distance from your office. 

Tip #8: Develop A Formal Onboarding Process - BEFORE you hire a salesperson, make sure you have a formal onboarding process (sales training manual, sales tracking reports, databases, sales scripts, etc.). 

Tip #9: Mandatory Things To Do - BEFORE you hire a salesperson, do these two things:

1. Ask the candidate to role play with you so you can test their discovery question-asking skills.
2. Ask them to give you a presentation on what they are currently selling.

About The Author:

Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help payroll service owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.

Additionally, Glenn is the president of SellMorePayroll.com and Drip Marketing, Inc. and has written 50+ whitepapers and three sales/self-marketing books; Supercharge Your Payroll Sales NOW!, Stop Whining AND Start Selling, and Drip Marketing: A Powerful New Marketing Strategy That Gets Prospects To Buy From You. He also writes blogs for LinkedIn and other national websites.

© Drip Marketing, Inc.  All Rights Reserved May Not Be Used Without Written Permission.

Why Payroll Salespeople Need To Keep Score
By Glenn Fallavollita, President - SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.

• Word Count: 197
• Read Time: 56 Seconds

There is no getting around it; the payroll sales profession is a numbers game. And as with all games, you need to keep the score of your wins, losses, and other vital sales performance statistics.

Unfortunately, many salespeople (and their sales leaders) don’t have the discipline to track their sales activity or performance. Specifically, they do not:

• Keep score of what they are doing each day/week.
• Track the right type of sales metrics, i.e., proposals sent, proposals closed, order value, etc.

Although a proposal pipeline report is the lifeblood of a salesperson, all payroll salespeople need to track:

1. Proactive sales activities, i.e., outbound calls made and networking meetings.
2. The number of appointments, demonstrations, and/or webinars scheduled/completed each week.
3. Proposal/quote closing ratio.
4. The prospects that represent their short-term sales opportunities.
5. The size of their e-mail marketing database (this is critical to a salesperson's sales success).

Here’s The #1 Reason Why You Need To Keep Score.

Tracking the right sales activities exposes all the under and over-performing areas for a salesperson as it's critical to a salesperson's short/long-term success; therefore, I recommend having an accountability friend or team leader to help a salesperson stay laser-focused on their sales goals/quota.

About The Author:

Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help payroll service owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.

Additionally, Glenn is the president of SellMorePayroll.com and Drip Marketing, Inc. and has written 50+ whitepapers and three sales/self-marketing books; Supercharge Your Payroll Sales NOW!, Stop Whining AND Start Selling, and Drip Marketing: A Powerful New Marketing Strategy That Gets Prospects To Buy From You. He also writes blogs for LinkedIn and other national websites.

© Drip Marketing, Inc.  All Rights Reserved May Not Be Used Without Written Permission.

How To Quickly Generate More Payroll
Sales Leads With e-Mail Marketing
By Glenn Fallavollita, President - SellMorePayroll.com & Drip Marketing, Inc.

• Word Count: 307
• Read Time: 1.2 Minutes

Do you want more sales leads and client/CPA referrals from your e-mail marketing campaigns? If you do, I have listed several tips below for you to implement in the next 7 to 10 days.

Tip #1: Segment Your Databases – The #1 thing you need to do is segment your e-mail databases by clients, prospects, and referral partners.

Tip #2: Develop An e-Mail Marketing Strategy By Target Audience – After segmenting your databases, you need to develop an e-mail strategy for your database of clients, prospects, and referral partners.

Tip #3: Develop A 30-Day e-Mail Marketing Calendar – Create a 30-day calendar of what you plan to send each database on file, i.e., prospect press releases, general newsletters, referral partner refer us to a business client campaign, etc.

Tip #4: Set Follow-Up Expectations – Tell your salespeople that they will be required to follow up on a particular campaign (see below).  

Tip #5: Give Your Salespeople Sales Tools – As you are creating your e-mail campaign, i.e., educational webinar, give them the following:

• Day, date, and time for ‘mandatory’ follow-up calls.
• Sales scripts/talking points to use.
• Voicemail talking points.
• Post voicemail follow-up e-mail campaign.

Tip #6: Always Add A Low-Risk Offer/Call-To-Action – When developing an e-mail campaign, always add a low-risk offer to it as it makes the follow-up process easier for your salespeople.

Tip #7: The Day You Send A Campaign – After hitting the send button, wait 90 minutes and give your salespeople an Excel file of the people who opened the campaign, i.e., send the campaign at 8:30 a.m., print databases @ 10:30 a.m., and then start calling at 10:45 a.m.

Summary: Your database of clients, prospects, and referral partners spend 4 – 6 hours a day in their inbox; therefore, e-mail marketing is a great tool to help build trust, credibility, and brand recognition for your business in the marketplace.
 

About The Author:

Glenn Fallavollita is a nationally recognized keynote speaker providing money-making advice to help payroll service owners, sales pros, and marketing gurus build more profitable relationships with their database of prospects, referral partners, and clients.

Additionally, Glenn is the president of SellMorePayroll.com and Drip Marketing, Inc. and has written 50+ whitepapers and three sales/self-marketing books; Supercharge Your Payroll Sales NOW!, Stop Whining AND Start Selling, and Drip Marketing: A Powerful New Marketing Strategy That Gets Prospects To Buy From You. He also writes blogs for LinkedIn and other national websites.

© Drip Marketing, Inc.  All Rights Reserved May Not Be Used Without Written Permission.