SelectOne Blog

How important is your online reputation to your company? Do you prioritize building your reputation through intentional strategy and best practices? Or are you putting this part of your business on the back burner, focusing instead on things like print marketing, great sales techniques, and excellent customer service?

Inefficient onboarding can cost your company hundreds of thousands of dollars - up to 2.5% of your total business revenue, according to one study. And the main culprit is slow onboarding of salespeople, who close deals and maintain customer relationships.

Think about all the stereotypes about salespeople. They’re pushy. They’re rude. They won’t take “no” for an answer. They never shut up.

The truth is, these stereotypes are mostly false. Rude, pushy sales reps don’t get very far in a world with millions of other choices. Nobody wants to interact with obnoxious people.

Every moment a sales job is open at your company, you’re losing money. Salespeople serve the essential role of generating revenue and maintaining important customer relationships. A missing salesperson means missed opportunities.

A highly enthusiastic and motivated sales team can mean the difference between a company that just gets by and a company that’s truly flourishing. So while good leaders are always thinking about how to encourage employees to do their best, it makes sense to give extra consideration to those on whose personal drive so much success depends.

Sales teams can often feel like their own little island, with a culture unique to themselves. This can be quite a positive thing at times; after all, it doesn’t make sense to have a sales team that functions in the same way as a team of accountants or maintenance technicians.

Commissions are a method used by many companies to incentivize their salespeople, and for good reason. Commissions help salespeople to feel ownership over their own careers and success, and allow you to reward those who do exceptionally well without destroying your payroll budget in the process.

Hiring is never exactly a walk in the park, but hiring salespeople is strangely nerve-wracking to many. For many roles, it’s a simple matter to screen out unqualified candidates. Can they work out a coding problem on a whiteboard? Can they proofread a memo for grammatical errors? Can they prep vegetables in the allotted time without violating any health code standards? Then they can probably do the job well enough. The rest comes down to values, personality, and culture fit.

Hiring a salesperson is easy. Hiring a good one is not. There’s often a fairly steep learning curve for new salespeople—even experienced ones—who need to take the time to learn the ins and outs of your product, methods, and culture.

If you need to know one thing about hiring a chief information officer (CIO), this is it: Demand currently outpaces supply. In the U.S., there are currently more open CIO jobs than talented CIOs to fill them, so hiring one can get rather cutthroat.