Ask HN: What was your biggest challenge in creating a sales organization?
How did you overcome those challenges?
1. incentive plan - you'd be surprised at how much a poorly-thought out plan can screw things up. For example, let's say you're growth focused and don't have a lot to spend, so you think it's appropriate to only pay 20% commission on order revenue if the order belongs to a customer within the first 3 months after a customer's first order was completed. Genius right? Wrong. After that 3 months, your sales team is going to ignore that customer, and that unhappy customer at best won't be coming back as you burn through all of your leads; at worst they'll disparage you to everyone they know which includes your potential customers.
2. recruiting pool - this is not just a sales problem, but if you choose a crappy location because it's cheap or an easy commute for you personally, you're in large part defining the edges of your recruiting pool to reasonable commuting distance to your office. This is a great reason to embrace remote sales, but then you have to ensure a lot is in-place. Also, be aware of the general culture where you're recruiting. Do you accept it? Will the rest of the company and your customers?
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11... many other things like: cell phone plan(s), travel reimbursement (don't give them a hard time about buying bottled water, do set realistic common-sense ground rules to ensure you have a sustainable plan through good and bad times, show them how to use a cellphone app to quickly scan and collect receipts, etc.), SalesForce licenses (or at least don't reinvent the wheel when it comes to CRM software), quality leads (ABC doesn't stand for "always be cold-calling"), automated contact resolution, sales training (and training for everything else!), customer training (and ensure that everything is legal in every way as it relates to the customer which is public exposure), network, IT/app support, product planning and ongoing FULLY RELEVANT communication about what is and isn't possible to do with your products/services.
...
9999999999. Last but not least, the selection process and effective sell of the position itself. You have to be ready and able to sell the position to a salesperson that you expect to be better than you at sales. You also need to recognize when they can't sell. You probably can't really accomplish this easily during selection, at the very least, ensure there's a clear understanding of quota, etc., and, like the reimbursement plan, it needs to be sustainable. If you keep changing the quota and they get pissed, they will know how to use Glassdoor, Google reviews, and tell every customer they run into at their new company about all your faults.
Some extras:
* Your smartest salespeople are going to make mistakes, probably be sneaky at times or try things that don't make sense. Encourage the creative things they do, but also listen to the others that provide better ways to handle those things. These are the ones to keep if they can really sell.
* Sales is about the company's success, not each sell itself. A bad sales staff will tank a company if told to do whatever it takes to make the sell, which includes selling at a loss.