Chad Warner Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Just curious about whether or not the firms you own/work for hire sales people to try to get work? Reason I ask is because the company I work for is debating hiring someone that we can send out to meet with people, do telephone calls, etc., so I am looking for anyone's advice/comments on the matter. I have read David Wright's article about hiring a Sales Executive, but I am interested to hear other people's actual experiences with it. Thanks! -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliot Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Chad, Your questions are very interesting. To respond in a proper manner it requires that you analyze the objectives of your focused approach to what you need. I am a partner on a small manufacturing company. I take care of sales, marketing, application design and product research. I do believe that is very difficult to hire technically inclined sales people. You should give it some thought. One of the most difficult tasks we have is to get a sales type employee to be interested in getting involved with technical issues. Our clients are architectural firms. Young architects want to talk with sales people that can respond to their concerns. I rather hire a technical person and train them to be sales, than a sales type and train them to be technical. Send me an E Mail. I live in Atlanta, I guess close to you. We go all the time to Savanah and stay in the River Side Inn. My southern wife likes the food there.... We were there just two weeks ago.... See you Elliot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harjeet Singh Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 I rather hire a technical person and train them to be sales, than a sales type and train them to be technical. very true! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 My only suggestion would be to make sure that the "technical person" you are looking at hiring is fully informed during the interview process that part of his job description, and a very important part at that, will be sales. I was put in that boat. I'm not a salesman, and I'm not trained in sales. I don't like sales, yet I am forced to be a salesman. I don't like it! On the flip side, if you hire a salesman (instead of a technical person), make sure they are computer literate. Salesmen by nature are good conversationalists. They can "wing it" in conversations for the most part, but they need to be capable of understanding the basics of the rendering process, or whatever other service you're trying to sell. They need to understand the process and the time involved for the finished product so that they can defend fees when the client falls over backwards after hearing the cost. Positives to both sides, but I wouldn't really say one is better than the other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted July 28, 2004 Author Share Posted July 28, 2004 I'm not a salesman, and I'm not trained in sales. I don't like sales, yet I am forced to be a salesman. I don't like it! Which is exactly why we are looking to hire someone. I am a technical person, and I hate doing sales, as do the other people here, but as of now, someone has to do it. Personally I would think a someone who is sales oriented would be better off than someone who is technically oriented, as long as they know something about the process. -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 On the flip side, if you hire a salesman (instead of a technical person), make sure they are computer literate. Salesmen by nature are good conversationalists. They can "wing it" in conversations for the most part, but they need to be capable of understanding the basics of the rendering process, or whatever other service you're trying to sell. They need to understand the process and the time involved for the finished product so that they can defend fees when the client falls over backwards after hearing the cost. i dealt with a production company a couple of weeks ago where the sales person was trying to sell me a service, and it was obvious that he had no idea of the process to get from point A to point B. i was not asking tech questions, because i know better, but he had no idea. he could have been selling bags of potato chips for all he cared. not that there is anything wrong with potato chips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Which is exactly why we are looking to hire someone. I am a technical person, and I hate doing sales, as do the other people here, but as of now, someone has to do it. -Chad Exactly!! I was hired to do production, but because of certain issues that arose within our company, we were forced to broaden our job description. Did I mention I hate sales? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted July 28, 2004 Author Share Posted July 28, 2004 What about people's success rates with a sales person? In your opinion is hiring a sales person a good move to make? (especially when I hate doing sales myself) Elliot- Can't find email address for you. -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Part of our initial "restructuring" involved hiring a guy to work on our sales. He was an older gentleman, who had a ton of experience with project management. He was not a salesman, but he was a good people-person. Sales was his main job with our company. He did pretty well at it, but he was not 3D production minded enough to be able to pick up on the methods behind our work, thus sometimes the information he was giving out in a presentation was not accurate. The clients generally aren't aware enough of our process to have known any different, but I always felt bad about his unintentional missinformation, and hated to correct him in the middle of a presentation. It makes everyone look bad. Something to consider - if you hire a salesman, they can do all of the mass emailing, snail-mailers, cold calling, etc, and get you in the door with a meeting/presentation. Then, when the presentation time comes, if you don't feel comfortable enough with the salesman (at least at first) being on his (or her!) own, you could go with him and do the technical side of the presentation. Work out a "skit" beforehand, who will say what, etc. As your salesman becomes more comfortable with the routine and process of our work, he can start to venture out on his own with presentations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAllusionisst Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 I would be interested in peoples views on a slightly different angle/approach. It seems to me that there are a lot of people out there with a Commercial Graphics/Marketing degree who like to do marketing promotional and sales type work. I would say every successful (this is subjective, great projects, great exposure) architectural firm I have worked at, had someone on staff that did promotional and some form of sales. In my experience, they have all been female (this has no meaning, just my experience), computer literate and graphics savvy and very interested in pursuing work and exposure for the firm. The majority or them came accross as proficient and competant in meetings and with clients. Just a thought and wondered if others have had similar experiences? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 In my experience, they have all been female (this has no meaning, just my experience), computer literate and graphics savvy and very interested in pursuing work and exposure for the firm. The majority or them came accross as proficient and competant in meetings and with clients. Just a thought and wondered if others have had similar experiences? I have a friend who does this. She used to work for a wine company and now she works for a fireplace insert company. She makes really good money, really likes what she does and I bet she has no idea about the actual mechanics on how the fireplace works becasue she sells a good looking facade not the actual mechanics. Personally I would love to hire someone like this to just do the cold callings and set up meetings. I can sell I just don't have time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted July 28, 2004 Author Share Posted July 28, 2004 Personally I would love to hire someone like this to just do the cold callings and set up meetings. I can sell I just don't have time. That's the kind of response I'm looking for! If I could get a few more people to say that they would love to have a sales/marketing person, or already have one and love it, then that would certainly make the decision easier. As far TheAllusionist's question, it does seem that a lot of architectural firms around here have a marketing person who is female. -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 I would love to have a salesperson for our company, and it would be awesome if that person was an attractive woman. I hesitate to even say that, but an attractive saleswoman can sell a lot of renderings, particularly in a male-oriented field (on the architectural side at least, and in my area, and if you believe otherwise, I retract my statement! - not trying to start any sex wars!!) So, if you're really just asking if any of us would like to have a salesperson, then the answer from me and my company would be YES! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 So, if you're really just asking if any of us would like to have a salesperson, then the answer from me and my company would be YES! I would vote for having a supermodel salesperson with a doctorate, and a personality. ...it wouldn't hurt if she was in a band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 I would vote for having a supermodel salesperson with a doctorate, and a personality. ...it wouldn't hurt if she was in a band. And a magician (you know for kids) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 the company I work for is debating hiring someone that we can send out to meet with people, do telephone calls, etc. The notion of active sales-leads generating is fairly foreign to this industry. Mostly we sit around waiting for Mr. Architect to call. At that point, there is little 'selling' to do. He has his mind made up that he wants three watercolors (but for the cost of two). Can I sell this guy an animation? Not likely. We may mail out a few cards, make a few cold-calls (in 20 years I've made maybe 5 cold calls--I hate it) but mostly rely on word-of-mouth. At least some of us. I don't know how well our clients respond to being 'sold'. I guess they get 'sold' by product reps, so maybe they would be more tollerant than I'm giving them credit. How is work generated in Europe, South America? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted July 28, 2004 Author Share Posted July 28, 2004 Mostly we sit around waiting for Mr. Architect to call. At that point, there is little 'selling' to do. He has his mind made up that he wants three watercolors (but for the cost of two). Can I sell this guy an animation? Not likely. We may mail out a few cards, make a few cold-calls (in 20 years I've made maybe 5 cold calls--I hate it) but mostly rely on word-of-mouth. At least some of us. You hit the nail square on the head. I would say 80% of my work comes from word of mouth, and the other 20% from other methods. I send out postcards every once in a while, and VERY rarely make cold calls (hate it also). Basically I'm looking for a way to increase business a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliot Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Chad, All the comments they have posted are very true. At one point I was in charge of sales for a large conglomerate. We had sales people that could charm up anybody but they were useless. They needed too much assistance from our technical department to close an order. Then we had very technically oriented fellows that couldn't even have a friendly conversation with their mother. Every once in a while we would get a guy that was good on both areas. Usually they would work with us for a while and leave for a better opportunity. Now that I am much older, I see things differently. During these times of business "pressure cooker" enviroments, what the high tech clients need is a high tech sales person with a solid experience that could solve the problems quickly. However, we have 23 distributors / manufacturers rep's. Some of the distributors have hired some ellegant sales people, these people rate very well. Now, the issue is how to get a good looking (Boy or Girl), experienced, technically inclined and sales type employee for your marketing group. This is not an easy task. We found one that meets that criteria and he is 62 years old. He is very succesful and the clients like him. Now we are concerned about him leaving us. We already started the succecion plan in order to keep the ball rolling..... You also have to place on the formula what is it that you want to accomplish. If you have unrealistic expectations, even superman will quit on you. The qualified guys want to make money. If you place an experienced guy to do a simple task, he will get bored and the young one may crash on take off After going through all the scenarios I am convinced that we rather hire an experienced technicall guy that have the basic social skills. If he or she is a grumpy person they will only last a short term, and will cause a lot of damage to your public image. I like experienced guys for our sales group regardless of their age. See you Elliot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted July 28, 2004 Author Share Posted July 28, 2004 Don't think that I am changing the subject here, I still want to find out people's experiences with Sales people-- But along the same marketing lines, does anyone have experience with the little "google adwords" that I see on the sides and top of CGArchitect? It seems quite a few people advertise their services with this, it would be interesting to see what the return on the investment is. Thanks again! -Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 But along the same marketing lines, does anyone have experience with the little "google adwords" that I see on the sides and top of CGArchitect? It seems quite a few people advertise their services with this, it would be interesting to see what the return on the investment is. -Chad I'd like to know this as well. As they are so targetted and probably don't show up on other sites as much as CGA, I wonder how much more it started to cost them once I started serving them. They are pay per click. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted July 29, 2004 Share Posted July 29, 2004 I wonder how much more it started to cost them once I started serving them. They are pay per click. What do you mean by 'once I started serving them'? I know one of those Google pay-to-get-the-clickthroughs is bought by someone I know in California. Maybe I could ask him how it has been for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted July 29, 2004 Share Posted July 29, 2004 What do you mean by 'once I started serving them'? I know one of those Google pay-to-get-the-clickthroughs is bought by someone I know in California. Maybe I could ask him how it has been for him. Just so this thread does not get off topic: http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?p=47233#post47233 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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