In one business area of an education company, there were not enough enquiries even for a dedicated salesperson. In another, a large database of people to approach with the next offer had built up. If you look only at the desire to increase sales, the same decision suggests itself: hire salespeople. If you look at what work to give them, the same answer no longer fits.
This is our client. At a meeting with our head of sales and business development director, the owner explained the difference like this: “There is no flow of enquiries there for a salesperson to sit and handle. Here, we have more than we need.”
The business area with the database was successfully supporting existing clients. The company intended to check this database first, then assign one or two salespeople to work through it. The team did not yet have experience of hiring and managing a sales department.
It is easy to rush into recruiting here. A long contact list looks like work that will last a long time, while an empty queue of enquiries looks like a job for a strong salesperson who will find all the clients themselves. But these are different tasks for the person and different costs for the company. You can separate them in 15 minutes before hiring. This review will not give you an exact number of salespeople; it will show you what you can actually base that number on.
The first four minutes: where the work will come from
Open a summary of enquiries by business area and the list of clients you intend to approach with the next offer. An existing report from your CRM system or a working spreadsheet will do. Do not start with total revenue: it does not show how many new conversations a salesperson will need to have.
For each business area, ask the person responsible two questions: which contacts will the salesperson receive on their first working day, and where will the next ones come from when this list runs out? Ask them to show you the source. “We have a large database” answers only the first question. “We will advertise” describes an intention; you cannot yet rely on it when planning someone’s workload.
Count new enquiries from the last full month separately from contacts in your accumulated database who are suitable for a specific offer. Compare incoming enquiries with the previous month so you do not mistake a one-off spike for the usual volume. You do not need to add these figures together: one describes work coming in over a period, the other describes the stock you already have.
If there is no summary ready, stop calculating the number of salespeople. Assign someone to compile the two lists and set a date for them to show you the lists. Do not fill gaps in your information with a guess that “there is definitely enough for one person”. This is already a useful result from a short check: you have found what information you lack before spending on hiring.
The next five minutes: what will remain after the first calls
For a database intended for the next offer, there are two separate questions: how many people the offer suits, and how long working with them will take. The first requires information about clients. The second requires observing the salesperson at work. The number of rows answers neither question.
Ask the head of the business area what they based their selection of people for the offer on. If the answer is “they all bought from us at some point”, the volume still needs to be clarified. The selection needs to be based on a need: who further learning would suit, what problem it solves, and how you know this. The owner checks the logic behind the selection; there is no need for them to read every client record.
Then find out what working through the database means. One call? A conversation, sending the terms and getting back in touch at the agreed time? Follow-up actions create their own workload. It is easy to speed up the first round of calls with a second salesperson; afterwards, both will need to have the follow-up conversations they promised. The time for these must be allowed for in advance.
Here is the calculation for your company: multiply the number of suitable contacts by the average total time spent working with one contact until a defined outcome is reached. Include attempts to get in touch, conversations, preparing a proposal and recording what was agreed. Divide the resulting hours by the hours per week that the employee can actually devote to this database after their other duties. You will find out how many weeks the existing volume of work will last.
Use the average time from similar work that has already been done. If there has been none, first assign a limited part of the database to a designated person and measure the time spent. Do not base the size of your permanent team on a guess about how many calls a “normal salesperson” makes.
And one more question: after the first pass, will there be new suitable contacts, or will only agreements to get back in touch remain? In the second case, the workload will change as the database is worked through. It is premature to promise someone ongoing work on the basis of the initial list.
The final six minutes: what decision to make now
Compare the answers for each business area separately. Here is a quick guide to decisions about staffing; you can open it during the conversation with the person in charge.
| What you could show | What it means | What to decide now |
|---|---|---|
| There are few enquiries and no suitable database | The salesperson has nothing to handle regularly | Decide how to generate demand and who is responsible for it before hiring to handle incoming enquiries |
| There are many contacts, but the make-up of the list and the time needed are unknown | The size of the list does not yet justify the size of the team | Assign someone a limited part of the database and measure the workload |
| The volume of the database is known, but no new contacts are being added | There is work with a finite stock of contacts | Plan how to work through it and what work to give the person afterwards |
| Work comes in regularly and current staff cannot keep up | There is a basis for calculating how much extra staff time is needed | Compare the hours of work needed with the team’s available hours |
“Then let the salesperson find clients themselves.” Yes, if that is what you intend to ask them to do. Their task will then include finding suitable buyers, making initial contact and building relationships. It makes no sense to assess that person by how quickly they handle incoming enquiries: you have not given them those enquiries. And you will have to pay for the time spent looking for clients before there is a deal.
The company in this story had another constraint: the team knew how to support clients but had no experience of managing salespeople. Before recruiting, you need to name the person who will allocate the work and review the first results. Otherwise, the owner takes on a new daily duty without realising it when they open the vacancy.
At RENTROP, turnkey sales management includes daily work with salespeople and the client database. We look at whether there is enough demand separately: managing a sales department does not create enquiries that are not there.
The objection “we will find a good person first, then work out what to give them to do” moves uncertainty into salary costs. A good salesperson deserves a task that exists before their first day. In this story, the basis for such a task differed even between neighbouring business areas within the same company.