How to Decide It's Time to Hire Your Next Sales or Production Team Member
At GROW! 2023 in San Antonio, TX on Feb. 28-March 2, we're looking forward to spending a breakout session going in-depth on what has possibly been our most-asked question in 2022:
“Hey, Grow Group, how much revenue should we be at before we hire another salesperson or production manager?”
The only other question in the running as most asked has been “What are you doing to keep your crews staffed?” (And we'll be covering that too!)
As companies around the country have grown rapidly, many owners and leaders have found themselves in uncharted territory. Often this question then becomes an issue of the chicken or the egg: do you hire someone, especially in sales or production, and then expect them to help you grow to the next level, OR do you wait until you have the revenue to support that position and then hire someone to take pressure back off your existing team members?
Let me lay out how we've approached this at Grunder Landscaping as we've nearly doubled our revenue in the past two years.
This year at Grunder Landscaping we have added salespeople to our team early enough that we could have time to mentor, teach, and let them learn without the added pressure of needing to close sales to hit goals immediately. This allowed the salesperson to really get up to speed on our company culture, the work that we do, and to shadow other salespeople and train before we needed them to be out meeting with clients and building their own book of clients.
In my opinion, for sales positions especially, it’s most important to find the right person for the role and then hire them, whether that is before or after you see growth. With added firepower, if they’re the right hire, they’re going to help you grow and will quickly make the investment worth it for the whole team. If you’ve already grown, they’re going to add value right away by taking some work off your existing team’s plate. Either way, set your new salespeople up for success by properly onboarding and having realistic expectations. Even an experienced salesperson will need some time and training to understand the processes and expectations at your company.
We call our production managers group leaders at GLC, and we currently have 3 who oversee the work of our crews. As we continue to grow, we'll be looking to add another group leader to the team, and will likely look internally among our team leaders, who lead crews on job sites, before we look externally.
We'll go in-depth on how you can evaluate if your company is ready to add a salesperson or production manager, and what to do when you need more support on other business functions, in a breakout session at GROW! 2023 in San Antonio, TX. Are you signed up to join us from February 28-March 2? If not, what are you waiting for? The ticket price goes up by $200 per person on November 1, 2022.
Marty Grunder
President & CEO
The Grow Group & Grunder Landscaping Co.