Stop Hiring Salespeople Until You Read This

Most business owners hire salespeople to fix revenue problems. Then watch them fail within months.

I've seen this pattern repeatedly with trades businesses. A plumbing company needs more installs. A construction firm wants bigger projects. The solution seems obvious: hire someone to close deals.

But here's what the data shows. A bad sales hire costs between $50,000 to $500,000. For construction companies, that's 2.5 times the person's salary down the drain.

The failure rate tells the real story. Research tracking over 650,000 salespeople found that 74% fail to meet expectations.

That's not a people problem. It's a process problem.

The Blind Spot Nobody Talks About

Here's the part that shocked me when I started The Sales Squad. 81% of sales and marketing teams never review or correct their sales processes.

Think about that. Most businesses are hiring salespeople into broken systems without ever identifying what's actually wrong.

You're essentially asking someone to win a race on a bike with a flat tire. Then wondering why they can't keep up.

What Happens When You Skip The Audit

I work exclusively with trades businesses in construction, plumbing, and heating. One company per sector, per city. The pattern I see is consistent.

Business owners know they need more revenue. They post a job listing. They hire someone with experience. Six months later, nothing has changed except their bank account is lighter.

The new hire spends weeks learning a process that doesn't work. They inherit a CRM nobody maintains. They follow up on leads that were never properly qualified. They're set up to fail before they make their first call.

Meanwhile, the business owner is frustrated. The new salesperson is demoralized. And the real problem, the broken process, just got more expensive to fix.

What To Look For Before You Hire

Before you post that job listing, audit these five areas:

Your lead qualification criteria. Are you clear on what makes a good prospect? Or are you chasing everyone who shows interest?

Your follow-up system. How many touchpoints happen before you give up? Who owns each stage?

Your conversion tracking. Can you pinpoint exactly where prospects drop off? Or are you guessing?

Your customer journey. Does it feel seamless from their perspective? Or are there gaps that create friction?

Your measurement systems. What gets tracked? What gets ignored?

These aren't theoretical questions. They're the gaps that kill deals before your salesperson even gets involved.

The Minimum Standard

At The Sales Squad, I guarantee a minimum 5% increase in conversion rates. Not through magic. Through systematic process improvements that make every lead more likely to close.

That's what an audit reveals. The specific points where revenue is leaking. The exact steps that need fixing.

Fix those first. Then hire someone to execute a process that actually works.

Because adding more people to a broken system just breaks it faster.