[Datonomics]

1. Knowledge: This may be useful if you have a highly technical product but I have always found it easier to teach someone about a product than to teach them how to sell.

2. Skills: a skill that may be more useful than building a plan would be the ability to close. Assign some leads and see if the person can actually close. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQPY4LlbJ4

3. Accountability: Often the worst part about great salesmen is that they are great salesmen. They will sell themselves and you on doing as little work as possible. A basic CRM to monitor his progress may provide an equal or better ROI than the salesman himself.

4. If you are short on cash, you can build a sales team on commission only. This book has a few ideas on how to set that up: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Sales-Machine-Turbocharge...

[ananddass]

Imho accountability through CRM works only for large companies. In early stage startups accountability has to be an intrinsic value in the hire. If the founders have to measure accountability through CRM then they have hired the wrong person.

[Datonomics]

1. I agree, as an organization grows, the value of a CRM increases.

2. I did not mean to imply that a CRM is the only form of accountability, more that in an early stage start up with tech founders, it may be the easiest/most cost effective way to implement a system of organization and accountability. The value of a CRM at any stage cannot be underestimated, not only does it give accountability but it gives instant prioritization so that the sales person's time is maximized and they can reach buyers at the exact moment they are most ready, willing, and able to buy.

3. Many studies have shown that when human performance is measured, productivity increases. In real life, I cannot remember one nationally ranked salesperson that did not have system of organization and accountability. The Hawthorne Effect is probably the most quoted research on this subject, although it may not be the most on-point. "Researchers concluded that the workers worked harder because they thought that they were being monitored individually."

[apollo5]

Why do you state this?

From my view, sales is often a numbers game. In order to get x sales, y appointments must be set, z connections made. I am yet to find a good method for measuring this outside a CRM. Excel is good for about 50 contacts.. After that, it's a mess.

[ananddass]

Apollo. CRM is great for organizing and tracking but if you find yourself going to a CRM to figure out deal flow...your sales guy isnt doing a good enough job. Just like code repositories are important but not the first place you would go to for checking code quality (you probably would look at exceptions alerts).

[ananddass]

And yes...Excel sucks for managing contacts and deal flow. CRM systems are better.