I gave my sales person an inbound lead about 3 months ago. At the time he worked it for about a week then never followed up again. This week the customer randomly called me (the owner) to place an order and told me that he wants to deal with me. I paid my salesperson a commission on the order and promised to pay him if this customer orders that type of product again in the future.
My question is if I sell the customer a different type of product now that they’ve become “my customer”, should I also be paying my salesperson a commission for that?
I don’t want my salesperson to feel salty of screwed over if they find out the customer buys other types but I also feel like I inherited the customer by no choosing of my own. Maybe it’s best to have an honest conversation with the salesperson now?
With your comments giving more context to the situation I have some thoughts:
1.You didn’t “steal” the customer. Many customers go to smaller business because they have been burned in the past and know “small business”=“better, more specialized service”. Many of those customers equate dealing directly with the owner as a comfort blanket.
You do need to take a couple months or weeks and pinpoint how bridging sales, closing sales, team sales, and lead bonus’s work.
As you mentioned earlier, your business is doing great and growing. As the owner, you can’t be there for every customer, you’re no longer in individual sales and you need to transition out of that. You simply don’t have enough time to do both properly. What you CAN do is outline what you are available for. For example, instead of fully taking on this client, can you meet with the sales individual and the client to make sure the sales person handles the day to day moving forward?
Final thoughts are that you are transitioning to owning a business that needs you to do different things than being a salesman. You have hired individuals to complete tasks that you do not have time for, and sometimes, that’s a clients day to day needs. Spending 30 minutes to help close a sale so the client feels special is one thing, spending several days/weeks directly serving that client is another. This is a good opportunity for you to train your salesperson on how to handle delicate clients and make them feel just as taken care of as you do.
Your business is growing and getting clients because of YOU. To get your company where you want it to be, you have to make a bunch of little you’s running around making your clients feel the way you make them feel.
Someone in this thread stated “Sound like the salesperson let the ball drop, what else are they dropping?”. I couldn’t disagree more. The salesperson followed up, but couldn’t close. As a business owner, it’s your job to figure out WHY they couldn’t close and then TRAIN them up so they can close. Did the client feel the salesperson didn’t have the authority to make decisions to facilitate their needs? Are your company outlines and training on how sales should follow up with a client not clear or unsuccessful? Is the sales person not using the language you would use to represent your company? Does the sales person not know enough about your product?
Training is the difference. A company that is just the owner just cycling through employees, clients, and contracts while still doing the day to day doesn’t train effectively.
Use this as a training point for your company. Make sure that by the time this sale ends yourself and the salesperson understand why the client wanted to come to you. Not to punish the sales person, but to help bring them up to your level. The goal should be the day to day contact with the client is the salesperson and it should be the clients idea.