Find a salesperson through your network

Find a salesperson through your network when you want someone who has already sold work like yours, to buyers like yours. The names worth having sit with customers, suppliers, and owners in a trade you do not bid against. They have watched a person sell. That is the list you can actually check.

Who has watched a salesperson do the job?

A customer who bought from a seller and will describe what that seller did when a delivery slipped. A supplier's rep who calls on the same shops you do. An owner in a neighboring trade, one you do not bid against, who has had a seller on the payroll.

Ask for a person who has carried accounts in a business with a counter, a bid desk, a field crew, or a book of software accounts. Ask for the work, not for a category called sales.

What do you ask them to tell you?

One name. Then the account, the date that moved, and what the seller did next. You are deciding whether you want that person in front of your customers.

Say you run a 120-person industrial distributor. You talk with the manufacturer reps who already walk your warehouse, and with a few customers who employ a seller of their own. You ask each for one person they have watched open accounts, and for what that person did when an order went wrong. Say instead you run a software company. You ask the people who implement the product alongside your customers, and the customers who already employ a seller. You ask what that person did when a rollout slipped. Either way you leave with names you can call. Whether any of them should be hired depends on the page you have written.

What has to be on a page before you call?

Who you are for, and why a buyer should switch, in one sentence. If your team cannot say it, a good seller will invent a version. That is the first sales hire problem, reached by a warmer introduction. When the first sales hire is not working is that problem after the offer letter.

Write the sentence. Check it against recent wins and recent losses. Then make the calls.

What if the people you trust have no names?

Then the motion is still in your head, and a wider search will not type it up for you. A fractional sales leader is the role that builds the process a first seller can run. I do not recruit that seller. How to get out of founder-led sales is the writing that has to exist before the person you found has a job they can do.

Where do you start?

The 20 Minute Teardown. If the sentence is missing, that is what the conversation will show. The 100-Point GTM Autopsy is the paid score, if you want it.

Questions this post answers

How do I find a salesperson through my network?

Ask customers, suppliers, and owners in a trade you do not bid against for one person they have watched sell work like yours. Get the story of a job that slipped. Then interview that person against a written description of who you sell to.

Who should I ask for a sales introduction?

People who have seen the selling. A customer, a supplier who calls on the same accounts, or an owner in a neighboring trade. Ask for one name and what that person did when something went wrong.

What has to exist before I call them?

One sentence on who the company is for and why a buyer should switch. If your team cannot say it, a strong seller will invent a version. Check the sentence against recent wins and recent losses before you dial.

What if nobody I trust has a name?

Then the way you sell is still in your head. A wider search will not write it down. A fractional sales leader builds that process. I do not place the salesperson.