That sentence covers very different situations: a thinning order book, a salesperson leaving, an owner who can no longer carry selling on top of everything else. Before looking for somebody, it is worth naming precisely what is missing, because each situation calls for a different answer and a different level of commitment.
The need rarely appears on schedule. It surfaces through a resignation, a period of illness, growth that outpaces the team, or more slowly when an owner realises they have not visited a customer for six months. In every case the feeling is the same: selling is no longer led, it is endured. The situation deteriorates quietly, because existing customers keep ordering for a while and mask the absence of underlying work on the customer base.
The first need is capacity: somebody must visit, follow up, produce quotations. The second is direction: somebody must decide which customers to work, at what price and in what order, and manage the people who sell. The third is temporary cover: holding the relationship through an absence or a transition. These three do not call for the same profile, the same contract or the same duration. Confusing them leads to hiring a salesperson where direction was needed, or the reverse.
Five questions identify the dominant need. Are enquiries arriving and going unanswered, or have they stopped arriving? Does anyone currently decide commercial priorities, and on what basis? How many accounts have not been visited for over a year? Does the owner actually spend the time on selling that they believe they do? Is this a lasting shortfall or a particular period with a known end date? The answers determine whether you need a hire, management, or temporary support.
Four forms exist in practice. Hiring a salesperson: durable, expensive to get wrong, appropriate when volume is established. External sales representation: field capacity without creating a post, useful to test a segment or cover a region. A shared sales director: a few days a month to steer and manage, appropriate when a team exists but lacks a framework. And transition support, limited to a defined period, to cover an absence without losing the accounts concerned.
Reinforcement can visit, qualify, produce quotations, follow up, document, manage and report back what the market says. It cannot compensate for an uncompetitive product, saturated production capacity, an unworkable delivery lead time or an inconsistent pricing policy. Nor can it decide, in the owner's place, which customers the company wants to serve. Naming these limits at the start avoids the most common disappointment: expecting reinforcement to solve a problem that sits elsewhere in the business.
Three decisions taken under pressure almost always disappoint. Hiring in haste after a departure without redefining the role or the portfolio: the person inherits a situation nobody examined. Handing selling to somebody who already carries another function, assuming they will find the time: the time never appears. And waiting for the situation to recover by itself because orders still come in: that is precisely the period when the customer base degrades with nothing signalling it.
Whatever form is chosen, four things must be ready before day one: the list of accounts handed over with their history, prices and the negotiating latitude permitted, the internal person who answers technical questions, and a written definition of what will count as a result after three months. Without those four points, the first weeks go into hunting for information, and the support costs two months before producing anything useful.
External support is justified when the need is immediate but the volume uncertain, when an absence must be covered without creating a post, or when the existing team needs a framework more than an extra person. It is less justified when volume is stable and recurring: in that case an internal salesperson builds relationships and product knowledge that external support does not match over several years. The question is not which solution is better, but which fits your current level of certainty.
Swiss Sales Partners works under a written mandate: the need identified, accounts handed over, presence rhythm, deliverables, what remains decided by management and review dates. The three possible forms are sales representation, shared field sales and a shared sales director. The approach rests on more than 30 years in B2B sales, field sales, commercial management and sales management, with experience gained in the environments of Hilti, Egli Fischer (efco), Berner and Bouygues. No quantified result is guaranteed.
It depends on how certain the volume is and how urgent the need. An immediate need with uncertain volume is better handled externally; stable volume justifies an internal post.
A few weeks if accounts, prices and the technical contact are ready before day one. Without that preparation, the first two months go into hunting for information.
Yes, that is a frequent case. The objective is then to hold the relationship and document the accounts, so that the return or the replacement happens without losing history.
If enquiries exist but go unfollowed, field capacity is missing. If nobody decides priorities or tracks deals, management is missing, and that is a different job.
The account list with history, prices and negotiating latitude, an internal person for technical questions, and a written definition of what will count as a result at three months.
That sentence covers very different situations: a thinning order book, a salesperson leaving, an owner who can no longer carry selling on top of everything else. Before looking for somebody, it is worth naming precisely what is missing, because each situation calls for a different answer and a different level of commitment.