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For a very long time at Grunder Landscaping Co., I was the company’s top salesperson. I brought in the most leads, closed the most deals and managed the most revenue. When we were small, I was the only salesperson.
As we grew, it became time for me to hire additional salespeople, and today we have a team of 10-plus selling work. I think people often get hung up on the question of “When do I need to hire another salesperson?” instead of the one that’s more important: “How do I set a new salesperson up for success?”
When we don’t think through that second question, hiring another salesperson can backfire. It can lead to internal competition for leads, bad client experiences or production nightmares. It’s important to have systems in place to support salespeople before they’re hired.
If you’re not sure where to start, Chris Psencik, another experienced sales pro and an executive coach for our ACE peer group program, and I share a blueprint for salespeople to be successful in our upcoming Virtual Sales Bootcamp, May 13-14. To give you some ideas, here’s what we do with our own team at Grunder Landscaping Co.
We set objectives
Setting sales objectives allows us to plan production capacity. We stopped calling them “goals” internally because the truth is that if we don’t hit these objectives, it hurts more than just the salesperson. We felt like the language change makes it clear that these objectives aren’t a “nice-to-hit” number, but a job requirement. Salespeople are expected to sell at least up to their objective, or we risk having to lay off production team members because of a lack of work.
We structure our team according to strengths
This became easier as the company grew, and today all our salespeople have a specialty. We divide them into four categories based on what type of work they sell — residential maintenance, commercial maintenance, residential design-build and commercial bid-build. This helps us to efficiently assign leads as they come in, and it also allows us to have salespeople use their strengths.
The example I always share during our Virtual Sales Bootcamp is one of our long-time residential maintenance salespeople, Kent. Kent is fantastic at maintaining relationships, and he absolutely thrives in managing residential maintenance accounts. He could (and has) designed installations too, but he’s really in his element when he can nurture relationships year-over-year on maintenance accounts. He can be more successful and happier in his role when he focuses on what he’s best at.
Have a sales process
Having a clearly defined sales process with clear steps makes it simpler to train team members on how you want sales to be handled within your company. This process should include things like what touchpoints there should be with clients; what estimating the job looks like and an expected turnaround time; and expectations around following up at a minimum.
Today, I only manage one maintenance account myself, and if I work on any design-build projects, it’s in partnership with another salesperson on our team. We’ve gotten to this point after years of training, a whole lot of mistakes and working hard to hire the right people. The result is that I’m no longer the bottleneck on work, and we can sell a whole lot more as a team and get it done the right way than I ever could on my own. I also get to focus on my own strength: developing relationships that can lead to future business.
As you look ahead at the season, I challenge you to ask how you’re setting up your sales team, if they have the tools and expertise to be successful and if you’re actually getting in their way?
If you want to join Chris and me online, sign up for our Virtual Sales Bootcamp here. We’ll give you the tools and tactics that salespeople need to find more leads, nurture more prospects and close more sales in 2026.
