There are seven critical success pillars to your business and if you manage them proactively you’re assured of having the success you want within your business: 

• Finance
• Marketing
• Sales
• Operating procedures
• Team
• Products/Services
• You (the entrepreneur)

As entrepreneurs, we tend to be very knee-jerk about our needs and our solutions…

• We look for quick fix solutions 
• Do stuff way too fast and we expect long-term results
• Immediately hire this person and then you got it

The steps to create an effective salesperson:

• Nourish strategic partnerships 
• Extend the knowledge, the passion, the clarity, the focus, the value proposition that a founder or owner can bring
• Establish a timeframe and budget 
• Forecast in12 months or more
• Start hiring and invest in training now for the situation you’re forecasting

Bonus tip:

• When starting your business, add and train the right people to your organization, especially salespeople. They can work under your guidance, listening to you, hearing from you and positioning you as a way of being able to represent the business and to build a relationship that you need to build with your own customer base.

Hi, this is AJ Mirabedini. I’m the Founder and CEO for Entrepreneurs RX. We’re a group of advisors, counselors, business owners, academia who are focused on trying to holistically help entrepreneurs with all of their business problems. 

We decided to start our effort as we saw so many other experts providing their very specific siloed guidance to entrepreneurs,

which that incorrectly guides them to the fact that they can manage and fix and build their business, focusing on one dimension of their business. 

Our approach, our belief, our conviction, our research shows that true entrepreneurial success happens simultaneously when you manage and create seven very successful pillars for your business.

As a part of our effort we’ve availed ourselves to you and to the entrepreneurial community to ask us questions about your businesses, that then we’ll be glad to free-of-charge to you. Offering you any kind of answers that we can to be able to guide you forward. 

So today I’m going to answer this particular question.

One of our friends has submitted this question that he’s growing a business that he’s worked himself out of it. He  still wants to grow the business, but he’s still the primary sales person for his organization. And he wants to know how do I replace myself for this very critical role?

So many of the questions that we get are instant questions that someone wants an instant fix today about a problem that has been long time coming. 

Holistically managing your business means planning and plotting ahead and having a vision of your future before you get there. The challenge for a lot of small to medium businesses in hiring salespeople and expanding their reach beyond themselves is a historic one.

We’ve all had this issue as to how do I add another person to my company, especially a salesperson that’s customer facing and business facing. And how do we make that work? 

The key for having the ability to have additional sales resources is to incubate them way before you need them. It’s a very big ask to think that at the moment that you need help, you’re going to be able to find the right kind of help.

We, as entrepreneurs tend to want to be very knee-jerk about our needs and our solutions. So we make really quick harsh decisions that in the short term feel like they work, but in the long-term they don’t. 

In order to create an effective salesperson for a small to medium business, to be able to extend the knowledge, the passion, the clarity, the focus, the value proposition that a founder or owner can bring is to have somewhat belong the journey to be able to absorb and understand that level of maturity about how you manage a business. 

So there are no quick short answers. There are no immediate hire this person and then you got it. 

The only short answer that I can give you is that there needs to be some strategic partnerships that allow you to be able to have the kind of support and the kind of team that you need to be able to expand on your deliverables. Otherwise, I suggest if you are creating a business and you want to work yourself out of it, and you have a timeframe and you have a budget and you have a forecast, then in 12 months, 24 months, three years, five years, whatever that number may be for you to be able to at the beginning of that journey, to add the right people to your organization, especially salespeople.

They can work under your tootling with your guidance, listening to you, hearing from you and positioning you as a way of being able to represent as well as you can, perhaps even better, hopefully, than you can the benefits of your business and to build a relationship that you need to build with your own customer base.

Otherwise, the only other way that you can create that level of immediacy is to through strategic partnerships and sales channels that can benefit you, this other party, this other partner, and obviously your client at the end of it. But bottom line is any of your solutions, any of your needs, any of your problems are not meant to be done quickly.

That’s our problem. We do stuff way too fast and we expect long-term results. At the beginning of your journey, plot it out, have a plan, have a budget, have a forecast, have a strategic plan of attack and realize that you need to do that months, days, weeks, years before you actually need it in order for it to work.

So that’s my suggestion to you and being able to work yourself out of the business by yet having somebody involved in your business to be able to create the sales efforts that you need. I look forward to getting more of your questions and I look forward for us to be able to provide you a whole series of answers that we gather our experts about, and we will engage with you that way.