STOP! Don't Hire Them.

You Are the Best Salesperson for Your Business

I know what you are thinking.

I am not a salesperson. That is why I need to hire one.

I hear this all the time. And I get it. I felt the same way too. The idea of handing off the sales function to someone else feels like relief. Let a "real" salesperson handle that part while you focus on what you are actually good at.

There is a problem with that plan. You are not hiring your way out of selling. You are just delaying it and making it more expensive.

Nobody on this planet knows your offer the way you do. Nobody understands the problem you solve with the depth and the nuance and the genuine care that you bring to it. Nobody has your story, your experience, or your reason for doing this in the first place.

That stuff is not in a job description. You cannot train it into someone in thirty days. And it is exactly what your best customers are going to respond to.

The most compelling sales conversations you will ever have are going to come from you. Not because you are slick. Because you are real.

Authenticity cannot be outsourced.

You Have to Know What Good Looks Like

There is another reason to do this yourself first, and it is more practical.

If you hire a salesperson before you have done it yourself, you have no idea what good looks like. You cannot coach them. You cannot tell them what works and what does not. You cannot recognize when they are struggling or when they are sandbagging their numbers. You are just hoping someone else figures out your business for you.

That is an expensive hope.

The founders who build great sales teams are almost always the ones who sold first. They know what objections come up. They know which questions open people up. They know the moment in a conversation when a prospect goes from curious to convinced. They built that knowledge the hard way, one conversation at a time.

You need that knowledge too. And there is only one way to get it.

I Know What You Are Really Trying to Avoid

A lot of the desire to hire a salesperson is not really about building a better process. It is about avoiding an uncomfortable one. Selling feels vulnerable. It feels presumptuous. It brings up every fear we have already talked about.

We tell ourselves we are not salespeople. We tell ourselves we need a professional. We write a job posting instead of making a phone call.

And the business stalls.

The good news is, you do not need to become someone you are not. You do not need to be loud or pushy or relentless. You just need to have good conversations with people who have the problem you solve. You already know how to do that.

Start there. Sell it yourself. Learn what works. Build the confidence that comes from knowing you can do this.

Then, when the time comes to bring someone else in, you will know exactly what you are looking for. You will be able to show them how it is done. And you will never have to wonder whether they are doing it right.

But that day is not today.

Today, you are the best salesperson your business has. Act like it.

Have you been putting off selling because you figured someone else could do it better? You are not alone in that feeling.

This article first appeared in my LinkedIn newsletter, Approachable Entrepreneurship.

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Keep reading: Why Do You Really Fear Selling?