The care and feeding of sales reps...

[SleepNomore]

Hello, my start-up will be 1 years old in April and in its first year of existence it has made just under $5000.

I am not a sales person, though I am wearing many other hats (product designer, manufacturer, research & development, web designer, graphic designer, contract labor manager, etc...) sales is far from being my natural skill so I am looking at hiring an independent sales rep. This is completely new ground to me so I appreciate any wisdom any of you can share on the subject.

Some specific questions I have include:

• Where do I find sales reps? My industry is wholesale distribution to salon and spas. Is Craigslist appropriate? I see sites like gotosales.com or rephunter.com but have no idea of their legitimacy.
• What questions should I ask to screen a rep's sales performance history? I've asked for references from one and he was reluctant to give any, so I wasn't sure if asking was gouache?
• Is it unreasonable to expect a sales rep not to rep a competitor's product line or lines identical to your own?
• Is it inappropriate to have a sales rep approaching both wholesale retail accounts and distributors that might service some of these wholesale retail accounts?
• Should commission % be commiserate to the size of an exclusive territory? Or the rep's sales experience?
• What are some creative ways to keep the independent rep engaged and incentivized?

Thanks in advance for any information that any of you may share.

 

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