In business, nothing happens unless there is a sale. With the advent of the internet, websites have reduced the need of a sales force. However, for the foreseeable future, you are still going to need an individual go to your customers and ask for the sale.
Finding individuals that know your products and has the ability to get the customer to agree to purchase your product is absolutely critical to the success of your business.
How do you find these individuals? Unfortunately, there is a large subset of folks that try working in sales when they cannot figure out what they want to do for a living. They will go on until they are fired or decide it is not for them and move on to their next profession. They are a waste of your most valuable resource, your time. As a business owner, how do you find the 'good ones'? The answer is you look for them wherever you can find them.
A business owner I know goes into restaurants, bars and other service related business to find his sales force. If he finds a server giving excellent customer service, he watches them for a while seeing how they handle all types of customers. If the server is very good at what they do, he approaches them and offers them an extremely good dales position. He knows he can teach an individual his product line and techniques on how to sell. However, he has found out the hard way that he can't teach the desire to see to the customers needs and the ability to be 'nice'.
How do you motivate these individuals? First off you need someone that is motivated by both money and customer service. It is very possible for the right individual wit the right product to become wealth. You want to encourage this because if they are making money, so are you. A 'commission only' salesperson are only paid on performance. If they do well, they do very well. If they don't they starve. So they will be more aggressive in making the sale.
A salaried or hourly employees with no commission arrangement are generally the least motivated and effective. They are going to be paid on Friday, no matter how much they sell.
The following links contain more information on finding and managing sales personnel:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5709768_recruit-sales-force.html
http://www.gaebler.com/Hiring-Sales-People.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_7528855_build-successful-sales-force.html
>http://www.customerthink.com/article/hire_great_sales_reps_avoid_personality_myth
