Sales Reps in Control States?

Hey All,

Does anyone have experience, tips, or advice with hiring Sales Reps in control states?

I envision this role would be focused primarily on bars and restaurants, with state-owned liquor stores as a secondary target of Salesforce idea prioritization. https://advancedcommunities.com/components/ac-ideas-ultimate/ But I am struggling to come up with a good way to compensate (salary + commission) these reps (we don't get good sell-through data from the state).

Thanks for any help.

 

Can you share more details about this, especially to explain what do you actually mean by control states? There are some options out there, but it would be useful if we could be on the same page here, so tell more about your requirements.

 

In the U.S., "control states" are the 17 or so states that prohibit private business sales of alcoholic beverages. Only the government may distribute or sell alcohol in those states. Bars, restaurants, etc., must buy the alcohol they serve from the state, as well. Here in New England, New Hampshire is a control state.

 

I have not lead sales teams selling alcohol into control states (or anywhere else for that matter.) But I may have some advice, anyway.

I have been involved in another industry where the company I joined had a "free-for-all" sales approach with no territories and only a handful of assigned accounts. It was a cut-throat mess that I changed over a short period of time. However, for quite some time during and even after I stopped the madness, orders would come in through various channels and we had no idea as to how to attribute them accurately, much like the position you are in.

My approach was to require that all sales reps "register" all incoming sales orders that they expected from a client within the next 30-60 days and the amount that the order would be placed at. My thinking was that if they were actively selling and working with a client, the sales rep should know when an order was coming and how much it would total or at least a close estimate. This could be done retroactively, as well, but had to be within 30 days of the order coming in to my company. You can bet that the reps stayed on top of all of their major clients and also those that had indicated they would be buying shortly.

It is not an optimal compensation program and wastes a lot of the reps' time, but it did work and I would even occasionally forgive a "claim" made by a rep that was too late (past the 30-day deadline) if they had a good excuse as to why it was late. Also note that my rule of thumb is that I prefer to structure compensation packages so that salary should be half of the sales rep's comp and commissions the other half.