Recently I was speaking with an agency owner about the lack of success of his two most recent hires.

© iceteastock | stock.adobe.com

When I asked how many hours they were putting in, the answer was, “About 45 or 50 per week.” Keep in mind, these agents are in their 20s, are new to the industry and relatively new to sales. In other words, not only do they have to spend time learning about an industry they know next to nothing about, they also have to learn how to sell, in addition to learning the ins and outs of the new company they work for. Taking all of that into consideration, I gave him my estimate of how many hours they should be putting in. His response? “Look, you can’t expect Millennials to work more than 40 or 50 hours a week.”

How Many Hours Should a New Sales Rep Be Putting In?

When hiring a new sales rep, I tell people to look for five things: people skills, mental toughness, work ethic, attitude and character (honesty and integrity). You give me a person who’s positive and upbeat, is good at connecting and communicating with people, is able to persist and persevere through rejection, will always do the right thing, and is willing to work diligently to be successful, and I’ll show you someone who will be successful in sales, and pretty much anything else for that matter. The number of hours someone is willing to put in, though most closely related to work ethic, also ties into attitude, mental toughness, and character (they’re taking money from you to do a job which requires putting in the effort necessary to get the results and pay you back).

Ultimately there are four factors that determine how much time someone needs to put in, one: how good their sales skills are, two: how well they know the industry, three: how large, loyal, and influential their network is, and four: whether or not they are new to the company they’re now working for.

Factor #1: Sales Skills

In order to be successful at the highest levels, the new sales rep will need great sales skills. If they were in another industry previously and already have great sales skills, that’s good, but they’ll still have to adapt their skills to the new industry. Either way, developing great sales skills is a job all by itself and a significant amount of time needs to be spent here.

Factor #2: Industry Knowledge

If they’ve been in the industry for a while, this can be helpful. My sister was basically the equivalent of a dental hygienist for seven years before she began selling dental equipment. Because she already knew all the products and what was important to the people she was selling to, this cut down significantly on the time she needed to put in to get up to speed on the industry and product knowledge. That said, most new sales reps are new to an industry and as a result, this is another area in which a significant amount of time needs to be invested.

Factor #3: Network

Typically, a new sales rep doesn’t have a large, loyal, influential network that they can rely on for tons of business. If they do, it tends to be the exception versus the rule. For example, if the New England Patriots’ Rob Gronkowski decided to be an insurance agent, financial planner, or sales rep for almost anything, he’d get tons of business based upon his network, or in this case, the number of people who are familiar with him and would like to be connected with him. Similarly, if a well-known and liked member of the community in their 60s decided to switch careers, they’d likely be able to do a large amount of business simply based upon their network and centers of influence. Again, these two examples are the exception, not the rule. The rule is that most new sales reps will need to spend a lot of time building their network by pounding the pavement, making phone calls, doing other forms of marketing, and following up.

Factor #4: Are They New to the Company?

This is the least of the factors in the equation and is a short-term consideration, but if a rep is new to the company, they have to learn the tools, systems, procedures and processes of the company they work for. This includes how the CRM works, the e-mail and phone systems, who to go to for certain questions, what paperwork is required when and how to fill it out, relationship building within the organization along with learning some of what everyone else does, and a plethora of other details about the inner workings of the organization, the business, and the industry as a whole.

All of the above said, if a sales rep is new to an industry and company, they have average, poor or few sales skills, and they do not have an extensive network that they can rely upon for massive amounts of business, they should be putting in a minimum of 67 hours a week, and probably more than that, for their first three to five years.

Oh, and by the way, there are plenty of Millennials willing to put in the hours in order to be successful, you just have to dig to find them and know how to paint a picture of an exciting future in your industry. Also, their generation does not have a monopoly on people who don’t want to work.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].