I don’t want to talk money. Help!

Hey Aunty B,

We hired a new employee at the start of the year and it has turned out to be great. It is a low-level entry job and this person is handling inquiries and turning them into jobs. This person has excelled at their role and we are looking at furthering them.

As we are a small business (under 10 people) until now my partner and I have been the only people who have known monthly figures and stayed on top of this.

What we are thinking with this employee is that to a degree they are a salesperson and we can give them a better position with monthly targets and bonuses for hitting projections. This would mean this person would have to go beyond ‘order taking’ and be more proactive on leads and contact our top clients regularly to ensure budget revenues are met.

The dilemma I am having is thinking of all of the pitfalls which may happen and putting things in place to stop this turning sour. As we have a great culture at the moment, as we don’t discuss finances, by introducing this I fear we may turn our employee’s focus from our great culture to just money and bonuses.

What tips and advice can you give to making this work?

Thanks, from a loyal reader

Dear Loyal reader,

One day, dear loyal reader, you are going to look back on this missive to my good self and hoot with laughter! You will wonder at your naivety while looking fondly back at your younger self. Maybe you will even see this as the moment you lost your commercial virginity and you feel happy and sad and a teensy weensy more grown up. But I can tell you loyal reader it is about bloody time!! Do you know what all our other readers are thinking?? Gee. That’s a great business that they get to 10 staff without a salesperson.

In fact, do you know how much better you could be doing with a sales team? Who have budgets and targets? You won’t know yourself.

All staff need targets. The sales team have financial targets. How you reward them when they meet those targets is up to you. But as you grow and you need to hire more salespeople you will need to run your sales team in a more conventional way or you won’t attract the best talent.

There is nothing wrong with talking money. In fact, if you don’t talk money you end up with a culture that is out of touch with reality. And I know you. You are passionate. Losing your virginity is not going to affect your passion for your business.

Be smart,
Your Aunty B

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