Audio session outline and notes:

00:00  Introduction

00:25  The "help wanted" ad to hire the right person 
           Where do you advertise - Craigslist, Internet, Newspaper, Google?
           How do you word the ad?

02:30   The in-office or work-at-home question?
           When can you let them out of the office?

03:45   Salary or draw against commission?
           Low base to start under $50,00 with bonus/commission

05:30   What does your employment agreement state?
           The first quarter is critical...we need to see growing usage
           Do you pay a residual to drive growing their base?
           Done right, how long until you max out a customer's monthly conferencing usage?
           You move them to a house account after a set period though, right?
           Do you fire right at 90-days?
           Does your attorney review your employment agreements

12:05   What does your new hire training program look like?
           Who does the training?
           Is it written or online?
           Is the agent the "sales manager"?
           Must the sales manager be a conferencing sales expert?
           How does Conference Group help here?

16:40   What are the proper, measurable sales activities you track?
           What kind of usage do you want to see?
           Do you "robotrack" their calls?
           What sales CRMs have you used and which do you use now?

20:10   How do you handle prospecting lists?
           Do they have protected territory by vertical or geography?
           Do you encourage or discourage "elephant hunting"?
           What is the average customer size that you're looking for?

22:43   What the sales cycle looks like?
           How is it different for different sized accounts?
           30 to 45 day window is average.
           Do direct sales people need to come with their own "Rolodex"?

25:18   Effective sales collateral (phone pitch, VM message, email follow-up, etc.)?
           The "call guide" has the questions to ask to probe for need
           Which decision makers are they asking for?
           What "conferencing pain" is being probed for (cost, quality, customer support)?
           Is there still "conference education" occurring or just unseating incumbents?
           Will they switch for a couple pennies?
           What about multiple departments using multiple PINs?
           Do they always know if they're actually getting a good market rate?
           How do you prevent sales people from leading with price?

33:42   How do you "grade the numbers" in their sales funnel or pipeline
           Do you grade sales reps on margin or just total revenue?
           How much total revenue after a year do you want to see for them to keep their job?

35:25   Converting their sales to "house accounts"
           How long do you let them live off their "base"?
           Twelve to 24 months then it's moved to the house.

36:40   How do you keep stars selling?
           Work environment is key. Contests do very well. 
           Ever had a direct sales person transition to being an agent?

39:05   How do you decide how and when to fire?
           Do you do it right at 90-days or wait? 
           How long is too long or too short?

41:15   When should you add a second sales person?
           Seriously consider it at six months.      

42:20   How big can it get and where are you "growing to"?
           Conferencing providers will keep proving new services to sell like video.  
           You don't want to hire more people then you want to manage, 4 or 5.
           You don't sell the base so much as extract the cash.