Who exactly are you trying to reach?
Not an industry. A role, at a kind of firm, with a problem you solve better than whoever they use now. If the answer takes a paragraph, your rep will spend the first stretch guessing.
The Guide
A rep can only ramp into something that exists.
Before you hire anyone to sell, sit with the questions below. They are the ones we ask first, and they are worth answering whether or not you ever talk to us. If you can answer every one with confidence, you may be ready to hire. If you cannot, that is useful to know too.
Why would they talk to a stranger?
Referrals arrive half sold. A buyer who has never heard of you needs a reason that is specific to them before they give you a few minutes. Write that reason down before anyone picks up the phone.
What will they find when they look you up?
Every serious buyer checks. A site that tells your history but not their problem quietly ends conversations you never knew had started.
Which channels are actually switched on?
Take outbound, content, referrals and paid, and mark each one running, idle or never tried. Be honest. Most firms find a single card face up.
How will you know it is working?
Agree the baseline before the work begins. Without one, every result becomes an opinion, and good programs get cancelled on a bad feeling.
Who owns it when the builder leaves?
If the knowledge lives in one head, it walks out with that person. The playbook, the data and the training should belong to the firm.
Reading your answers
Most firms stall on the same two cards.
The questions about the buyer and the reason to talk are the hard ones. They sound like marketing, so they get handed to whoever is newest. In practice they decide everything else: who goes on the list, what the first line of a message says, what the website needs to answer.
Get those two right and a capable rep has something to grip. Leave them blank and even a very good one ends up improvising.
Want the guide answered about your firm?
That is what our pipeline map is. We read how you win work today, which channels sit idle and where an engine would fit first, then send it back as a short written read in plain language. It is free, it is written for one firm only, and asking for it commits you to nothing.