By Timothy Adler on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

You’re a small firm that has a proven B2B product to sell and the direct website sales to prove it. You’ve even had investment from investors excited about your revenue growth projections. But how can you take your small business up to the next level, finding those buyers without having to rely on word of mouth?

The obvious answer is to take on a salesperson.

But how do you know what to pay them? Obviously, salespeople work on commission – the more they sell, the more money they make – but won’t they need a basic salary to tide them over? And what should that split be?

This is when you need to decide on a sales commission structure for your small business.

First, you need to ask yourself some questions.

What is the hunter vs farmer concept?

A simple distinction between types of salespeople is the hunter vs farmer concept. The kind of salesperson you may need depends on the type of business you are in.

Martin Knowles, co-founder of sales coaching firm Sales Untangled, co-author of the Amazon bestseller of the same name, defines hunters versus farmers as follows:

Hunters are

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