Most business owners hiring their first sales or marketing person make the same mistake: they hire the role they personally hate doing most. That is the wrong filter entirely.
The right question is where the business is actually broken. Hiring before you have that answer does not fix the problem. It just makes it more expensive.
In Episode 18 of Raising The Bar, Mel Strutt and Monique Jecks work through a three-question diagnostic framework that tells you exactly which hire to make, and why getting the sequence wrong can cost you a salary, twelve months and your confidence that growth is even possible.
If you are in Perth and wondering why your BD hire is not delivering or why your marketing spend is not converting, this episode will tell you why.
Key Takeaways:
- Diagnose before you hire: The three questions that tell you whether you have a marketing problem, a sales problem or a process problem. Confusing them is the most expensive mistake a growing SMB makes.
- The BD hire with nothing to sell: What actually happens when you put a gun salesperson into a business with no brand presence and no inbound engine behind them. It is more common in Perth than most founders want to admit.
- Document the process before you make the offer: You cannot hand over something that only exists in your head. The documentation is the training. Mel and Mon talk through what this looked like in practice at 3BY2, including the nine months it took before Mon ran a meeting alone.
- Perth is a different market: Reputation and referral mask marketing weakness for years here, until they stop. Mel breaks down why BD talent is harder and more expensive to hire in WA, and why businesses built on a single relationship are particularly exposed when the market shifts.
- The three numbers to run this week: Last 90 days of enquiries, close rate on those enquiries, and time from enquiry to first response. Pull these before you make any hiring decision. The answer will be obvious.
Raising The Bar is a fortnightly podcast hosted by Mel Strutt, delivering blunt, experience-backed marketing guidance for Australian business owners. Joined by Monique Jecks, they address what matters, call out the fluff and raise the standard of what marketing must deliver for your bottom line.
