[Heidi Cardenas]

We are in our peak season crunch and down several salespeople, and it's really difficult to hire in competent qualified entry level landscape sales people. Any ideas on how to get leads on candidates?

[Dale Wiley]

I would look and see why you are down salespeople in a key time of the year.

It would appear to be more of a systems and people issue than canidates.

[Lanelle]

Since it is mid-season, I would think that you'd want experienced people. Taking the time to train an 'entry-level' person would further deplete someone's time for making sales. Wouldn't it be better to look around the current staff for someone who already knows the landscape business and your system and train them to sell? I know that might not completely meet your needs, but better than taking a risk on the unknown newbie.

[Dale Wiley]

I would think that you'd want experienced people.

Novel idea.... might help eliminate the revolving door when the entry level person feels the need to move on to a more
"experienced " level.

Entry level is just that... you cannot expect any entry level 20 something to stay there very long if they want to advance their career and life.

I would look to providing any opportunity for that person to progress and grow in their carrer, and in turn produce more value for the company.

[VoodooChile]

Heidi Cardenas,
What end of the green industry are you in ? Retail nursery, design/build, maintenance? Depending on your answer, hiring within might work...

Have you tried listings on any of the green industry job sites?

[Heidi Cardenas]

Those are all great points, but hiring from within won't help us with our sales openings right now, and if we could hire 3 or 4 experienced landscape sales people, we would, but we don't have any candidates. That's the problem - finding those candidates. Entry level hires would at least help us with the volume that our current sales staff has.

We are a landscape contractor in need of landscape maintenance sales people, due to some growing pains and industry pressures like fuel price increases and union challenges. We've been recruiting for the last two years and it's challenging, so we're always looking for some edge, some good advice, something we're not doing that could get us some results.