Meredith Oliver of Meredith Communications demystifies the job of the online sales counselor. The number one goal of the online sales counselor is to set appointments and get potential buyers in the door of the sales center. Meredith stresses that their only function is to answer internet leads and set appointments. This task can be performed from home or an office or most anywhere. Online salespeople should work when they have leads. Heaviest lead times are Monday thru Friday from 11 am to 3 pm and from 6 to 11 pm.

How do you determine if you have enough leads to hire an online sales person? Meredith has developed a simple formula. It is time to hire one person when you have 100 or more internet leads a month. With 250 leads per month a second person needs to be hired.

Generating leads for onsite salespeople is as easy as putting your 800 number on every page of your website and making your internet registration easy to find. Of course, it is important to have a strong software program in place for tracking leads.

What to expect once you launch an online sales team. This is really amazing, look at the math example:

• 25% of your leads each month should be converted to an appointment (100 leads a month = 25 appointments scheduled)
• 50% of these appointments will show up (12.5 appointments actually show up)
• 30 – 60% of those who show up will go to contract (4 – 6 new ontracts)

Meredith says these are average results with a typical online sales counselor. She stresses, if you have a fantastic online sales person & a fantastic sales team expect even better results!

There are various ways to structure salary and commission for online sales counselors. The number one rule is “do not take this money away from your onsite agent. Online counselors should be paid from the marketing budget.”