The shop is busy. Quotes leave late. A customer calls about last spring and you search your sent folder to remember what was promised. Something has to change.
A salesperson may be the right move. It may also be the most expensive way to discover that the work, handoffs and customer record were never defined.
Model the commitment with your numbers
The Ontario Job Bank reports a $38 hourly median for Technical Sales Specialists (NOC 62100). Its wage methodology allows commissions in the reported figures, so the result is not a reliable base-salary benchmark on its own. Start with the compensation needed for your market, then add the costs that will actually leave the business.
| Cost | What to include |
|---|---|
| Compensation | Base salary plus target commission, bonus or draw |
| Employer payroll | CPP, CPP2, EI, your WSIB rate and any applicable EHT |
| Hiring | Recruiting, interviews and candidate assessment |
| Operating | Vehicle, travel, phone, laptop, software, trade shows and samples |
| Owner time | Training, technical support, corrections, reviews and coaching |
The Ontario sales-hire cost calculator starts with an editable example. It separates direct cash from owner time and shows every assumption.
The purpose is not to make one dramatic number sound universal. It is to compare the cost of defining the job now with the much larger commitment you are considering.
The uncertainty lasts longer than the interview process
Bridge Group’s 2026 survey of 158 B2B companies reported an average account-executive ramp of 6.2 months. That is a cross-industry benchmark, not an Ontario industrial rule. Technical complexity, account history, territory maturity and your sales cycle can move the number materially.
In a long-cycle technical business, it can take months to separate normal ramp-up from a poorly defined role. A long sales cycle can hide that problem: by the time revenue tells you the answer, much of the first-year cost may already be committed. That makes the job and its early performance measures worth defining before the hire starts.
The five-quote test
Pick your last five meaningful quotes. For each one, write down:
- Where did the enquiry come from, and who touched it first?
- Who decided it was worth quoting?
- Who set the price, and what did they use?
- Where does the current record of what was promised live?
- Who owns the next follow-up, and on what date?
- If that person were away, would the follow-up still happen?
This is an indicator, not a verdict. Repeated owner dependence, missing records or unclear follow-up are evidence that the job needs more definition before someone can be held accountable for it.
Write down four things first
The boundary
What is in the job and what is not? Say where technical qualification ends, when pricing returns to the owner and which accounts the role owns.
The handoffs
For enquiry, qualification, quote, follow-up and won-job transfer, name who hands off, who receives, and what must be true before the work moves.
The customer record
Decide which facts someone needs to answer a customer without reconstructing a thread. The record should be findable by an authorized colleague who was not on the email.
Early evidence
For 30, 90 and 180 days, use measures appropriate to your sales cycle: response quality, qualification decisions, quote timing, follow-up completion, record completeness and management observations. Revenue alone may arrive too late to diagnose the ramp.
Three honest answers
Hire now
The work, demand, management capacity and operating conditions support the role. Recruit against the written job and its measures.
Fix first
The role may be right, but specific gaps would make the start harder than it needs to be. Define the fixes, owners and evidence before setting a date.
Do not hire
The constraint may be administration, quote flow, ownership or another operating issue. Solve the evidence-backed problem instead of adding a role by default.
The point is not to argue against hiring. It is to make the most expensive option on the list a deliberate one.