To get out of sales at a concrete company, build four things before you hire your first sales rep: booked estimates landing on a calendar without you, every lead in a CRM, a written pricing standard and a follow-up process for open quotes. Hire a rep before those exist and you'll likely end up back in the truck running estimates yourself. DryScale's appointment setting is built for that handoff, with a call center that responds to new leads within 60 seconds, qualifies them and books estimates straight onto the rep's calendar.
Signs you've become the sales bottleneck
In most owner-run concrete companies, the owner is the only person who can price a job and ask for the sale. That works up to a point. Past it, you'll start to see these:
- You're booking estimates further out because yours is the only calendar that counts
- New leads wait for a callback while you're on a jobsite, and some of them book someone else
- Quotes go out days late because you write them at the kitchen table at night
- Nobody follows up on open quotes unless you remember to
- Your close rate drops in the busiest months, when you're rushing between estimates
- Every week you choose between running jobs and sitting in front of customers
- A week off means the pipeline goes quiet
If several of those sound familiar, the business can only grow as fast as your calendar, and more leads will pile up behind you. The owner shouldn't be the marketing manager, and past a certain size the owner shouldn't be the only salesperson either.
Estimator or closer: decide which job you're hiring for
"Sales rep" covers two different jobs in concrete. An estimator measures, checks the site and the slab, and prices the work from your standard. A closer sits down with the homeowner, explains the options, handles objections and asks for the sale. Plenty of owners do both without noticing they're separate skills.
Someone from the field tends to estimate well and may hesitate to ask for the money. Someone from sales asks for the money and needs time to learn when a slab can be lifted, when it has to come out and what prep a floor needs before a coating. For a first hire, a sales estimator who can do both is usually the right fit, with extra training on whichever half is weaker. Decide which half you most want off your plate. If you love selling and hate measuring, hire for estimating and keep closing for now. If you'd rather be out with the crews, hire someone who can close and teach them your pricing.
What has to be in place before you hire
A rep can only sell what reaches them. Before you post the job, get four things working:
- Booked estimates that arrive predictably. A rep with an empty calendar either sits in the truck or starts prospecting, and you didn't hire them for either one.
- A CRM that every lead lives in, with clear stages (New, Contacted, Booked, Sat, Quoted, Won or Lost), so you can see the rep's work without asking.
- A pricing and estimating standard: written pricing, measuring rules and approved options, so two people pricing the same driveway land close together.
- Follow-up on every open quote. Plenty of homeowners don't say yes at the kitchen table, and the quotes nobody chases go to whoever calls next.
Skip these and you'll hire a good rep, hand them an uneven calendar and no pricing standard, and then blame them for the results. Put them in place first and the rep walks into a working process on day one.
How to pay your first concrete sales rep
No single pay plan fits every company, but the trade-offs are easy to see:
- Straight commission keeps your fixed cost low. It also makes a brand-new role hard to recruit for, and it can push a rep to discount to close.
- Base plus commission costs more while the rep ramps up. In return you get stability while they learn your pricing, and the commission still ties pay to results. For a first hire, it's often the easiest structure to recruit for and manage.
- Salary plus bonus gives you the most control over the rep's time and the weakest link between pay and results.
Whatever you choose, pay commission on collected revenue rather than signed contracts, so cancellations and change orders don't turn into arguments. Consider tying part of it to margin so the rep has a reason to hold your price. Spell out how estimates the company books for them differ from work they find on their own. Put the whole plan in writing before day one.
Ramp them up and measure the right numbers
Start with ride-alongs. The rep watches you run estimates, then you watch them, then they run their own while you review every quote before it goes out. Pull back as their quotes start to match how you'd have priced and presented the job. Let them start in the service line closest to their experience before you hand them everything.
Measure the rep on two numbers. The first is close rate on offers made: jobs sold divided by estimates where the rep presented a price. Leave out booked estimates that never sat and visits where no offer was made, since those point to booking or qualification problems. The second is revenue per estimate: total sold revenue divided by estimates run. It catches the rep who closes plenty of small jobs and lets the big ones walk. Compare both against your own numbers from the same lead sources, and judge on a full month or more rather than one lucky week.
Let a call center fill the rep's calendar
A rep earns their pay in front of homeowners. If the rep also has to answer new leads, call them back and set their own estimates, their selling hours shrink, and new leads wait while the rep stands in someone's driveway.
“Speed-to-lead is the number one hidden killer. Respond in 60 seconds, not when you get back to the truck.”
DryScale's appointment setting closes that gap. Every new lead gets an auto-text, an auto-email and a dial within 60 seconds, with 5 dial attempts in 72 hours and voice, text and email at every touch. AI covers nights and weekends. The call center qualifies each lead on homeownership, service area and a realistic budget, then books the estimate straight onto the rep's calendar. Leads that aren't ready stay in nurture, and the team reactivates dead leads monthly. Your rep gets to do the job you hired them for: run the estimate, present the offer, follow up and close.
Frequently asked questions
Not at first. A rep who has to prospect spends their best hours looking for work instead of selling it, and you can't tell whether a slow month was a lead problem or a sales problem. Feed the rep booked, qualified estimates from your marketing and call center, and treat anything they find on their own as a bonus with its own commission rate.
There's no single right number, because close rates vary with lead source, service line and price point. Compare the rep's close rate on offers made against your own from the same lead sources, and watch revenue per estimate next to it. A rep who closes a little less often but sells bigger, better-margin jobs can be worth more than one who closes every small job.
Early on, that can make sense, especially for large decorative jobs or tricky site conditions. Set a date to hand those over, though, and bring the rep along on the ones you keep. If the owner holds every big job forever, the rep never learns to sell them and the owner never gets out of sales.
Look for someone who asks questions before pitching and follows up without being told. Have them run a mock estimate with you playing a skeptical homeowner, and watch whether they explain the options plainly and ask for the sale. You can teach concrete knowledge, but the habit of following up is much harder to train.