Hiring Great Salespeople, The Most Important Sales Decision
Imagine this situation
Imagine this situation. You are competing against two other firms for the same piece of business. One firm is the 900-pound guerilla in your market and the other is a competitor of about the same size. You have the best technology, the big company has the most market share and brand recognition and the third competitor has the lowest price. Who gets the business?
The answer is extremely predictable. The company that gets the business is the one with the best salespeople. Good salespeople win more deals regardless of the circumstances.
Are you going to win the next time you find yourself in this position?
The best opportunity you have to impact the productivity of your organization is every time you hire a new salesperson. Good hiring decisions propel you to success. And, all the managing, coaching, systems, training and technology CANNOT help you recover from a hiring mistake.
Over and over again companies with inferior products, over-priced products and poor reputations win the business. Why? Because they have the best salespeople. Your market, no doubt, is a fiercely competitive market. If you want the edge in this battle, upgrade your sales force to have the best chance of succeeding.
Most sales organizations suffer from the 80-20 rule. You get 80% of your revenue from 20% of your salespeople. This applies to hiring as well. Too often, sales managers have settled for hiring five in hopes of keeping one good person. This is a terrifically costly way to do business.
Lets translate some of the costs so you can see just how much this flawed strategy is costing you. Heres an example:
You hire John to sell in your Seattle office. After a month it doesnt look good. After 90 days it is really bad. At six months you give up and let John go. This problem is even worse when you have very long sales cycles.
Unfortunately, you get lulled into believing that all you lost was six months of salary and benefits. Nothing could be further from the truth. In addition to salary and benefits you lost:
Six full months of sales opportunities
Management time
Administrative costs
Training costs
And these are just the obvious costs. Some of the hidden costs you may not have considered are vacancy costs, replacement costs, customer costs, separation costs and employee morale costs.
The final cost is loss of competitive edge. Just think of all the deals you lost because you were outsold.
You can see how the hire a bunch and keep a few staffing strategy is a mistake. The good news is you are on your way to fixing the situation as we speak. The first step in upgrading your sales force is to recognize the problem. Next, you have to put a great recruiting and hiring process in place that gives you the highest probability of hiring top talent.
A great way to get started is to invest in your education. The more you know about recruiting and hiring good sales people, the better chance you have of building a winning sales team. Reading books and attending workshops will help you expand your knowledge base. If you are not expanding your knowledge base, when you compete against someone who is, the outcome is fairly certain.
Once you realize the economic impact recruiting and hiring great salespeople has on your business, youre ready to take the steps necessary to get on track. You just cant leave your recruiting and hiring to chance. Recruiting and hiring top sales talent has to be a top priority.
by: Selwin
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