Recruiting Sales People - Tips For Recruiting, Hiring & Retaining Sales People

Recruiting sales people should be an ongoing and never ending process. You may not be hiring but you should always been recruiting for sales people. Because sales is such a critical role to every company, you should always be on the lookout for top sales talent.

The biggest challenge for most companies in recruiting sales people are:

Where do I find good sales people?

How do I pay them?

How do I keep good sales people once I have found them?

Finding Good Sales people

As we said before you may not be hiring but you should always be recruiting sales people. You should have a recruitment strategy in place to provide you with a steady stream of qualified sales people to interview. They can come from a number of sources:

Employee Referrals

Sales Recruiters

Job Postings On Your Website

HR Department

Industry Conferences & Events

It is best to use a few if not all of these sources to find sales people so when an opening comes up, you will be able to fill the job quickly.

How Do I Pay Sales People?

From our experience, the biggest reason sales people don't work out or don't stay with a company is the design of the sales compensation plan. Pay a sales person too little and they're not happy...too much and the company isn't happy. Here are a few things to keep in mind when reviewing your sales compensation plan:


What is the desired level of income for a sales person in your industry and what sales volume is necessary to achieve this income?

Is the plan tied to gross sales or gross profit?

In most cases, it is not advisable to pay commission of more than 20% of gross profit (this may vary by industry and product). Any more than this and you are paying too much.

How does your sales compensation plan compare to other firms in your industry?

Will sales commissioned be uncapped or limited?

These are just a few of the issues that can come up and if you don't know the answers to any of the questions above, it may be time to review your compensation structure for your sales team.

Retaining Sales People

You've recruited and hired a great sales person. You've spent a lot of time, money and resources to find this person...now what? How can you ensure that they will be successful and stay with your company for years to come?

A common mistake is to hire a sales person and hope they have contacts that can bring in big sales. The reality is that even experience, well connected sales people need help to be successful. Here is what your company needs in place in order to ensure a successful sales person:

A good sales manager - A big reason sales people leave or do not live up to expectations is they have no one to rely on to coach them, mentor them and help achieve their goals


On boarding process - What happens when this person starts? Who is responsible for teaching them about the company, products and services? What kind of support is available? What type of training will be done? These are all important steps to ensuring success.


Sales Training & Coaching - Tiger Woods uses a coach not because he doesn't know how to swing a golf club. He uses a coach to fine tune his swing and improve his performance. Sales is no different. Even experienced sales people need reminders and refreshers on how to approach new business and how to move potential clients along in the sales process. Investing in ongoing training and development will go a long way to securing more business.

Good companies should always be on the lookout for top sales people. Once you have found them be then prepared to hire, train and retain!

Matthew Cook

SalesForce Search

SalesForce Search is a recruitment company specializing in the placement of sales professionals across North America. http://www.SalesForceSearch.ca

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Hiring & Retaining Great Sales People

When companies are looking to hire new sales people for their organization, most concentrate on hiring the person with the most experience or with a solid history of sales success. As a sales recruiter, our job is to find the best business development, account manager or sales rep for companies. However, many companies are not prepared to make even the best sales person successful once they begin their new sales job.

Many company specific factors go into making sales people successful. Companies who have had a hard time retaining top sales talent usually have a few things in common:

1) A well designed Sales Compensation Plan

2) Ongoing Product and Sales Training

3) Coaching, Mentoring and ongoing support from their Sales Manager

Sales Compensation Plan

From our experience, most small and medium sized businesses do not have a well designed sales compensation plan. We find the plan either too generous for the sales person or too generous for the employer. Either way, if the compensation plan is not set up properly, either your business will suffer or you will not be able to retain good sales people. As a rule of thumb, you should not pay your salespeople more than 20% of gross profit. Any more than that and your business is paying too much.

Ongoing Product & Sales Training

Having worked for and with many large companies and it never ceases to amaze me how during training 90% of the time is allocated to the product. Sales training and the process of how to sell a particular product is usually a small component in corporate training sessions. While product knowledge is important, it is irrelevant if your people do not know how to sell its features and benefits. Invest in ongoing product and sales training to ensure your sales people have up to date knowledge on new products and services and so they have the sales skills to sell it!

Coaching & Mentoring

Hiring a salesperson is a big commitment of time, energy and money. Making a hiring mistake with a sales rep can be costly on all fronts, not to mention opportunity cost, damage to key accounts and missed opportunities. We talk to dozens of sales people on a daily basis and one of the main reasons sales people leave their job is lack of support, coaching and mentoring from their sales manager.

Ensure your sales managers are equipped with the skills to effectively coach and mentor your sales people. Most sales managers are promoted because they were the top sales rep and do not necessarily possess the skills needed to be a coach and mentor. Invest in sales management training for your sales managers to ensure their skills are up to the challenge.

The important thing to remember is that finding a great sales person is only half the battle. You need to invest in their selling skills, product knowledge and their sales managers to ensure you have sales people that are successful and stay with your organization for years to come.

Matthew Cook,
President
SalesForce Search

Where Great Sales Teams Begin
http://SalesForceSearch.ca/

Hiring great sales people is one of the most important hiring decisions companies make yet few companies have a process for identifying top sales talent.

That's where we come in. At SalesForce Search our unique Hiring Process combination of sales specific interviews, role plays and sales skill assessments will help you make the best hiring decision for your sales organization.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.