YOU NEED TO HIRE A NEW SALES TEAM IN ORDER TO SCALE
YOU NEED TO HIRE A NEW SALES TEAM IN ORDER TO SCALE
Is this happening in your business?
Scenario #1:
Your company is growing, and you are investing with the plan to scale, so it’s time to recruit the next batch of high achievers. Exciting times!
Scenario #2:
Or you have challenges with the current sales team. They are under-performing despite your extra support so it’s time to part ways and bring some fresh faces onto the scene.
Are you at risk of:
- Missing out on opportunities?
- Stunting the growth of your company?
- Making it easy for competitors to take your space?
- Creating unrest and unhappiness with your investors and shareholders?
- Putting more pressure on you and your senior management team, which could equal a burnout?
Here is what you need to do:
1. Make the time to plan.
Review your hiring plan before you set the process in action. If you are stuck on this step, try asking yourself these questions:
- Do you want to embed flexible working into your business?
- How would you define a thriving sales culture
- Assess your recruitment process – is it current or is it antiquated?
- How will you embed learning and development into your business?
- Understand what candidates really look for in today’s world.
Once you have the answers to these, you can use them to put together a hiring plan that covers the needs of your business. You want to be attracting people that are right for you and on board with your company’s ethos, and in doing so you’ll avoid wasting both parties’ time.
2. Then make the time to review.
You should be looking to ask yourself: What does your organisational structure look like? What does success look like in each role? What do you expect in terms of key competences and behaviour traits from your employees?
Reviewing will allow you to refine your hiring process and filter your applicants down to those who best suit the role requirements. This process will also give you the opportunity to revaluate existing hiring plans, company structures, goals, and missions to see if they can be refined or renewed. It’s easy to get used to a certain way of working but bringing in new recruitment is a great chance to give things a refresh and see if positive adjustments can be made.
3. Recruit according to your company’s purpose, vision, mission, and values.
If you bring on board a team that doesn’t share your values or purpose, things will go downhill quickly. Many companies showcase their vision, mission and values on their website. Now, whilst this is great from a branding perspective, unless everyone from the team uses it as a step-by-step guide, candidates won’t truly experience it until they spend time with you.
That’s why getting to know candidates face to face or through a video-call interview is critical to the hiring process. You need to be able to talk freely and ask questions that will allow you to gauge how much the candidate understands and believes in your company. The right person for the role will likely find it much easier to communicate their suitability through verbal interaction, as opposed to just written. This process will also allow you to get a greater sense of the candidate’s personality, which may or may not align with your company requirements.
Once you have your team in place, how do you know when your business vision and values are working?
- Everyone can articulate them clearly
- It’s implemented to make better business decisions
- It’s used when having tricky conversations
- It keeps the team going during tough times
- Your team light can talk about you values and vision with enthusiasm
The amalgamation of these things will ensure that your company is well represented through your sales team. Often, they are one of the first points of interaction that a prospective customer has with a business, so it’s important that they embody the brand and represent you well.
4. Build your sales engine before you recruit
It may seem obvious, but don’t bring on a sales member without giving them a structure or process to follow. You’ll end up making things up on the go which can lead to a disillusioned sales team and an inefficient use of your time and resources.
You should also be looking to clarify the behaviour and competencies that your business expects of its employees before the recruitment process begins. This will ensure that everyone who applies for a position will already be on board with your company’s ethos.
Having a high functioning, successful sales engine will also attract hard working applicants to your company, as they are more likely to want to work somewhere that can support their professional growth.
5. Embed a strong compensation and incentive plan.
Having a clear compensation and commission plan which not only protect the business’s commercial needs but will also attract and excite brilliant salespeople to the company.
Incentives are a proven way to not only attract high achieving prospective employers to your business, but also help to maintain them. A company that rewards its employers and cares about giving something back is a company worth working for.
Incentives don’t have to be expensive. They can be anything from an ‘employee of the week’ certificate to a free lunch or dinner on the company.
The important thing here is the principle of reward. In a world where 11.39% of employees feel underappreciated, and 77% would work harder if they were more recognised (eduMe), it’s important to compensate hard work.
Once an employee experiences the benefits of putting in a good graft, they are likely to continue reaching a high-performance level.
At current, 21% of millennials have changed jobs within a year (Gallup). So, you need to build a sales engine that not only attracts high achievers but keeps them. Offering internal career progression opportunities for high achievers will keep them on track and ensure that they see value helping build the company.
Do you need help putting this into action?
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