Your company’s product is top-notch, and your business can rival any best workplace–nominated company. The problem? Finding the right salespeople for your team is like trying to find Moby Dick in today’s ocean-sized salesperson talent pool.
Research shows that no more than 60% of salespeople meet their quotas. Fortunately, getting proper sales help doesn’t have to be a challenge.
Here’s a rundown of the secret behind successful sales recruiting and sales placement for your business.
Let’s jump in!
Be Strategic in Your Sales Recruiting Interviewing Approach
One of the top secrets to successfully hiring sales employees for your company is to adopt a strategic interviewing approach.
Ideally, your top sales employee candidates should be interviewed at least three times. In this way, you can determine if an application is truly as good the third time as they were the first time.
Also, make sure that your candidates are asked the same interview questions so that you can easily compare your applicants. In addition, ask questions that will force them to provide specific examples of how they handled various situations.
Your goal during the interviews is to determine which candidates have the true “DNA” of a salesperson. For instance, your chosen sales employees should have no problem with making thousands of calls.
They should also be familiar with using customer relationship management systems. These systems can help them to build their sales pipelines.
Play Up Your Company to Job Candidates
Another secret to successful sales recruiting and placement is your ability to showcase your firm as a choice employer to prospective sales employees.
Top-performing employees in sales are choosy about their employers, and rightfully so. They’re great at what they do, so naturally, they want to work for cream-of-the-crop companies.
For this reason, it’s paramount that you portray yourself as a high-growth company. You should also show that your firm is an industry leader that is ready to dominate your sector.
How to Positively Represent Your Company
To put your company’s best foot forward, make sure that your website looks professional. It should also feature updated content. Add your company’s core values to your website as well.
In addition, when you speak with interviewees, describe for them some of the marquee clients you’ve served. This will demonstrate how much you value customer relationships and how pro-sales your company culture. These are two things that top sellers want their employers to exude.
How to Play Up Your Existing Salesforce
Don’t be afraid to share with your job candidates how many of your sales representatives are currently exceeding or making quota as well. This will further help you to emphasize the quality of your resources and your reputation.
In addition, feel free to share with your job candidates some of your employees’ success stories. These stories may cover their role expansions. Likewise, they might highlight their promotions or personal growth.
You can also discuss how your salespeople are contributing to the local community through volunteering. This is something that may attract top candidates who value being active in the community.
Have your employees earned any awards recently? This can also be outlined during the candidate interviews. Alternatively, you may highlight this on your company’s website for prospective sales employees.
The more personalized your brand seems, the easier it will be for you to make impactful connections with the right candidates.
Find the Right Candidate Sources
Top salespeople usually don’t browse job boards. That’s because they are busy trying to close deals and boost their employers’ revenue. So, when you post a job description on a job board, you are likely advertising to salespeople who can’t find work or keep missing their quotas.
Instead of depending on online job boards, leverage your salespeople’s existing networks to source top sales candidates for your firm.
Utilize Money to Draw Candidates
Another secret to acquiring grade-A sales talent is to offer an unbeatable compensation plan. After all, money is great motivater.
As a general rule of thumb, salespeople are more risk-taking than other employees. In light of this, your compensation plan should offer risk-based rewards. Make it clear that stellar sales performance at your company will always be rewarded.
To be industry-leading, your pay plan should provide above-market compensation. It should also be aligned with the predictability of your company’s sales cycle.
For instance, if your sales cycle is not very predictable, you should offer a higher base pay and a lower commission. Meanwhile, if the cycle is relatively predictable, you can get away with offering a lower base pay but a higher commission.
Send Out Rejection Letters
Finally, after you make your sales employee hiring decision, take time to send out a rejection letter to any applicant who did not make the cut.
This is a critical step in the sales recruiting process. That’s because it allows you to keep your pipeline free of job applicants who aren’t a good fit for your company.
How We Can Help
The secret to successful sales recruiting and placement lies in your job candidate interview approach. It also involves your ability to sell your company to top talent. Presenting a competitive compensation plan is also essential for securing the right talent.
Fortunately, at The Selling Factory, we can provide you with top-of-the-line, well-trained college-level salespeople so that you don’t have to select and hire salespeople yourself. By outsourcing sales to us, you’ll gain access to an engaged and large talent pool that can meet your needs. Contact us today for a free consultation!
