Congratulations! You’ve made it to the next level in your business. You’ve laid the foundation for success and have created a product or service that you think others will love. The next step is scaling, and the best way to accomplish this is to bring on a talented sales professional – someone who can help position your brand in front of the right people at the right time and effectively close the deal when the time comes.
Ok, so now what? Where should you begin? To help guide you in the right direction, here are three key things to keep in mind.
You’ll never find a better salesperson than yourself.
Let’s be real. Nobody is as passionate and vested in your product or service as you are. That’s a natural fact. Because of this, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever find a salesperson who shares that same passion (at least at first, anyway.) That doesn’t mean you should scrap the idea of hiring and just keep plugging along on your own. It just means that you need to set appropriate expectations heading into the hiring process.
What you can find, however, is the next best thing – that is, someone who is a good fit for your company culture. When the individual you bring onto your team is able to quickly understand and adapt to your vision, he or she will be able to effectively live your message, which will ultimately improve his or her ability to sell.
Not all salespeople are created equal.
“Sales” is actually a blanket term that is, in reality, made up of a number of different techniques, approaches and philosophies, each of which is designed to accomplish different things at various price points. It also encompasses a variety of roles, from Sales Development Representative to Account Executive and beyond. It’s important to understand these differences before you move forward with recruiting a new salesperson.
To figure out what type of candidates to target, you must first determine what it is you’d like to accomplish by expanding your team. Then, you need to figure out how much you can afford to spend.
For example, are you looking for someone who can cold-call or tele-sell to prospects? An inside sales rep or outside salesperson? Someone who will focus on building customer relationships? The answer to these questions will help you narrow down your selection so you can find the right candidate who will fit your needs and your budget.
You won’t be able to just “set it and forget it,” (at least not right away.)
The final point is that simply hiring a salesperson isn’t going to be enough to generate the results you’ve got in mind. Beyond basic onboarding, you should consider providing extensive training, both in the products or services your new employee is going to be selling as well as the actual art and science of selling. This doesn’t necessarily mean you personally have to provide the training, but investing in it in one way or another is important.
Once your new salesperson has been trained and is up and running, you’re probably going to have to spend a decent amount of time monitoring their progress. Develop a plan that spells out what you expect of your new employee as well as when you expect to start seeing results so that you’ll both have something to benchmark against.
You may even decide to implement a probationary period during which you can better evaluate whether a certain employee is up to par. However you choose to do it, just realize that no matter how good they are at their job, you will still need to play some type of role in their success. And ultimately, what you put into building your sales team will reflect in what you get out of their efforts over time.
Bringing a new salesperson onboard can be equal parts exciting and intimidating. Having an idea of what to expect before treading into unchartered territory can help.
Need help find and closing the best candidates for your company? Get in touch.