Hiring first-rate sales people is the key to accelerating your company’s sales and therefore growth.
Sounds quite simple yet even if you agree with this, we all know from experience that finding and attracting high performance sales talent is anything but easy.
The pressure placed on the leadership team to grow and therefore passed to the sales people to ‘hit their numbers’ never goes away. Statistics show that at least 50% of the reps on most sales teams are below target. Job churn contributes to a feeling of instability: in many companies, salesperson turnover of 30% per annum is all too typical.
Making the right hiring decisions is a combination of both art and science, and requires a real commitment to excellence.
There are numerous surveys which show that between 40 – 60% of all sales recruiting efforts lead to poor hires. That means even if your company does a good job in sales recruiting, there is still a high chance of making a mistake. To make matters worse, the cost of a failed hire in sales is a high cost to the business
This is because of the learning curve and your sales cycle for a sales person can mean that it could be 6- 12 months before you realise the person you hired is not going to make the grade. The costs of the failed hire go far beyond the cost to the business. Therefore with plenty at stake hiring sales people should require a very focused and targeted approach.
It is possible to minimise bad sales hires, as long as you recognise the potential pitfalls and work proactively to eliminate them.
Our experience shows us that one area which is so often overlooked and yet is the most critical step is the defining the role. We hear all too often, “it’s a sales role just like the rest of the team”.
Defining your requirements may seem like an unnecessary step, but one which will not only ease the process but will assist in developing a fully functional sales team that can target sales in specific areas.
For a serious discussion about your Sales recruitment, contact David Clarke on :