Recruiting Sales Teams In This Economy

You simply can’t afford another bad sales hire.  A few ideas to help your business continue to grow in this struggling economy.

In today’s market it’s certainly easy to pack your sales staff with bodies, but how do you filter through the thousands of resumes to ensure that you are hiring the absolute BEST people to sell for your company?  The trick is to stay on top of your recruitment before your need takes over your want, and maintain a continuous pro-active stance towards sales recruitment.  Through keeping the recruitment doors open for positions you will have a continuous stream of actively interested candidates as well as “just looking” possibilities.

• Put somebody in charge of recruiting and make that their primary responsibility.  This might seem a little pricey up front, but compare one person’s salary to the incalculable price of a bad sales hire – and this person’s value is now worth their weight in gold.  This person can focus on developing and cultivating relationships with potential new salespeople and streamline the process.  Just like in sales, this will build the talent pipeline and allow your company to grow.
• Utilize the available resources and technology.  Currently there are seemingly countless online resources to screen and assess possible new members to your staff.  Focusing on the word “screen” will make this process even more effective, and allow your Recruitment Director to sort through many people who might not “fit” in your market.
• Save the interview for the end.  It would be quite impractical to interview EVERYONE who sends a resume your way; instead, schedule 10 minute phone conversations with possible candidates to actively investigate more specific topics relating to their personality, skills, and ability to sell.  If your sales recruitment process is effective, then the people that make it this far are already qualified, interested, and a likely match to your sales needs.

Remember that sales recruiting IS sales.  Once somebody has made it through the screening and ‘weeding-out’ part of the sales recruiting process, it is finally time to schedule a face-to-face interview.  This is the candidates chance to CLOSE you; if they can’t close a sale of themselves with you, then they might not be the best at closing a sale with a client.  Remember, you are likely going to pay them tens of thousands of dollars over the next year to sell your product and/or services; like all other investments, you are the only one who can choose if this is the best opportunity for you to see a return.