Tag Archive for better sales

Taking Your Sales Force From “OKAY” To OUTSTANDING

March 30, 2010 Business Development No comments

How to Hire Sales Stars Every Time – Free Video B1Last week on Twitter we posted, “How many sales people would you hire if you knew they all would succeed?”  We got a great series of responses and retweets about this simple question.

Better sales teams generate more sales, which makes you more money – it’s as simple as that.  It seems like most business owners can relate to the experience of having some “dud” sales people, as well as a few really strong performing people.  The hiring process can sometimes feel like a gamble; sometimes people that you think will turn out to be excellent performers end up totally and completely tanking.  This is related to a few fundamental problems with the strategy and approach that many companies take with recruitment.

Taking your sales team from “okay” to outstanding is easier than you think! Here are a few little ideas that make a big difference when hiring, recruiting, and evaluating:

Have a system and expect greatness

Raise Your Expectations

1) Use a system

Often when people perform truly amazing, they don’t know how they did it; everything just came together.  Equally, people have a hard time understanding why they did poorly, and this limits the ability to fix the problem.  Incorporating a structured hiring system and recruitment methodology that evolves with you and your business will allow you to consistently hire sales stars.

2) It’s okay to outsource

“Why would I pay somebody to do what I can do?” Well, very simply put: your time is valuable.  If you look at the amount of time, energy, and (most importantly) money that you spend on hiring, it becomes pretty easy to establish a value to the process.  You could just as easily dedicate a fraction of that value to hiring a great company that excels in the process to do it for you; just make sure you critically assess if one of these companies is a good fit for you.  Great outsourcing recruitment companies will profile your business, share their systems, provide you with strong feedback about their recommendations, and most importantly confirm that each of their sales hires will be a strong and accurate “fit” for your company (see How to Hire Sales Stars Every Time).

3) Have high expectations

Too often companies “hope for” rather than “expect” great performance.  Setting clear and concise expectations while at the beginning of the recruitment process, and then maintaining those throughout the tenure of your salespeople will optimize sales.  Expect outstanding from the get-go and watch the quality of your legitimate candidates increase.  Setting the bar too low prevents strong goal oriented people from reaching their full potential because they simply are not aiming high enough.

So last week when we posted, “How many sales people would you hire if you knew they all would succeed?” on Twitter; @FourFecta responded, “All of them!”  The response was simple, and incredibly true.  You can hire top performing sales stars that will succeed, and you should!  Taking your sales team from “okay” to outstanding might feel like a challenging undertaking, but it is possible and can be so much less intimidating.

If you are interested in seeing your sales team become outstanding, Smeester and Associates specializes in How to Hire Sales Stars Every Time.

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Recruiting Sales Teams In This Economy

March 17, 2010 Business Development, CEO Best Practices No comments

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

Recruiting Sales Teams In This EconomyIn 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.

How to Hire Sales Stars Every Time – Free Video B1Remember 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.

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Why Everybody In Your Organization Is a Salesperson

March 13, 2009 Business Development, CEO Best Practices, Life in a Start-Up No comments

I say it all the time – “LIFE IS SALES” – meaning that all of us is selling something whenever we communicate with somebody. That’s probably no new news to you. However, you’d be surprised by the CEO’s that I know that, in addition to hiring salespeople that can’t and/or won’t sell, hire their executives, customer support people, even their receptionists that have terrible sales skills – and I believe they are leaving tons of money on the table, among other things, because of this mistake!

Am I saying that everybody in your organization needs to be able to prospect, find pain, negotiate contracts/pricing, and close the deal? Well…. yes, but not at the same intensity level as the full-time salesperson. However, every person should be able to gently ask questions to get the real problem and carry that through to a solution, be it a customer, vendor or fellow employee. Every person should have great listening skills to make whoever they are dealing with feel important.  Every person should be keeping their eyes and ears open and looking for ways to help.

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