Revenue Engineering
Posts tagged hiring sales people
Prospecting Not Necessary for New Sales Hires
Apr 12th
No more do you need to recruit salespeople who will bring “a book of business,” or “hunt,” or even “smile and dial.”
Due to the proliferation of social media marketing, prospecting is not as necessary.
You may have heard the phrase “cold calling is dead,” and it absolutely is (I know there is a salesperson/business owner/consultant out there rejoicing!). Why call somebody you don’t know* if you could have a bottomless supply of people to talk to who have (technically) filled out the dream form on your website – i.e. full name, all areas of interest, decision maker, what they admit they need help with, etc. We’re talking about leads who are asking for demonstrations and have given all the key indicators for a close. This happens everyday for all types of companies and businesses because, leveraged correctly, Internet technologies available on the market help build a river from many small streams of people you have attracted. Running this kind of marketing and sales system is a fraction of the cost you could pay a salesperson to “hunt”.
Assuming you hire salespeople correctly, if you provide the quality leads available you can scale down your sales team so it consists of nothing but closers (“coffee is for closers!”). These “closers” are people who are good at walking people through to a decision. Somebody patient. A nurturing salesperson. A listener.
Finding the right one is the only thing you have to do now.
* Yes, I did a TON of cold calling in my day Photo by DSC1597
Now is the Time to Hire Salespeople
Apr 12th
Go into the economic recovery with maximum momentum. Consider hiring salespeople now to propel your company ahead.
Due to the economy, the game has changed. Now is the time to expand your sales team.
Growing up in Denver, Colorado and being an avid skier, learning how to drive well in the mountains is a must. I’m not just talking about when the weather is bad. In fact, what you really need to know is how to maximize your vehicle’s speed with all the hills… no matter what the weather conditions are. You need to learn how to down and up-shift at appropriate times in the hill to maintain your momentum. Colorado natives can see the novice mountain driver: they are the ones riding their brakes on the downhills and crawling on the uphills. They have no clue how to downshift on downhills so that the engine slows the vehicle down instead of the brakes, and in the same fashion, keeps their speed up on the uphills.
In college I belonged to a ‘skisome’ of two other skiers and we drove up every weekend. We would take turns driving and one girl from Minnesota (no, I’m not picking on girls, but I AM picking on Minnesotans) used to struggle to get her perfectly capable Honda CRX up the approaching hill because she would always downshift WAY too late – i.e. when she already lost all the momentum she had when she was approaching the hill. So I told her to try downshifting a little before the upcoming hill. She never had a problem again and I didn’t have to suffer glares from the backseat from fellow Colorado drivers who also lost momentum entering the hill.
“Thanks for the mountain driving lesson, Scott, but what does this have to do with the time being right for hiring salespeople?” And you have a valid question!
This economy has SUCKED, but I think we’re approaching a new hill in the recovery (see Forbes.com Staffing Firms Sensing A Rebound). It appears that the rapid decline has ceased, indicating perhaps a new hill to climb. Therefore I believe it is time to downshift (invest) in areas that will propel your company for growth for many years to come, and a great way to do it is by expanding and hiring your sales team. Right now there are many highly qualified salespeople looking for work and if indeed there is a recovery happening, the timing may be perfect for you to make the right decision to recruit those new sales hires.
What do you think? Are we recovering? Is expanding a sales team a good decision? Let me know…
Base Salaries – Tie it to Activity
Mar 31st
I hope you don’t think a base salary for salespeople is merely a kind act on your part to help your new hire through until they hit stride. And as altruistic as you are, I hope that it isn’t merely a way to alleviate your concern that your new hire would have no motivation at all without some sort of salary. Good points. However, so many CEO’s waste the opportunity to use a base salary as a way to gain momentum for their new hire.
By now I hope you know your metrics – you know, how many dials to contact, contacts to appointment, appointments to close, etc. For a new sales hire, the most important thing you should be concerned about for the first 90 days is activity – i.e. how many dials, or door knocks, or networking events, etc. And because you’re paying a base salary, you need to leverage your kind act and tie it to their activity. You need to make it perfectly clear, up front, that their base salary is tied to a certain level of activity. 90% of your activity = 90% of base. Any problems?
Use the base salary for all it’s worth! Eventually your new hire will run into sales. And because you’re tracking the activity (see “You’re using Track-It sheets, right?!“), you’ll start to see patterns where they need improvement and the areas where they can be trained.
