Takeaways from hiring 100+ sales reps

As a sales leader, I’ve hired 100+ sales reps over the years in various types of sales roles.

Interviewed 10x that.

Reviewed resumes of 10x that.

Hiring a salesperson is not for the amateur.

Especially when the implications of a bad or failed hire are a significant impact to revenue, and a big expense as a % of the budget - as is the typical scenario in small to mid sized businesses. (Not that larger orgs don’t feel the pain, but as a % impact, it’s smaller for them).

In a small to mid size business, hiring additional sales people can at best, make things.

At worst, break things.

Or most likely, land you somewhere in the middle, plateaued, stuck and not quite sure where things went wrong.

Hiring is hard and even harder to do well.

Think it will be easy?

Might feel that way up front sometimes.

Hiring is sneaky like that.

I learned as I went and made tons of mistakes.

Ones that built the foundation I work from today.

It’s a skill.

It can be learned, but there are real challenges, and doing it well is both an art and a science.

You will lose a “highly coveted” candidate at some point.

If this is your only candidate, you end up desperate, which leads nowhere good.

You hire enough and you will have someone you thought was the perfect candidate but they take another offer before you get organized enough to make a decision and make them an offer.

Or they start (yay!!!!!) and end up leaving after 3 days because they got a better offer (oh s**t…).

Or they decided your role or company wasn’t for them.

Maybe the onboarding experience left something to be desired.

Or what about that person you’ve had for 6 months that hasn’t sold a thing?

And you’re not sure what they do every day?

But they seem and tell you they’re “busy.”

Hiring is expensive.

Turnover is even more expensive.

Here are some tips if you’re going to go it alone:

1. Go in with eyes wide open and expect to make mistakes and some bad hires. Don’t set your sales plan and company success (financially) for this year to rely on this one hire. You want to set them up for success and ultimately be successful but you don’t want to be in a bind if they don’t work out.
2. Have a clearly defined job description with KPI’s and milestones. You both need clarity on what’s expected and if they’re on track. Don’t expect to hire a sales person and have them “figure it out” (in any sense of the phrase). Know what you want and need. Know how to measure against it. They will need to be managed to that.
3. Interview multiple candidates.
4. Use a sales specific hiring assessment.

Looking to hire additional sales people but haven’t had much success in the past?

Don’t want to figure out what to do or don’t want to deal with fixing it yourself, but want it fixed?

Consider engaging with French Sales Solutions to hep you sort things out and get you on the road to sales hiring success.

I want you to feel confident in your sales systems and processes and your ability to take things to the next level.

1. If you’d like to receive more tips on the regular, sign up for my weekly email CEO Sales Tip Saturday here.
2. Want to explore fractional sales leadership? I work with a limited number of clients each quarter. Whenever you’re ready, book a call with me here. Based on where you’re at, it may or may not be a great fit, but either way you'll leave the call with some new insights.
3. Otherwise, you can check out my free training, “The 5 Pillars of an Effective Sales Machine” here.