August 2008 Newsletter

TalenTrust e-newsletter, Build a strong sales team; build a strong business in any economy - August, 2008

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Building great teams is difficult. Building great sales teams is even harder. We find that our clients who have well-thought-out recruiting strategies in place attract the exceptional talent they need to sell their products and services in any economic conditions. Our article this month addresses some of the steps you must take to build a great sales team. As always, we thank you for your confidence in us and for your business.

Warmly,

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Great recruiting practices help ensure your success, regardless of economic conditions. Nowhere are those practices more important than in developing a top performing sales team that builds your bottom line whether bull, bear or flat markets prevail. Consider this: companies with excellent recruiting functions increase their total market value from 5.4 to 14.6 percent, according to researchers Watson Wyatt. You can bet that a strong sales team will bring you to the higher end of those values.

Everyone wants to hire the Michael Jordan of sales. But people with exceptional talent - the top 20 percent that produce 80 percent of the sales - usually have great jobs already. It takes an effective recruiting process to develop a top performing sales team, backed by a positive employer brand. The recruiting process begins with a hard inward look.

Evaluate your current team

Is your existing sales team capable of propelling your projected growth? How many A, B, and C players do you have? Are the A players so well compensated and happy that the competition can't touch them? What's holding the B players back - do they need additional training? Why do you even have C players on your team? Instead of treating all of your sales people the same, put your resources into the ones that make the most difference, and replace your C players altogether. Check with your human resources department to see if there are potential star sales players hidden in other departments.

In evaluating your current team, measure performance in two ways. The traditional way to measure sales productivity is the dollar amount of sales per salesperson. This is calculated by dividing the volume of sales by the number of salespeople, which gives you an average sales productivity figure. By comparing each individual salesperson with the average, you'll quickly see who your top performers are in terms of dollars.

But don't stop there. Also evaluate your team on how much they may be costing you through things like turning off customers with poor service, making promises you can't deliver on, selling your less profitable products, generating too many returns, or overburdening other departments with demands or errors. Look at each individual's contributions and costs as part of your team assessment.

Assess your culture

Since most top performers already have a job, your employer brand has to wow them into considering a move to your company. What is your culture really like? Are management practices and benefits exciting enough to make a top performer want to join you? Do you give your salespeople what they truly want in terms of money, recognition, education, and opportunity for advancement? You have to offer extraordinary things if you want to be an employer of choice.

Top performers have high expectations for the kind of company they want to work for. What makes your company a superior place to work? You may need to make some adjustments to both benefits and culture in order to attract and retain anyone even close to a Michael Jordan.

Recruit top salespeople

Keep in mind that your sales team is not only responsible for building your bottom line. They are also your company's primary face to customers. It is critical that they have the attitude, knowledge, skills and style to represent you in the way you want.

Your first step is understanding exactly what you need in a salesperson. Imagine the ideal person for the job, including their personality and energy as well as their experience and capabilities. Do you want this person to generate immediate sales or develop contacts for a sales cycle over some period of time? Do you want this person to take a consultative approach to selling or focus on closing? Will the primary responsibility be pursuing new business or expanding existing customer relationships? Is this a team selling environment or do you have a group of lone rangers? What sort of interaction with internal teams will be required? The chosen candidate should match your sales needs and selling culture and be as close to your ideal as possible.

Your second recruiting step is describing all of the above clearly and in detail to the candidate, along with the compensation package.

One of the main causes of dissatisfaction and turnover in sales is misunderstanding over compensation packages. Be precise in explaining your compensation plan and clarifying territories. Clearly state your performance expectations, your training program, and the sales tools you will provide. You should also describe the market and competition so that sales candidates have as complete a picture as possible. This will help avoid hiring mistakes.

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Strategic Consultation - to determine your most critical needs and help you plan your recruitment process to maximize your growth objectives.

Outsourced Recruitment - For organizations with ongoing hiring needs, we operate as your in-house recruiting department. We can take on the recruitment and hiring process for your entire company or for one division. (More about this in the article below.)

Engaged Search - We conduct searches for executive and managerial leaders in all aspects of your business. We specialize in sales, human resources, staffing and building executive leadership and high performance sales teams.

On-Demand Recruiting - Sometimes your internal recruiting team needs added muscle to recruit for a large project or to staff for a new division. Our clients can hire TalenTrust on an hourly basis for projects such as candidate generation, project recruiting, campus recruiting, or to provide a pipeline of candidates in a certain field.

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