When recruiting for your sales team a lot of factors must be considered, like team structure and the software they use. However, perhaps the most important aspect of a high-performing sales team is the representatives within the team. This means that you must recruit your sales representatives carefully to ensure that you are able to build the team that will reach your organisational goals. This article will look into how to find the right people when recruiting for your sales team, considering all the factors that are important from skillsets to personality traits.
Firstly, it is important for you to identify when you should be consider recruiting for your sales team. The answer to this is quite simple, you should hire when a new sales representative will help increase the profitability of your business. Times, when it is necessary for you to introduce a new sales representative into your business, include:
You are launching a new product – When your business is launching a new product or service, a new sales representative can be very handy. This is because more sales representatives will be helpful for a business when expanding its product line to new or existing audiences as it can help ensure the new product reaches the target market.
A sales representative is leaving – If there is a sales representative that is leaving your business, your business may have a reduction in its productivity and efficiency. This is why at a time like this, it is important for your business to hire a new team member to take the place of the old one. This will keep your business running smoothly, keeping revenue and profitability high.
Your business is experiencing high growth – When your business is experiencing high growth, it can be challenging for your sales representatives to keep up with the demand for your product or service. This means that hiring a new sales representative at this time can have great benefits for your business, as they can help handle the high demand and make more sales. This will lead to an increase in revenue and profitability for your business.
When you are recruiting for your sales team, it is important to find the right people to fit into your business, and the first step to finding these people is to create a detailed enticing job description. By making the job description enticing, you will attract potential employees that are optimistic and excited to be in your business, meaning you will introduce someone to your business who will increase morale. Having a detailed job description will ensure that the candidates interested in your business are well suited to your business that will be able to perform to a high level.
Once you have an enticing job description ready to be shared, you must get it out to the public to attract candidates. When recruiting for your sales team, common ways to try and attract potential employees for are:
Once you have applications from candidates that may be a good fit for your business, it is now time to begin the interview process. This is the most important part of the recruitment process as it is the time for you to get to know the candidates and see how well they fit into your business to achieve your organisational goals. To find out how suitable the candidate is for your business, you must ask questions to get an idea of their:
Problem-solving skills – Being a good problem-solver is very important for a sales representative as they need to be able to show their ability to solve a client’s issues efficiently and creatively based on the context given.
Personality traits – It is important for sales representatives to have certain personality traits, such as charisma and confidence. These traits will help a sales representative connect with customers and help build trust in your business. Paying attention to these character traits in an interview is very important.
The ability to build a relationship – A good sales representative will be able to build a relationship with their clients. Trying to identify these traits in a candidate during an interview is important, as it could be the difference between your business having a repeat purchase or now.
Competitiveness – Being competitive is a good trait for a sales representative to have as it will help them work to their highest level. Healthy competition in a sales team will help each representative be at their efficient best, trying to make more sales than their team members. Asking questions about a candidate’s competitive spirit is a good way to see if they have the competitiveness that your business requires.
Resilience – Every sales representative must have resilience in order to be successful. It is important for a sales representative to have this as it is impossible to win every sale, meaning when a sale is lost, they cannot lose confidence or let it affect future sales.
Identifying these personality traits from your candidates will give you a good idea of whether the sales representative would fit into your business.
Experience – The experience of your sales representative is an important factor to be considered. You will want a sales representative that is experienced enough to streamline the onboarding process for your business, and for them to deliver instant results for your business.
Success rate – The success rate of your potential sales representative can give good insights into if they will be a good fit for your business. If the sales representative’s success rate matches what you will need to meet your KPIs, they will be a good fit.
Industry knowledge – A sales representative’s industry knowledge is an important factor for a business to consider when hiring. A sales representative that has good knowledge of your industry will be able to settle in quickly to your business and provide a good service to customers.
Once a sales representative is hired, the onboarding process is now ready to begin. Onboarding is when a new employee is given the necessary knowledge and skills to become a high-performing effective team member of an organisation. To create the best onboarding process possible for your sales representatives, you must:
Ensure an understanding of your goals – Before the formal onboarding process begins, you should try to ensure your sales representative already knows your goals, values, and company history
Provide good training – Training is pivotable for sales representatives as they can better understand your product or service, and the target market your business is targeting.
Set clear goals and expectations – Giving your recruits clear goals and expectations for them to meet will give them added guidance to the day-to-day tasks, helping them know what to prioritise to improve.
Pair new representatives with experienced team members – By mixing experienced team members with inexperienced team members, the new representative is likely to pick up a lot of key information on the expectations and how to perform at the expected level. As well as this they will have a good support system with the more experienced team member helping them and answering any questions.
When a new recruit has joined your business, you must be able to track their performance to ensure they are a good fit and will help you reach your organisational goals. TEB will allow you to find out all the information you will need to know about your new recruits’ performance. TEB is a sales automation CRM software that has key features to help you track your sales team, such as:
Sales representative
Manager:
Leadership:
If you would like to find out more about how TEB can help you track new recruits, and the many more features such as automating your entire sales funnel, get in touch with us here.
