3 Critical Hires for a Visionary Small Business Owner

Friday Funnel Focus by EPOCH Sales Management Solutions

Are you a self-funded visionary small business owner? (Or plan to be one?) 

What do you think are the 3 most critical hires for you as you scale your business?

Many visionary small business owners think of their business like another baby in their family.  Leading and growing that business can lead to a harried life as an entrepreneur.  Many get stuck on a plateau. 4 in 5 small business owners never grow beyond 10 employees.  Few of them make it to 20, 50 or 100 employees.

If you want to win at business and life, we believe there are three critical hires that the visionary small business owner must get right.

1. The first SUCCESSFUL salesperson
2. An Integrator
3. A successful Sales Manager

The First SUCCESSFUL Salesperson

Hiring your first successful salesperson may be the most challenging hire for a small business owner.  The beauty of that first successful salesperson is that your business can now achieve sustained flight, even when you are away or focused on something besides sales.

The Integrator

I first learned of the concept or position of the Integrator in Gino Wickman’s book, Traction. The beauty of the Integrator is that now your business can run more efficiently and effectively.

A Successful Sales Manager

The beauty of a successful sales manager is that they can help you take the sales of your business to the next level while you oversee the company and leverage your biggest strengths.

In this article, we want to focus more on the challenges and next step in that most challenging hire - your first SUCCESSFUL salesperson.  

Before we go there, let’s briefly look at the other two.

 First Steps in Hiring Your Integrator

Gino Wickman describes the integrator this way, 

“The person who has the unique ability to run the organization, manage day-to-day issues that arise, and integrate the three major functions. The integrator is the glue that holds the company together.”

If you have not done so, check out Gino’s books “Traction” and “Rocket Fuel” as your first steps in adding an Integrator to your team.

When to hire a Successful Sales Manager

We believe that most small businesses should first focus on hiring good salespeople and concern themselves with selecting the right successful sales manager when strategies and processes are more proven. Let your successful sales manager refine your strategy and processes while enabling the team to greater success. There are 3 reasons for this:

1. In the beginning you need sales, so hire someone that is 100% focused on growing new sales, not building a sales organization.
   
   
2. This company is your baby. Most successful small business owners own the development of the sales strategy and sales processes as well as selecting and implementing the right sales tools such as their CRM.  They may need professional help from the right sales/sales management coach, but their business is their vision and there is no one more qualified to lead these three sales/sales management items.
   
   
3. In the beginning there are just too many moving parts to have someone besides the business owner align product development, sales and marketing strategies and salesforce enablement.  You need a salesperson willing to grow through trials and errors as you prove the sales strategy and process that you developed to start the business.

One of the biggest mistakes some small business owners make is to hire an experienced,  successful corporate sales VP to be their sales manager. Over 80% of them fail because they struggle with launching sales and marketing for a company without the brand and support team they had in their corporate job.  It takes a unique individual to successfully lead sales for a small business.

Launching that first SUCCESSFUL salesperson

Let’s dig into the process of Growing the Right Salesperson on Your Team in the Right Sales Role.  Once you are ready to hire that SUCCESSFUL salesperson, we believe there are Seven Steps to Success in launching that first SUCCESSFUL salesperson.

• Prepare to Search. You must know what you want.

1. Which Sales Role are you filling?
2. What individual traits are desired?
3. What Selling skills are important?
4. What market knowledge is needed?

• Conduct Search and Prepare to Interview

1. Search where your Ideal Candidates are
2. Be prepared to interview

• Conduct the Interview Process

1. Get to know the real person (behind the candidate)

• Conduct Assessments, Background and Reference Checks

1. Just like the surgeon conducts X-rays, MRIs, Bloodwork, etc.  Learn what is “under the hood”.

• Make Selection

1. Leverage your “team” to make the right selection

• Conduct an Onboarding Process

1. Help them better understand your market and your customer’s issues, pains and challenges.
1. What problem does your business solve that people will pay for?
2. Help them understand your strategy
1. What is your customer focus and product focus?
3. Help them understand how you build a healthy pipeline
1. What New Opportunity Processes will they follow?
4. Help them Win More Deals
1. What is your company process to prepare for a sales call, open a sales call, conduct discovery and qualification and present, propose and close?
5. Help them better understand how to leverage your sales tools to work smarter.
1. What is your company process to implement your strategies and processes in your sales CRM and other tools?

• Lead, Coach and Develop them

1. How do you help them get unstuck?
2. What do you do to co-create new possibilities with them?
   
   

BUT HERE IS THE BIGGEST QUESTION:

IS YOUR SMALL BUSINESS … SALES TEAM READY?

In our surveys, less than 10% of small business owners have hired/developed a SUCCESSFUL “A” Salesperson.  Over 50% of their hires were “D” players that they could not fire quick enough.  Most small business owners struggle to break through that plateau because they are lucky to have 20% “B” and 20% “C” Salespeople.

What is the first mistake that many small business owners make?

They hire their first salesperson before their business is sales team ready.

What does it take to make your business sales team ready?

• Get the Strategy Right - Focus on the Right Things

1. Get the Messaging Right
1. What problem does your business solve that people are willing to pay for?
2. Align the Sales Strategy.
1. Set Business Results Goals
2. Develop Selling Objectives to support those Goals
3. Build Sales Activity Metrics to track those Selling Objectives
3. Get the Targeting Right
1. Develop Ideal Client Profiles
2. As Mike Weinberg says, Build Focused, Fixed, Written, Workable Target Lists
4. Promote a New Business Development Mindset
1. Enforce the right prospecting priorities
5. Measure what Matters
1. Track Sales Results, Health of the Pipeline and Sales Activities
2. Include “New Opportunity Goals”

• Process to  Build a Healthy Sales Pipeline - Use Multiple New Opportunity Processes

1. Grow Existing Clients
2. Intentional Networking and Referrals
3. Intentional Marketing to grow engages contacts
4. Multi-Touch, Multi-Channel, Targeted Sales Outreach
5. Speak about your thought content

• Process to Win More Deals

1. Prepare for Sales Calls, Build Rapport and Open Sales Sales to achieve good dialogue
2. Discovery and Qualification to know what your prospect really wants
3. Present, Propose and Close

• Process to set up Sales CRM for Success

1. Model Selling Process in Pipeline to track opportunities
2. Build filtered Contact or Company views to track lead process
3. Be intentional with Objects, Records and Properties to achieve an effective database
4. Optimize sales activities through the Sales CRM to be more efficient and effective
5. Build Reports and Dashboards to track progress
6. Automate, where possible

Make Your Business … Sales Team Ready  and you increase the likelihood that you will LAUNCH that first SUCCESSFUL Salesperson.

Want the Friday Funnel Focus Blog sent directly to you each Friday? 

Want to reach out to our Company LinkedIn Page?

We help small business owners scale their teams from themselves to 5 salespeople and beyond.

While growing Small Businesses and Building Great Sales Teams is hard, the process to do this is simple. But, simple does not mean easy. 

Tired of Unsuccessful Sales Hires?
As an entrepreneur, do you feel harried and chaotic?

Register for our Webinar to make your business... Sales Team Ready!

Want to explore the process further, schedule a free 30-minute consultation.

In the meantime, get our guide to the 3 Part Formula to a Healthy Sales Pipeline