Friday Funnel Focus Blog by EPOCH Sales Management Solutions
Scale your Sales Team from You to 10 Salespeople
Hiring Successful Salesperson Part 1
Can you point them in the right direction?
What is the single most difficult hire for a small business owner?
One of the biggest challenges and possibly the most difficult hire for a small business owner is to hire your first SUCCESSFUL salesperson.
Some say that sales hires fail over 50% of the time. Others claim it happens more than 75% of the time. So, if we look exclusively at small businesses, can we agree that sales hires fail most of the time? Why is that? Sure, a big part of the reason is poor hiring processes. But, the problem starts when small businesses try hiring salespeople before their business is ready to bring them on. Fair?
In this blog article series, we want to help you get your business … Sales Team Ready! (We developed a checklist that you can use to evaluate where you are and where you need to go to be ready to hire that first successful salesperson. Click here for the complete list.)
Example of a business not ready to hire first SUCCESSFUL salesperson.
Let’s look at one example where a business might not be ready to hire the first successful salesperson.
- No two new logos look the same
- Each new customer has a slightly different problem, requiring a slightly different solution
In this situation, some good salespeople may still fail because the business did not establish a good product - market fit. Many “experts” encourage small businesses to gain 10 new customers before hiring their first salesperson. Once you have 10 customers, you know that someone will buy what you're selling and hopefully you know how to sell it. For salespeople to be successful, it helps when the customers start looking more similar than different.
Can you point a salesperson to the right door for your solution?
Remember these two principles:
- When you try to sell to everyone you end up selling to no one.
- The riches are in the niches.
As you launch your business, you need to continue to refine and align your sales strategy so you can Focus Your Salespeople on the Right Priorities. Specifically, we need to be able to point them at the right door for your solution. The more focused and specific you can be, the better it will be for your salesperson.
Doing these things will help you point them at the right door.
- Messaging Matters - Clarify a message that connects with prospects
- Align the Sales Strategy - Point your sales team in the right direction, aligning business results goals, selling objectives and sales activity metrics to focus on the right priorities.
- Target the Right Prospects - Develop Ideal Client Profiles to build fixed, focused, written, actionable target lists.
- Culture is Everything - Build a New Business Development Culture where sales people are passionate about creating new opportunities.
- Hone in on Key Indicators - Build accountability through key sales metrics to measure sales results, the health of the sales pipeline and key sales team performance metrics.
Would you like someone to guide you in this process?
Schedule a 30-minute conversation here.
Want to Find More Qualified Sales Candidates?
Click here to enroll in our free August 30, 2022 webinar with a panel of 3 recruiting experts
Download our guide to help you Put the Right Salesperson on Your Team in the Right Sales Role
Would you like someone to guide you in this process to get ready to hire?
Schedule a 30-minute conversation here.