Talent Acquisition

Why Top-Performing Sales Managers Build a Bench

Building a sales team, filled with salespeople who do the work is the goal of all great sales managers.

It really does happen. I’ve seen many dozens of sales teams run by great sales managers. The majority of their salespeople are producers.

Years ago, I had a conversation with one of the smartest entrepreneurs I’ve ever met that sticks in my mind.

Tony Renda, Sr owned a group of 13 radio stations. Tony had started out in sales management, as so many great entrepreneurs do.

Every one of his 13 stations was a top billing station in their market.

He told me his secret for building great sales teams in his stations.

He said, “When I visit my stations I always ask the sales manager to show me his bench. Does he have a list of sales applicants he’s recently interviewed? Is he proactively looking for new sales talent and does he have a system for building a team? If not, he’d better shape up.”

It’s sad but true that too many sales managers look at sales hiring with dread. It’s the thing you do when you HAVE TO, not as an ongoing strategy for improving.

Tony said, “If there had been a system like yours when I was a sales manager it would have made it so much easier. Your system does all the work. All the sales manager has to do is write a good ad and run it and your Advanced Hiring System does the rest for them.

Today there is no excuse for lack of continuous improvement in sales departments.

Remember the definition of the job of sales manager. “Recruit, train and motivate a sales team.”

Recruit comes first. It is the most leverageable of the functions of sales manager.

Training and motivating are important. But if you don’t have the right salespeople on your team, you are “Brick Polishing.” And in case you don’t know, you can polish a brick from now until doomsday, but it will never get shiny. A weak sales hire will never get strong.

The Advanced Hiring System AAPS Profiler Sequence is in use in more than 2000 companies. We’ve put together a short survey to help you decide the quickest way to improve the quality of your sales team. Take the survey to find the best way to build a great sales team for your company.

Read More
Uncategorized

Do Sales Recruitment and College Recruiting Go Hand in Hand?

I can be absolutely 100% certain about one thing with respect to all top salespeople across every industry. They all had a first job in sales. They were all hired without ANY previous sales experience whatsoever. I cannot count the number of times I’ve been told by a sales recruiting manager that they are only interested in candidates who have previous sales or industry experience. Why they would want to limit their potential candidate pool by eliminating a bunch of people destined to be top sales performers at some point in their career? Most industries, with some good product knowledge training and some basic sales skills training, can bring on a new person who has the mind and guts of a seller. And that’s where the world of sales recruiting and college recruiting become a great match.

Graduation
Photographer: Juan Ramos | Source: Unsplash

It is remarkable how different the job outlook is today for college graduates as opposed to how it looked just a couple months ago. Exiting school, graduates now face the highest unemployment rate in generations.

Let’s talk for a minute about a philosophy that might be foreign or even a little scary to you. It is entirely possible that your next top seller served you lunch yesterday at that business lunch yesterday. You should look EVERYWHERE for candidates. Disregard your previous belief that only an experienced seller can sell your product. A great seller can sell any product. And presented with a solid compensation strategy, you can make it so they’ll stay with you forever.

Let’s finish up going back to college. There is a tremendous number of bright young candidates coming out of school and looking to begin their career. They’ll be hungry to learn and to earn. And, using a good online recruitment strategy, they can be reached in huge numbers very quickly. To conclude, some well planned sales training from you or one of the many online sales training options, you should be able to find some really solid candidates coming out of college who can develop from a great waiter into your top seller before you know it.

Read More
Talent Acquisition

Sales Recruitment: First Things First

One of the first things I ask a new prospect for our service is that they explain to me how they are planning to compensate their new sales representative. Remarkably, it’s not infrequent that they provide some ideas of what they think they’re going to do. I immediately wonder if they are also unsure of exactly what they want their new hire to do.

Anticipatiom
Photographer: Ariel | Source: Unsplash

Failing to develop a compensation plan that really rewards productivity is likely to doom the organization to high turnover of top performers. If your number one seller doesn’t make a LOT more money than the average, count on her to be open to better offers. Sales should be a true meritocracy where the best producers are clearly rewarded and appreciated.

And don’t think that little perks, like an extra day off, will be the same as being compensated monetarily according to performance. A real seller, making six figures, is going to see an extra day off as a cut to his income. Weekend work is routine for top performers. So how is an “extra day off” going to be of any value?

When thinking of compensation plans, first know what you really want the seller to do. Are they responsible for managing existing clients and growing revenue from them? Or are they responsible for developing new accounts? Focus the upside of the plan on achieving the predetermined goal. And don’t be stingy for exceeding the goal. Look for ways you can include profitability bonuses in the compensation plan. A seller who brings in deals more profitable than expected should be able to share in the extra dough. Talk about a motivator! It will make your top performers feel as though they have equity in the business as they’re sharing profits.

Shower rewards on the top performers. To learn more about compensation strategies and its impact on sales recruitment, click HERE.

Read More