How to Hire Salespeople: 8 Rules You Need to Follow

8 Rules You Need To Follow To Hire Top Sales Performers

If you are looking to grow revenue and build a company, then you must become an expert at recruiting talented sales professionals. Empty territories mean missed quotas which equates to lost revenue.

Before you start hiring top sales talent, you must:

1. Understand the sales characteristics required for your selling environment
2. Understand recruiting requires both time and budget
3. Understand you need tools and resources to build a pipeline of sales talent
4. Understand the strategy behind successful sales recruitment

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Now let’s dive into the 8 rules you must follow in order to hire top salespeople

1. Perspective

Be humble about your company.  Do not assume that every person wants to work at your company.  This is a critical mistake for hiring managers.  Never think that a candidate should beg you for an opportunity at your company, especially in today’s job seeker’s market.  Top talent needs to be sold on your company and you should prepare to work hard to recruit talented sales professionals.

2. Urgency

When you find a talented sales candidate, do not delay…call them as soon as possible.  Your mentality should be that for every minute you do not call a sales representative a competitor does.  Sales representatives are expecting that a reputable company will call them quickly. It is critically important to pick up the phone and call each candidate.  Your first communication should not be email, it must be a phone call.  Call first, email second and connect on LinkedIn third.  Show a high level of interest. 

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3. Sell your company

Know how to tell the company story.  Create interest in your company.  Sell the sizzle not the steak.  Meaning many companies talk about how great their product or service is but many time miss the market.  Job seekers want to know why this is a great company and it’s best to describe the culture, the environment, the career advancement, the executive team, etc.  The intangible features of your company are what will sell it.  You will have plenty of time to talk about the product or service but selling a company is dependent on what a person finds to be important to them in their career. This is critical to understand and control.

4. Qualifications

Have clear understanding of the requirements of your position and ask relevant questions to qualify candidates.  The phone interview is a wonderful way to quickly qualify candidates on their skill set and on your job.  Qualifying a candidate is 50% about quickly understanding if they meet your qualifications.  The other 50% is to understand if this person understands your position and the role.  It makes no sense to pursue a candidate that is not fully qualified what the job at hand entails.   

5. Keep it simple.

High caliber sales candidates are being pursued by other companies so know your process and how to manage it.  Set expectations and be transparent with candidates so they understand what is going to happen next.

Example:

5. 1. Phone screen
   2. In person interview with manager
   3. In person interview with team and executives
   4. Offer, start date and background check

6. Engagement

Stay in contact with all potential sales hires and continue to communicate with high value job seekers. Keeping job status and interest level at the forefront of all dialog.  Transparency is a very effective way to communicate, build trust and stay engaged throughout the interview process.

7. Close

Conclude every interview by closing.  Gain agreement that this is a good career move, that the company is a good fit and that the compensation meets the candidates requirements. If the candidate is in agreement of these things then move forward in your process.

8. Hire

Always make a verbal offer first.  Gain agreement that the candidate is accepting your opportunity.  Discuss start date and resignation/counter offer.  Help candidates through the emotionally draining of resignation process so they have a plan to successfully resign and respectfully reject a counter offer.    

Meet Qualified Sales Candidates Today! Treeline, Inc. is your go-to sales recruitment partner. No matter the search or budget, Treeline can help you recruit top sales talent. Call us today!