It’s Not Too Late to Catch Up on Your Missed Headcount Goals

We might be in June but there is a snowball effect to missing your headcount. With your hiring goals being watched by all VP’s in the company, you need to ensure you make up for the first half of the year.

In a company with 50-100 employees, you might be looking to hire 20 new people this year. Let’s say 8 of those people are in the sales organization. You are in charge of hiring all 20, you don’t have time to get behind your headcount goals. Maybe you are on track for all of the other departments but because of the unique nature of sales professionals and their high turnover, you have found yourself behind at the halfway point in 2019.

The bad news: You can’t make back the revenue.  A 1.2 million dollar territory is 100k per month in revenue. If you lose an Account Executive today and have no urgency to refill that position, the sales team will miss their year end number. The good news: It’s not too late: You need to recruit, hire, on board and ramp up a new AE. This takes months (see infographic to the left) to accomplish and if you delay your hiring, your own job may be jeopardized. Partner with sales and get a list of the A players and what percentage of your team is made up of them. You want to make sure you don’t lose any of them. Then start the hiring process immediately to find more A players.

F.U.D.S. Lost headcount can create the F.U.D.S. (fear, uncertainty, doubt and suspicion) among your current employees. In some cases your present team may wonder why a person left and quickly distract each other. New blood is healthy and energizing. Don’t let a seat sit vacant for too long because as a hiring manager you will lose credibility and momentum. Hiring is healthy and should be looked upon as very positive.

Momentum. It is hard to build a positively charged environment and when you have one, keep the momentum. If you have a healthy and contagious environment you will retain your employees. Make sure you keep the seats filled and keep the momentum. If not you will lose the energy and the sales team could hit a slump. Since you are behind your headcount goals, you cannot afford this so you need to keep hiring.

Unhappy Customers. Missing headcount means clients with no representation, i.e. unhappy customers. Don’t lose your clients to your competition because you are not moving fast enough to hire. If you start today, a sales rep will not be fully ramped until November and you need talent to gain market share and grow revenue today!

Hiring a team of talented sales professionals keeps it real and ensures everyone is being held accountable. It brings life to your job and creates excitement to do the work you do. It helps you and your own personal development. If you have missed your headcount for the first half of the year, Treeline can help you find, recruit and hire top sales talent and you will start seeing your first candidates within 3 days!