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Welcome
to the March edition of @Peak, the newsletter of Peak Sales Recruiting. We are all about driving revenues and bottom line results!
(You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up on our website or we have communicated with you in the past about building exceptional sales teams. If you are not interested in receiving our newsletter, please feel free to let us know by reply email.)
Time for a Tune-up: Changing a sales culture
 Sales VPs and CEOs are generally loathe to admit when the sales engine is broken. They may even struggle to face when it is in need of a tune-up.
The larger the enterprise, the more complex and ingrained the problems can become, and the harder they may be to face.
All in all, it’s a bad place to be. When the sales engine is not working properly, team performance suffers, and companies lose market share and customers.
An underperforming sales engine can, over time, also reduce credibility in the workforce and among prospective employees. |
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PeakPerformers
Interested in learning about some of the candidates we are working with? Click here.
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Executive class
Worried that your team will not make quota if the markets soften further? Read a new @Peak feature article for sales VPs, by Randy Whitcroft, the Director of Peak's Sales Leadership practice: “Economy concerns? A great time to sell!” (Links to PDF.)
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News @ Peak
Eliot Burdett, our co-Managing Partner was quoted in this Globe and Mail article on the use of tests in candidate screening.
Leo Valiquette from the Ottawa Business Journal talks about Burdett and customer-focused companies in this editorial.
Peak announced the additions of Susan Riekki-Odle, to head our Enterprise Solutions group, and Joanne Whittle, who adds HR depth to our Sales Leadership Practice.
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About Peak
Peak Sales Recruiting is a search firm with a difference. We focus on finding sales professionals for technology companies; this focus helps ensure that our clients hire salespeople that hit targets. Come find out how we can help you!
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Could companies be doing more to improve the output of their sales organizations?
Our valued business partner Ian Gilbert, of Third Core, recommends that companies “run salespeople through live role-playing and ongoing assessments based on the situations they face in the field ... not just when hiring them, but at regular intervals throughout their development. It’s the best way to align assessment, development and performance improvement.”
Third Core’s clients respond to this holistic approach: “In 20 years of sales at some of the largest IT companies in the world, this is the most realistic exercise I have seen.” (VP Sales, Security Solutions Company.)
For more on improving the performance of your sales teams, please feel free to visit the Third Core website.
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Failure is not an option. Here are some signs that there may be problems across an enterprise sales organization:
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The salesforce has become complacent. Reliance upon brand recognition has taken the place of effort, and shareholders and customers are suffering. |
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Longevity has become a handicap. Tenure builds knowledge, but comfort on the front lines can lead to a lack of motivation and an unwillingness to change. |
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Comp plans are becoming counter-productive. Enterprise compensation plans structured on run-rates are not always designed to inspire salespeople to deliver net new business. |
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The tyranny of “first in, last out” reigns. The idea that the last sales person hired will have the weakest accounts based on seniority alone is detrimental to business and to the morale of new recruits. |
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As a general rule, when the sales culture becomes divisive, when those who have been around for a while are in opposition to those that just joined, when elitism dictates behavior; these are all signs that the sales force may need some positive disruption through the introduction of strategic hires.
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So, how does a company tackle an enterprise recruiting project aimed at changing the culture of an entire sales team?
Susan Riekki Odle, Director of the Enterprise Practice at Peak Sales Recruiting, is just wrapping up a project for more than 30 strategic hires across an organization, and offers some ideas and some critical success factors for these projects.
First, companies must identify the scope of the problem, and how much they are able to tackle in the immediate term.
“Each situation is unique,” says Riekki-Odle. “We have clients that have shown dramatic benefit from a few strategic hires that raise the bar across the team, and other companies that have opted to create drastic change by bringing in significant numbers of new hires in a short period of time.”
Riekki-Odle is adamant that – whatever its scope – there are critical elements in ensuring that an enterprise recruiting project is successful.
- For each type of hire, get internal consensus on key sales and character traits you are seeking. Is the role suited to a hunter or a farmer? Are you looking for a Rolodex, or industry-specific knowledge? What temperament is required to function within the organization? While this is true for all sales recruiting, the number of people involved in enterprise projects increases the challenge and importance of getting this step right.
- Even more important than ensuring that there is consensus on skills, experience and character traits, Riekki-Odle is adamant that companies need agreement from internal stakeholders on the “where and why and when” of cross-team hiring projects. Do business objectives line up with the hiring objectives? Does the timeline make sense to everyone implicated? What is the contingency plan?
- External recruiters need to be at the table as a trusted resource, an extension of the internal team, and privy to the intangibles of organizational culture that could affect the success of hires. At the same time, as trusted advisors, good recruiters need to be able to challenge the status quo and deliver value back to their client through the knowledge they gain during the recruitment project.
- The Human Resources department is indispensible in these projects – to bridge disconnects, to secure buy-in from various groups on project goals and resources, and to establish processes and procedures that facilitate success. A well engineered compensation strategy and a complete on-boarding plan can cement the success of an enterprise project.
Of course, as with any project of this scope and importance, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you are thinking through any enterprise recruiting project and want to understand the impact of committing to fixing a broken sales machine or of modifying it for increased productivity, contact Peak.
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Learn more about our Services or contact us about how we can help build your sales team: recruit@PeakSalesRecruiting.com
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