Evidence of common attributes amongst top salespeople comes from many high profile studies. Spend some time with top sales talent and it will quickly become evident that they share common characteristics. Sales leaders of high performance sales teams understand that knowing these traits is critical in the hiring of their sales reps.
So, what are the characteristics shared amongst top performers that are essential to sales success? We asked the reps themselves.
In a recent study, researching the behaviors and characteristics of top performing salespeople, over 500 salespeople were asked to rate several traits from unimportant (1) to important (5) to sales success.
In the infographic below, we’ve listed the top seven characteristics critical to sales success according to top salespeople–those who have met or exceed quota over the past three years–and average salespeople–those have met less than 80 percent of quota over the past three years.
Here are the top seven characteristics essential to sales success, according to top salespeople versus average salespeople:
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A critical factor in the maintenance of a high performance sales force is an organization’s talent management system: the people, tools, systems and processes that give it the ability to attract, hire, develop, reward, and ultimately retain talent.
Responsible for its development and execution, today’s human resource leader faces unique challenges and increased pressure as the demands from interdepartmental stakeholders rise.
For many HR executives, the greatest talent management challenges come from their counterparts in sales.
Taking an integrated view of talent management is essential:
Beyond Hiring: An Integrated Approach to Talent Management argues that hiring is just one component of a 5-part approach to managing talent, with a healthy talent culture as the capstone.
In this article we’ll examine three areas where human resource leaders can work with sales leaders to build an integrated approach to sales talent management — one that goes beyond talent acquisition — employee engagement, performance management, and leadership development. We’ll also highlight emerging and established technology platforms that have helped HR gain leverage in these efforts.
Employee engagement
Once talent leaders usher an A-player through the door, they must invest in that employee’s engagement in a number of ways to keep them highly productive and fulfilled. This also contributes to the all-important work of long-term employee retention, which has material implications: a Salesforce analysis reports that companies can lose up to $1 million in lost revenue, productivity, and replacement of a single core sales rep.
Onboarding:
An effective onboarding process is one of the first places HR can make an impact after hiring. (In fact, candidate onboarding should start when you extend an offer.) Accelerating the initial performance gap can have a direct impact on revenue, with the average sales rep spending 20% to 40% of their time at the company in a less than optimally productive state. One study shows the average ramp-up time for new reps is 5.3 months with an average tenure is 26 months, while a B2B-focused study shows that reps onboard over 10 months with 24 months of average tenure, leaving approximately 14 months to achieve ROI.
B2B sales teams with excellent onboarding programs get their new hires to reach peak productivity 3.4 faster than those with ineffective onboarding programs and show a correlation with a 10% higher sales growth rate, according to research from The Sales Management Association.
Another key area of employee engagement is to invest in robust sales trainings and continued learning. The quality of training has a direct impact on an entire organization’s performance, and companies that are not investing in training suffer from higher turnover and lower productivity.
HR professionals should develop and support a structured, repeatable, sustainable training program that is aligned with the requirements and efforts of the sales organization. Sales leadership legend Brian Tracy tells us that the highest-performing sales organizations train every week. “One of my clients, the sales manager of a division of a multinational company, told me that he started a weekly sales training program that consisted of playing one sales video per week, followed by discussion. Within one year, this division was turning in the highest levels of sales and profitability in the worldwide organization. He said that the day after the sales training day was the highest sales day of the week.”
Some of the industry’s top sales training firms include:
HR leaders are harnessing technology to inform their employee engagement strategies, predict and counteract employee attrition, and get the most out of their new hires.
Finally, the best HR leaders work hand-in-hand with sales managers to track these 8 key human capital metrics to measure the effectiveness of their onboarding, training, and engagement programs.
Performance management
The second key focus area for HR and sales leaders to collaborate on is conducting structured performance evaluation and management systems. According to Frank V. Cespedes and Steve Maughan, the most under-utilized lever for improving sales is the performance review. “Busy sales managers tend to treat reviews as cursory, drive-by conversations that are mainly about compensation, not evaluation and development.”
HR teams can work with sales managers to introduce rigorous structure and regular cadence to this practice, which is arguably more important in the sales function than in any other department due to the influence these discussions have on sales behavior and activity levels. In addition to quarterly and monthly check-ins, managers can meet with reps weekly or daily when needed – with HR providing managers structured meeting templates to ensure performance management standards are in compliance.
An important part of sales performance management is a rigorous set of standards, with specific deadlines for quantifiable goals and discrete metrics, such as:
Number of prospecting emails
Number of prospecting calls
Number of meetings
Number of presentations
Number of demos
Number of site visits
Sales by week
Pipeline value
Pipeline stage value
HR and sales leaders should also work together to craft clearly defined compensation packages that incentivize the aforementioned behaviors. Typical sales compensation ratios for non-leadership roles include 50 percent base pay (for stability) and 50 percent commission (for incentive to reach higher). You can also tailor your company’s compensation plan to support the business model and the type of growth you want to see (for example, HubSpot sales head Mark Roberge customized compensation for different stages of HubSpot’s evolution).
HR leaders should be forward-looking and create a promising talent pipeline for the sales leadership team. Few companies are happy with their leadership pipeline, with only 22 percent of executives reporting that they view their own pipeline as promising. Another survey reported that leadership development was executives’ number-one concern.
As growth organizations scale and established players refresh their sales teams, the need for critical front-line and regional management talent is essential for sustained revenue growth.
Why?
Here’s what one sales leader said – “We need them to be great with our customers, we need them to be great with their teams and we need them to be great business minds. What we expect from our first-line managers today is so complex, varied and unstructured that we don’t even try to make sense of it anymore.”
Does your organization fall into this camp?
If so, investing in leadership development that focuses on the core leadership skills and competencies is crucial. Creating career paths for top salespeople to allow them to stay as individual contributors or switch to managerial roles, based on their skillset, is a channel that needs to be capitalized on but approached with caution since top salespeople are not always great managers.
Technology platforms to manage to plan for succession management and aging workforces include:
Human resources leaders don’t stop when they’ve filled their headcount requirements. They stay alongside them as they deliver sales and reach new heights.
This is why it’s so important for HR to deeply understand the operational needs of sales, while sales managers must consider talent management a core responsibility. Strengthening ties between HR and sales supports the creation of a powerful talent management system that stretches beyond recruiting, to engagement, performance management, leadership, and beyond. When HR and sales objectives are coordinated in a deep way, your company’s revenue will reflect it.
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Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.
He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.
Sales management is quite possibly the most misunderstood role in business.
Why?
Sales managers play a unique role – they not only select, build, lead, coach, and manage front-line salespeople, but also act as a customer and business manager.
Since these responsibilities compete and pull sales managers in multiple directions, the activities that are most critical to properly fulfilling the role’s mandate can become clouded, leading to misconceptions and mistakes that undermine success and in many cases, job loss.
In this article we debunk 14 misconceptions we’ve heard about sales management and the role of a sales leader, and offer alternate perspectives to guide effective decision making.
Misconception 1: Managers should step out of the sales ring whey they are promoted.
“The primary role of sales managers is to simply to be a people manager and support their team. They are supposed to stop closing deals and instead let their account executives execute the entire sales cycle.”
The first common misconception is that a sales manager climbs into an ivory tower and leads from afar. They are no longer responsible for being familiar with accounts reps are trying to penetrate, and distance themselves from the day-to-day activities on the sales floor.
In truth, effective sales managers get in the ring with their team when they can add value to the selling process. They may not manage customer relationships firsthand, but they are side-by-side with their reps, coaching them and facilitating problem-solving processes on a weekly or daily basis. They participate in phases of the sales cycle and in situations where the manager’s skills or involvement adds credibility, and ensure the sales strategy is being properly executed on the front-lines.
Misconception 2: Sales is the exclusive domain of the sales manager.
“The sales manger should be in the sales department. Why should they be spending time with our CPO and CFO.”
Yes, sales managers are responsible for the activities of their team and accountable for making the number. But sales management functions at the best companies don’t operate in a vacuum. Instead, the best sales managers help create and foster a pro-sales culture throughout the company.
A pro-sales culture manifests itself in many ways. For example, when the entire C-suite buys into the sales strategy and understands the critical role of the sales force in helping the company attain its financial goals, resources like tools, training budget, and headcount are readily provided. A CMO that is aligned with sales adjusts their team’s tactics to generate the right types of leads and prioritize the creation of content and marketing collateral that reps can leverage throughout the sales cycle.
Misconception 3: Managers can stop recruiting when they’ve filled all headcount needs.
“Why should our sales manager spend time recruiting when we’ve got enough feet-on-the-street.”
Hiring great salespeople is the most important responsibility that a sale leader owns. But if a sales manager only searches for candidates when a headcount openings occur, then stops recruiting activities when the positions are filled, they’re practicing reactive hiring.
Reactive hiring treats an open seat like a fire to be put out. Managers start feeling the heat as the costs of the empty seat quickly compounds, ultimately forcing managers to hire whoever’s actively searching for a job – ‘C’ and ‘B’ players.
Hiring proactively, however, means executing a consistent, year-round system that attracts and nurtures talent — even when there aren’t open seats. It allows managers to reach out to passive candidates and “play the long game” by building relationships and cultivating a virtual bench that can be drawn from. It’s no surprise that this method attracts the best talent.
Misconception 4: Top performing teams don’t need sales training.
“I’ve got a competent team – they’re effective sellers. Why should I invest in training and development?”
Sales leaders often make the mistake of investing too little in sales training, or spending too much training time focused on product knowledge rather than sales techniques. Over half of companies surveyed by McKinsey rely exclusively or extensively on ‘on-the-job training’ compared to structured programs that build organizational capabilities. Leaders at these companies tend to under-invest in ‘front-line training’ as well: at companies where training is reported to be least effective, executives are more likely to spend on training for the leadership and least likely to spend on the front line. Meanwhile, the companies that report that trainings have measurable business impact are most likely to invest in the front-line training.
The success of athletes and performers hinges on the quantity and quality of their practice, as well as their long-term, consistent commitment to it. And if an elite swimmer wins an Olympic gold medal, they return to the pool for more training instead of “coasting” on past victories.
Sales professionals are no different: all levels of the sales force benefits from training. Moreover, a high-quality training program sends a clear message that the company is committed to investing in an employee’s success and professional development. In fact, according to Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder: Creating Value by Investing in Your Workforce, “offering training and career tracks to line workers led to lower turnover and easier recruitment, and served to make employees more efficient while they were with the company”.
Misconception 5: Resumes are the best way for a sales manager to screen job candidates.
“Great salespeople should have a stellar resume – it’s the best way to know if they’re going to be a fit on our team.”
An effective sales manager maintains a consistent search for qualified candidates to fill their hiring pipeline. But rather than only relying on resumes to screen-out candidates, the best sales managers understand two things: first, they know that top-performers are always actively and gainfully employed, and too focused on exceeding target than to be consistently updating their resume. Second, they know that resumes don’t show a candidate’s Sales DNA – the core characteristics that make a person uniquely suited to be a consistent top performer.
While resumes certainly have the capacity to show a candidate’s track record of results, they aren’t comprehensive and do a poor job of revealing Sales DNA, which can only be extracted through psychometric testing and behavioral interviewing techniques.
Misconception 6: All responsibilities on a sales manager’s to-do list are equal.
“I get 200+ emails a day, have 3-4 meetings, 15 calls, and a training session I have to lead. They’re all critical and need to be done today.”
The manager’s to-do list can stretch to what feels like hundreds of responsibilities. New sales managers often feel like they are only doing their job well if they deliver on all tasks – responding to all emails immediately, spending time on CRM reports, and attending all cross-functional meetings.
But sales managers ultimately have one responsibility: to build a high performance sales team that achieves the sales and profit objectives stated in the corporate and sales strategy. To-do list tasks that don’t directly contribute to this outcome need to be either automated, delegated, or eliminated.
Misconception 7: Sales managers must keep closing deals themselves.
“My ability to close deals is what got me here – and it’s something I need to keep doing if I’m going to continue to climb the corporate ladder.”
While some sales managers mistakenly retreat into an ivory tower and place too much distance between themselves and sales activities, other sales managers stay too involved in customer relationships.
This is especially common for managers who were recently promoted from an individual contributor role and simply continue with the momentum of selling. But if managers insert themselves between their sales reps and prospects, taking the reins of every relationship, they erode their team’s confidence and damage morale.
Misconception 8: Managers should invest extra time in C players.
“Yeah my team routinely misses quota – but they are great to be around, they’re great people. So if I just invest more of my time and energy, I hope their performance will improve.”
All sales reps require one-on-one coaching, whether they are A, B, or C players. However, sales managers need to divide their time intelligently among the three groups. In Smart Sales Manager, Josiane Feigon suggests that managers should spend, at most, 20 percent of their coaching time on C players to assess whether they have potential to dramatically improve their performance.
If the answer is no, C players need to be immediately cut loose so they can pursue an alternative career.
Misconception 9: A manager needs to hire extroverted salespeople to close deals.
“The ability to develop rapport is critical to being successful in sales, so why wouldn’t I only hire outgoing people?”
It can be tempting to search for extroverts to fill open sales positions. After all, they’re confident in social situations, quick to pick up the phone, and enjoy the process of making new connections each day.
But those considered to be introverts often have the characteristics that allow them to build trust with prospects and cultivate the same long-term customer relationships possessed by those with more outgoing personalities. What’s more, a meta-analysis of 35 studies of nearly 4,000 salespeople found extroversion to barely correlate with sales performance.
Misconception 10: Top performers can manage themselves.
“Why would I spend time with the few top performers I have on my team – they routinely hit quota and don’t need me.”
Top performers are self-motivated and have a high level of independence, but they require management. And the better their management is, the better their business results will be.
Sales managers must provide clear guidance on goals, a structured work environment, regular account and pipeline reviews and communication, training and development, support, sales tools and infrastructure, and most importantly, accountability.
Misconception 11: The best AEs should be promoted to manager.
“Why wouldn’t I promote someone into a FLM if they’re crushing their quota every quarter?
It is important to continually advance the careers of top performing salespeople. But management isn’t necessarily the right next step because the competencies of managers differ from the competencies possessed by individual contributors. Too many companies make the mistake of cherry-picking their standout reps and promoting them, resulting in the loss of actual closed sales and the addition of a poor manager.
In fact, 96% of firms place internal candidates into sales management roles, but only about one-third of them report having defined processes or internal candidate assessment tools for these promotions, according the Hiring Top Sales Managers Research Report by the Sales Management Association. This suggests that 65% of sales managers who have been promoted from rep positions haven’t been fully vetted for the proper managerial skill-set.
Misconception 12: Trust your gut when hiring.
“The candidate lacks a few competencies I’m looking for, but I’ve got a feeling that they’re going to be a great fit.”
Using gut instincts alone to screen candidates is the best way to make poor and costly hiring decisions. Hiring on gut feel is usually not a deliberate first choice. More often, it’s a fallback that a sales manager or other interviewer lands on when they don’t have the tools to properly evaluate candidates or don’t feel confident in their company’s recruiting process.
The gut can “yell” loudly, but because it’s based on fluctuating mood cycles, it is unreliable and can tell an interviewer one thing on Monday and another on Tuesday. Ultimately, the gut isn’t usually screening for sales skill; it’s screening for how likeable, safe, and relaxed a person is. A strong positive instinct about someone is not the same as proof that a candidate has the skillset or experience to succeed in your unique selling environment.
Misconception 13: Managers can use financial incentives alone to motivate their reps.
“I broadcast a bonus on the team scoreboard – that should be enough to keep the team hungry for more.”
It’s true that financial incentives motivate sales professionals, but that’s not the whole story. Some managers might have the mindset that there is a linear relationship between money and sales, in which they expect to plug in monetary rewards and receive a proportional return from reps.
But human motivation is complex and not machine-like. Intrinsic motivation can be even more powerful than external rewards, and top performing teams have a healthy mix of purpose, autonomy, competition, shared values, team acceptance, and other factors.
Misconception 14: Sales managers don’t need a structured hiring process.
“I’ve got an idea of who I need on my team to get the job done. Why would it matter whether or not we recruit the same way every time.”
We recruit thousands of candidates for our customers ever year and see a direct correlation between the intensity of structure in the hiring process and the number of teams who hit quota.
When hiring managers don’t follow a clear, consistent, and repeatable hiring process, the result is a diverse pool of candidates that don’t fit the corporate culture, don’t work well as a team, and generally don’t fulfill their sales goals.
In contrast, a structured process dramatically increases the probabilities of making a hire that hits and exceeds quota. It gives the hiring manager an objective, clear picture of the characteristics, skills, and experiences that a candidate needs to be successful. It also protects the company from subjective forces by standardizing, documenting, and regularly evaluating its screening and interviewing criteria. In addition, having a standard process reduces time-to-hire and saves time and headache for every interviewer and manager who is involved in sales hiring because they can follow proven steps that eliminate underperformers.
Top performing sales teams don’t hire themselves, and sales reps can’t be their own managers. This is the domain of the sales manager, who plays a key role in employee recruitment, motivation, accountability, and focus. If they can detangle themselves from the misconceptions above, they will have a strong, positive, direct influence on the sales results of the company at large.
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.
Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.
He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.
Today’s buyers are overwhelmed with too much information — delaying purchasing decisions and resulting in lost sales. In order to compensate, several sales professionals are either over-accommodating or creating high pressure which alienates prospects in the process.
So, how does a salesperson meet sales targets while satisfying the customer’s desire for a heartfelt, authentic sales approach? Shari Levitin‘s new book Heart and Sell answers just that.
In Heart and Sell, Shari shows you how to blend the new science of selling with the heart of human connection in order to reach more prospects and consistently close more deals.
Peak Sales Marketing Specialist and Sales Hiring Expert Taylor Dumouchel caught up with Shari to discuss her new book:
Shari, what was your inspiration for writing Heart and Sell?
Several years ago I was teaching a sales seminar in Mexico, when a salesperson in the back of the room raised his hand. He said he liked the strategies I was teaching, then he asked, “But won’t the customer feel sort of, well, manipulated by all of these sales techniques?”
I had never been asked that question before, and it threw me.
Fortunately, that evening I was invited to dinner with the top salespeople at the seminar. An older gentleman introduced himself as Apapacho. “Apapacho?” I asked. I hadn’t heard that name before.
He said it was a nickname meaning ‘hugger,’ or ‘affectionate one.’” He told me that he’d never received formal sales training, but absolutely loved his customers. At that moment, I knew I had my answer for the salesperson in the back of the room and, much later, the idea for my book, Heart and Sell.
This experience set my mind in motion. I started to ask myself some questions. What makes a great salesperson: nature or nurture? What’s more important in selling: techniques or genuine empathy? What if you could combine the two — both heart and sell? Seeking answers to these questions, I made it my mission to study top sales leaders and salespeople in various industries.
For each person I studied, I asked myself:
What did they say—and what didn’t they say?
How did they do it?
Did they have secret tricks or best practices they could share?
I learned that top salespeople know how to balance the science of selling with heartfelt connection. They also understand that, unless they really know themselves, they’ll never truly connect with their customers—or anyone else, for that matter.
They know that what you do matters, but who you are matters more.
The Ten Universal Truths contained in my book are all about achieving that balance and connecting more deeply with your authentic self.
The book is a model for how to blend the new science of selling with the heart of human connection in order to reach more prospects and consistently close more deals. What makes selling with the heart more effective?
We live in a world of fake news, or what’s been called, “The Post Truth Era.” Trust is more difficult to build than ever before. A recent Gallup poll found that customers consider salespeople such as real estate agents, auto dealers and phone reps among the least ethical of all professions; only lobbyists and members of Congress ranked lower! If we as salespeople aren’t coming from a place of integrity, customers know it instantly. Today’s buyers, as I’m sure you’ll agree, are savvier than ever, and they’re wary of staged presentations and canned pitches.
It’s the combination of both skills and character, the mixing and blending of these ingredients together, that creates long term success. In his book, The Road toCharacter, David Brooks (opinion columnist for the New York Times) discusses the difference between “resume virtues” and “eulogy virtues.” According to Brooks, resume virtues are those skills you bring to the marketplace—qualities like drive, competition, and gregariousness. The eulogy virtues, on the other hand, are the ones people will talk about at your funeral. Were you kind? Honest? Empathetic? Loyal? In the book, he states, “Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build inner character.” We need to ask ourselves, “What do I want my legacy to be? How do I want to be remembered?” Selling with heart means knowing what to say and do, but sustained success requires virtues like integrity, empathy and optimism.
How can a salesperson build a strong relationship with a prospect but be assertive at the same time?
Top-performing sales reps build a structure to ensure they’re performing the right sales steps in the right order. But they also know when to turn the heat up or down depending on the emotional reaction of their prospects.
In my experience, many salespeople either lead too much with relationship or are too aggressive. They don’t have the structure, the mastery, or the confidence to make it, as Goldilocks says, “JUST RIGHT.”
Am I providing valuable insights that are distinct from my competitors?
Is my prospect bored?
Is she engaged?
Do I need to ask tougher questions?
Is she fearful? Have fight-or-flight hormones hijacked her brain?
Should I ask them to buy now after that obvious buying signal?
Should I back off?
What are some techniques you recommend for salespeople to ramp up their rapport-building techniques and establish a sense of trust?
Most salespeople have been told that, to earn trust, you have to get your customers to like you. That’s backwards. Earning someone’s trust doesn’t start with getting customers to like you. It begins with empathy; with you caring about them. Trust follows empathy. Otherwise, we’re just another salesperson with a hand in our prospect’s pocket.
You become more empathetic by establishing rapport. Rapport is a precursor to empathy. You’ve almost certainly heard about establishing rapport in sales seminars you’ve taken. In my experience, most salespeople are taught to view rapport simply as a box to check. Match and mirror. Pace. That’s all useful, but where’s the humanity that animates this new relationship with your prospect?
Here is a sampling of methods to build rapport:
1. Be interested in their battles.
Each time you meet a prospect, find at least one positive character trait and offer a sincere compliment. Not just “Hey, that’s a cool jacket,” or “Wow, what a beautiful bracelet!” Is he patient with his kids? Is he funny? Is her work fascinating?
2. Notice the purple hats.
You’ve probably heard the expression, “We need to talk about the elephant in the room”. Think of it like this: If I invite you to our home in Park City, Utah for dinner, and there in the foyer is a circus elephant squatting next to the grand piano, would you say anything? If you don’t, it’s going to be awkward for both of us. Likewise, when you meet someone whose appearance shouts, “Look at me!” You have to look. You have to comment. “Nice hat! Where’d you get those feathers?” or “How long did it take you to get forty-six tattoos?” Selling would be so easy if we only had to sell to people with our appearance, background, and tastes. But that’s not how the game is played.
3. Let them talk about themselves.
We trust the people who take the time to get to know us. But giving someone else the floor is difficult to do. Research from the Harvard Business Review shows that, on average, people spend 60% of their time talking about themselves, a number that increases to 80% on social media. The Greek philosopher Epictetus said it first: “We have two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
You talk about the power of the ‘right questions’ and how questions help us fall in love. How can a salesperson determine what questions are right for him or her?
Getting the attention of your prospects, gaining commitment and reaching consensus now is the greatest challenge salespeople face. In this age of information overload it’s difficult for prospects to sort through the clutter and the complexities of your product offering. You need to guide the conversation and travel the most direct route.
As an analogy, can you imagine driving from one end of the country to the other without directions? You may eventually get to your destination, but without a map or GPS, you’ll take far longer than necessary.
Your customers may not be as flexible. When your presentation is too long or off-point due to a lack of precision, your customers, to continue the analogy, may simply run out of gas. Your customers today are busy. They’re overwhelmed. Side-road conversations that aren’t relevant to them are simply an annoyance. You’ve got to keep them speeding down the Interstate; not getting lost on side roads.
Your job is to ask questions, I call this the discovery phase, so that you can provide solutions that are specific to their needs—the WIFM or “What’s In it For Me?” Your questions must follow a logical order—in other words, you start by gathering facts, and then progress to deeper questions that uncover customers’ problems and emotional motivators.
Craft a Discovery that helps you uncover what I call The Big Four:
First Level Questions: Get the facts about your customer’s current situation with First and Second Level Questions.
Second Level Questions: Find the problem- Dig deep to determine the implications of the problem.
Third Level questions: Discover the dominant buying motive or emotional motivators
Uncover hidden objections or concerns.
In Chapter 8, you discuss how most salespeople incorrectly assume that they can create a sense of urgency by threatening scarcity or appealing to greed. What is the most effective way of creating a sense of urgency?
No one cares if there’s only two left, or the price goes up next week, if they don’t want or need what you are selling in the first place. You can’t hijack your customers’ minds and force your incentives upon them.
You can’t create urgency without a prospect’s permission. But people will give you permission if they are emotionally committed to what you are selling. When you align what you’re selling with what they’re feeling, they will open their hearts. And their wallets.
I’ve seen countless salespeople ask poignant discovery questions only to deliver a generic sales presentation. At this point, your customers want to know one thing: What’s in it for me? (WIFM). They want to know you can fulfill their desires and solve their problems. But before you can link their needs with your offer and make a compelling case for your product, you must confirm that you got the information right.
In other words, no matter what you’re selling, or whom you’re selling to, you must complete each of these three steps in order to build that vital sense of emotional urgency.
Here’s the process:
• Confirm your customer’s wants, needs, and concerns.
Salespeople often assume they’ve discovered the accurate information, but they miss or misinterpret critical facts. And we all know what happens when we assume. Depending on your sales process, you can either launch into a confirmation statement directly after your Discovery or at the beginning of a follow-up meeting. Information confirmation is, simply, the act of repeating back the information you heard and getting confirmation that what you heard is, in fact, what the customer meant.
• Link their wants and needs to your product or service
Good salespeople do a Discovery.
Better salespeople ask the right questions in the Discovery to uncover the Big Four: First Level facts, Dominant Buying Motive (DBM), Problems, and Objections.
The Best salespeople actually take the information from the Discovery and link it emotionally to the features and benefits of their product. And then gain comittment. Our brains love stories, but our hearts cherish them even more. For years, I told this story to couples who, at the moment of truth, just couldn’t make a decision. It almost always pushed them over the edge.
• Create an emotional experience through evocative stories and a memorable sales experience
New research confirms that hearing the right stories at the right time cause the brain to release oxytocin, the neurochemical responsible for empathy. Oxytocin, dubbed the “Moral Molecule,” by neuroeconomist Paul Zak, makes people more trustworthy, generous, charitable, and compassionate! Researchers experimented on customers in a sales environment, having them ingest oxytocin through their nasal cavity to see if they would become more trusting and empathetic. (I figure if you can get a complete stranger to sniff an unknown chemical, he probably trusts you already!)
Even if your prospect is interested in the facts of your offering, he won’t be inspired to act without his emotions leading the charge. Your customer may think your solution is right in his head, but he’ll only take action when it feels right in his heart.
You mention that top performers celebrate the word “no” and learn from it. Why do salespeople need to hear the word “no” and what techniques can they use when they hear it?
Salespeople are often taught that No’s are a necessary evil, or a hurdle to overcome. But top performers think of No’s differently. They look for the No’s. Instead of setting goals for the number of Yes’s they get, they actually celebrate their No’s and learn from them. As Winston Churchill said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
I find that many salespeople simply don’t know what to do when they hear the word “No.” So here are some guidelines:
Listen fully before you respond. Don’t become defensive. I am always amused at salespeople who apologize or criticize customers when they disagree. Breathe. Let the customer finish their train of thought. Now ask yourself: is this a deal killer? Many objections are valid—the customer just needs more information. Some test you to gauge if you will answer their concerns truthfully.
When I hear an objection in the sales process, I listen fully. I validate the concern by saying “I can absolutely see why you’d feel that way,” or “That’s a valid concern.” I may even state their objection more strongly. “You certainly don’t want to invest in a product that doesn’t work for you. It sounds like you have enough on your plate.” Then I wait for agreement. When I hear it, I’ll confirm: “This is good. We’re on the same page.”
You can’t bring someone to your side of reasoning if you won’t first move to theirs! Now, you can share more information, ideas, and an awesome rebuttal.
Remember that questions are often objections in disguise. One of my business school students worked for an aircraft-part manufacturer attempting to close a major deal with the government. The customer asked, “How much testing did you do?”
My student was taught to ask himself: What’s the real concern here? What’s the ‘no’ or the barrier underneath the question? By doing so, he discovered that what the customer was really asking was: Is this model safe? Do we need to launch additional testing before bringing it to market?
Again, think before you act. No never means no. Which means you should never bulldoze your way through with a rebuttal. Instead: listen, analyze, and respond to the concerns the customers express—and the concerns they may not even know to express.
Know when to isolate a “no.” You’ve had it happen before: Customers that rattle off question after question, concern after concern. It sounds like an endless sea of “no’s.” Don’t give up. Instead, ask a question that isolates the customer’s concern and listen carefully for the response.
A hotel company who books large events and weddings was working with a very upscale client. One of their top salespeople, Natasha, had answered about 10 questions when the customer asked, “Do you allow pets?”
Instead of answering yes or no, she isolated the concern by asking, “Would that be important to you in your decision to secure a venue?”
The customer thought a moment and said it would be nice, but not essential.
Some questions aren’t a “no” at all. You just need to isolate the deal breakers from the chatter.
Finally, can you tell us how using the strategies mentioned in your book, and selling with the heart, has helped you?
Writing Heart and Sell and attempting to live the truths in Heart and Sell, has helped me redefine happiness and contentment. Mastering happiness is the same as mastering any skill. Whether you’re a professional artist, musician, or athlete, it takes persistence and time to become a master.
You need to do a lot of little things right; it requires tireless determination and consistency in your attitude and efforts. It can be a real challenge to wake up happy everyday. That’s why you need to make a conscious choice to incorporate rituals of happiness into your daily practice.
Positivity is a skill. Like a golf game, it must be examined, practiced, and perfected. Make these small rituals a part of your life—and I guarantee you’ll see a big impact.
I also learned from TED speaker, Sean Anchor, that this “Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.”— when you feel positive, dopamine floods your system and not only makes you happier, but turns on the learning centers in your brain, making you more receptive to new ideas and solutions. I not only feel happier, but mu business is booming.
Most importantly, I have learned why I do what I do, so I keep on going when times are tough.
As Frederick Nietzsche said, “He who has a why can endure any how.”—Don’t just ask yourself why you do what you do. Ask yourself: who do you want to be? What gives your life meaning? This is the most important question we can ask ourselves. It’s a much more important question than, “What are my goals? What actions must I take to reach them?” Everything, from your goals to your strategies, flows from knowing who you are and why you’re doing something.
I’ve learned that to get trust, give trust. To earn respect, give respect. To be applauded for your talent, look for talent in others. The happiness that comes from excellence cannot be bought; the joy derived from sharing your heart cannot be measured. Building skill matters, but building character matters more.
Click here to order your copy of Shari’s new book, Heart and Sell.
About Shari:
An internationally known sales strategist, writer, speaker and entrepreneur, Shari Levitin is CEO of Shari Levitin Group, a global training and consulting firm with clients in over 48 countries, and one of Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies.
Companies including Hilton, Hyatt, Adobe, RCI, Jaguar, Wyndham Worldwide, financial service groups, and countless individuals have all benefited from Levitin’s pioneering Third Level Selling™ techniques. Shari Levitin Group also includes Levitin Learning, a unique virtual university with more than 240 online courses. Levitin is also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah, David Eccles School of Business, teaching their first ever graduate sales course entitled Pitch Perfect.
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Sales force sizing is an integral aspect of a best-in-class sales team.
Optimized headcount maximizes revenue while limiting inefficiencies within the sales organization.
However, this important process doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Executive teams usually choose to expand and scale their sales teams when they’re responding to or anticipating a significant shift, such as major external investment, a merger, a new product or market, or a change in leadership.
Because the expansion of a sales force size impacts both new business goals and existing revenue streams, it’s vital that business leaders create a comprehensive sales team scaling strategy.
Many organizations skip this step, lured by the promise of higher revenue with more ‘feet on the street’. However, it’s important to plan an expansion with full knowledge of potential missteps.
Here we examine the 5 biggest mistakes made when scaling a sales team, and the tactics that can be used to prevent these errors moving forward.
1. Taking a Slow Growth Approach
Due to financial concerns, business executives often recommend a slow growth approach to scaling a sales team. Although it’s natural for leaders to take a conservative stance, slow growth fails to account for both the short-term and long-term gains that accompany a sales force expansion to match prospect needs. In short, it places fears about short-term solvency ahead of the long-term viability of an organization.
World-class companies understand that headcount costs are an investment in future market share, which is the clearest indicator of long-term profitability. In fact, research from ZS associates suggests that by holding off on expansion, companies compromise their future standings compared to competitors’. Meanwhile, their studies also found that organizations that adequately staff their sales teams based on analytical models exhibit higher short-term and long-term profits.
Even if executive teams choose to take a conservative route, initial conversations around sales team sizing should rely on analytics and modeling rather than short-term financial constraints. By taking into account the future revenue and market share that accompany an expansion, companies can determine the optimally sized sales team to widen profit margins. With numbers based on analytics and data, business leaders can make a firm argument for fast but sustainable growth that supports the organization.
2. Ignoring Sales Territory Analytics and Data
Many sales leaders use CRM and automation tools to evaluate sales team performance, but don’t apply the same technology to determine the sizing. Instead, they make a critical mistake of relying on gut instincts or inaccurate cost limits, which can lead to a mismatched sales force size or failed expansion.
When executives scale up too fast, they waste valuable resources, fail to adequately support reps, and can cause a downward spiral in the sales culture. When they scale up too slow, profits and standing in the market regresses. Therefore, any go-to-market strategy needs to be grounded in top-down and bottom-up assessment of sales territories. Leaders need to test assumptions, basing sizing decisions on data rather than instincts. Two methods — the return-on-sales optimization calculation or the efficient frontier benchmark model — help companies maximize profit and market penetration.
Both these methods effectively target the ideal sales force size based on factors like the segment and product profitability, sales revenue, costs for sales employees, and competitors’ performance. The benchmark method is particularly effective for making sales allocation decisions on a national scale.
3. You’re Overpopulating Territories
When expanding a sales team, it’s also easy to misallocate reps, overpopulating a territory to the detriment of the sales team and the entire organization. When hiring too many reps cover the same area, new or less-experienced salespeople prioritize ‘low-hanging fruit’ from low-revenue prospects or easy, short cycle accounts instead of lucrative clients that have a strong lifetime value (LTV).
However, by intentionally optimizing territory design, leaders can increase sales by 2-7 percent without requiring additional resources. Industry leaders can prevent overpopulation by using index-based methods that incorporate three variables: the potential of the territory, the base of existing accounts, and the workload associated with the area. This approach balances reps’ workloads and earning opportunities while guaranteeing that reps are covering the most lucrative prospects.
When an organization’s leaders proactively plan territories, they can create a clear foundation for revenue growth — with the exception of a few tweaks, a well-planned territory design can work for three to five years before needing a reassessment.
4. Failing to Recognize and Counter Role Pollution
When designing an expanded sales team, organizations often fail to recognize and counter the impact of role pollution. As more people join the team, administrative and managerial support can be spread too thin, leading salespeople to pick up extra non-selling activities that are not central to their positions.
Reps spend too much time servicing and supporting clients and conducting administrative work, which severely limits their ability to maximize sales. A survey from ZS Associates indicates the average salesperson spends 8-10 hours on internal administrative activities (expense reports, meetings, and incentive tracking), 5-7 hours on customer service and support, and 7-11 hours on travel.
As best-in-class companies scale up their sales force, they also scale up the administrative, customer service, and support teams, enabling salespeople to focus on selling products or services. By delegating these low-value tasks, organizations create a more engaged, productive sales team and set themselves up for higher revenue.
5. Your Compensation Plans are Misaligned
Compensation plans are the most powerful tool a company can use to guide its sales force actions and behaviors. As a company scales its’ sales team, leaders need to consider the incentives that drive reps.
When compensation isn’t directly aligned with sales goals, reps allocate too much effort on sales actions that don’t contribute to the company’s goals. Reps may focus on activities that, once profitable, are no longer lucrative in a new stage of growth.
There are three aspects of an effective compensation plan for expanding firms: simplicity, alignment, and immediacy. Simplicity means that sales reps can easily calculate their direct earnings based on their performance—it prioritizes the most lucrative sales action without getting complicated. Alignment refers to the strong “cause and effect” connection between incentivizes and the priority of the organization. The compensation plan should align with the most important goal of the year, whether it’s market share, profitability, or penetration. Immediacy means that when salespeople either succeed or fail, they see the impact on their salary immediately.
Incorporating these three characteristics into a comprehensive compensation plan leverages a company’s resources to meet its goals. This approach is even more important for an expanded sales team because the negative impact of misaligned incentives has even wider consequences.
Want to know the 5 other massive mistakes organizations are making when it comes to expanding their sales teams? Download our latest eBook – The Biggest Mistakes Made When Expanding a Sales Team.
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Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.
He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.
Top performing salespeople conduct themselves differently. They are just as disciplined and committed to achieving their goals inside the office, as they are at home. While an average sales rep may only be committed to success Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, A-players seize opportunity for success 24/7.
While unplugging at the end of the day is not necessarily a bad thing, top talent is unique in how they spend their free time.
How do top performing salespeople spend their free time?
1. Monitor email
A high sense of urgency is one of the top traits shared among top performing salespeople. A-players know that in order to succeed in sales, it is crucial to “strike while the iron is hot”. In fact, research from insidesales.com shows that the odds of the lead becoming qualified are 21 times greater when contact within the first five minutes.
Outside of office hours, great salespeople are watching for messages from prospects and checking for updates on deals. They respond to all communications within five minutes.
2. Plan
Planning plays a key role in a salesperson’s success. A study by Pace Productivity Inc. on how sales reps spend their time found that salespeople who spend 24-36 minutes per day planning, optimize their weekly selling hours.
To take this a step further, great salespeople plan their days outside of the office. They analyze their daily activities and evaluate how they are performing against quarterly goals. Using these insights, they schedule their top priorities for the coming day so they can focus on selling right off the bat.
3. Continuously improve
A-players never stop learning. The best reps are participating in professional development inside and outside of the office. They research online, read books, and spend time with mentors. They spend a considerable amount of their free time working to improve themselves professionally and personally.
4. Rest
It is critical that sales reps get rest in order to maintain their competitive edge. 93% of executives agree that taking a break from work is important and working long hours is not a necessary success strategy.
Whether it be watching sports, playing board games with the family, or catching up on sleep, great salespeople make sure to get the rest they need to be successful.
5. Keep commitments
The best salespeople understand that in order to be successful in sales, you need to prove that you can be trusted. To build a reputation of trust, A-players ensure to deliver on their promises even if it takes work outside of regular business hours.
Want to save these insights? Fill out the form below to download the PDF infographic version:
Top performing sales reps are rare — making up only 10-15% of the sales industry workforce — and, they are highly sought after. In order to remain competitive, it is essential that companies implement effective strategies to keep their top talent.
However, research shows that the voluntary turnover rate for salespeople (15.9 percent) is higher than the average rate for other types of employment (14.3 percent). These statistics demonstrate that in sales, if your employees are unhappy, they will move on to the next opportunity.
As a sales executive, it is crucial that you have a deep understanding of why your top talent is leaving in order to increase retention rates. That is why we have put together the top 21 reasons great salespeople leave their current position and what you can do to mitigate the risk of losing your best salespeople.
This infographic demonstrates 21 reasons why your top salespeople are leaving your organization:
Want to save this infographic? Fill out the form below to download a PDF version:
When entering a new market, the right sized salesforce will make or break whether the go-to-market strategy is effectively executed.
Hiring too many reps drains resources and limits the success of salespeople by over saturating the market. Not enough ‘feet-on-the-street’ means that a company will lag compared to its competitors, failing to grow during its pivotal first year.
Because of the challenge of estimating the right size of a sales team in a new market, many executives follow their instincts rather than digging into the facts to optimize market coverage and sales resources. This is a common mistake that can cause companies to miss between 2-15 percent of profitable revenue growth.
But there are effective ways that both mitigate risk and maximize revenue.
This article identifies:
The key methods for discerning the number of salespeople to deploy into a new market or territory
How these techniques will empower a leadership team to optimize their teams for long-term profit and reduce the opportunity costs of bad sales resource optimization.
Understand the Stage of the Business to Mitigate Risk
First, we encourage growth companies to ensure that they have established a concrete sales strategy before they think about sales force sizing. In particular, a company needs proof of a market opportunity, a detailed sales strategy, and the resources to hire salespeople who have proven they can excel in the company’s unique selling environment(s).
This approach mitigate the risk that resources and time are wasted on new salespeople before they’re ready for a sales team. For example, if an organization regularly changes the goals of the sales organization or hasn’t identified a target market and ideal customer base for each offering, the sales force won’t be able to close the right prospects — thus draining resources without contributing to the bottom line.
Although it’s vital that business leaders identify the ideal size of a sales force, they also need to source candidates with the right skills, experience, and sales DNA to fill the roles. Sales force competency gaps are detrimental to the ability of a company to successfully enter new markets, draining revenue and potentially damaging brand reputation.
One of the biggest mistakes growth firms make when determining selection criteria for new sales hires is assuming that experience selling for large companies is desirable. However, selling for a start-up is very different than selling for an established company. While working for an industry leader, salespeople benefit from a well-known brand, a stable product, a customer base for references, and the infrastructure to enable big sales. At growth-stage companies, there are a lot of obstacles that salespeople at industry-leading firms are not used to experiencing. For example, the product offering, value proposition, and target market can evolve quickly.
Salespeople need to adapt to multiple stops and starts as well as an extra level of rejection and resistance from leads. Not all salespeople, even the great ones, have the predisposition to be successful in a this kind of an environment.Given that, leaders of growth-stage companies need to create selection criteria to matches this unique selling environment. At Peak Sales, we look at candidates for growth-stage companies with the following sales DNA: ambition, optimism, flexibility, a comfort with uncertainty, perseverance, confidence, and an overriding sense of urgency.
Even for successful start-ups, it can be challenging to entice high-performing salespeople without a record of achievement or reputation within the industry; above-average compensation and the ability to have a material impact on the company as it grows can help usher in new recruits. Although these top performers require upfront investment, they’re less expensive than the alternative: mediocre salespeople.
Before building a new sales force, executives need to solidify their corporate and go-to-market strategies, assess their ability to pay top-performers, and estimate the expected length of the sales cycle. The longer the cycle, the longer it will be until an organization sees the returns on their investment in new headcount.
Match Territory Penetration to Sizing Needs
As important as it is for leaders to set a clear foundation for hiring through strategy, it’s a mistake to wait too long to expand their sales force. Analysis of 3,800 companies and their performance from PIMS (Profit Indicator Market Share) reveals that the strongest indicator of long-term profitability is market share. Companies that are launching a new product or expanding solution sets need to focus on aggressively penetrating new markets to gain an edge on competitors.
Unfortunately, some business leaders begin with a smaller sales force because they want to minimize headcount costs. They intend to hire more salespeople when costs equal profit. This “wait and see” approach can jeopardize market share, leading to compromised short and long-term profitability.
In fact, research from global consulting firm ZS Associate found that an understaffed sales team limits short-term revenue. Their team studied 11 health-care start-ups and found that the average sales force size was 46 percent smaller than it should be for optimal performance. Of that group, the start-up that outperformed their competitors in the short-term had the largest sales force.
The ZS study also found a strong correlation between sales force size and longer term performance. Specifically, they found that, “the sales force size that maximizes companies’ three-year profits is 18 percent larger, on average, than the size that maximizes one-year profits.” Building out a bigger sales force from the beginning sets the foundation for continued growth.
As cofounder of ZS Associates Adris A. Zoltners and writer Sally E. Lorimer summarize in Harvard Business Review, “The moment signs of success emerge, businesses should increase the size of their sales forces quickly and aggressively. Otherwise, they will forfeit sales and profits—and, perhaps, even their futures.”
Business leaders, therefore, need to find a balance between preparing a solvent sales strategy before hiring salespeople to execute that strategy.
Assess the Selling Capacity
Correctly sizing a sales team in a new market also depends on an analysis of the customers. That means leaders need to understand and segment customers to create a robust profile of each territory. From there, an organization can estimate how much selling time each segment requires. The collective, aggregated time from each segment gives leaders a clearer sense of the resources needed to support the customer base.
When leaders have identified the time each segment requires, they can consider the selling hours at the disposal of each rep. The average rep has ~1200 hours of potential time a year. However, organizations need to be realistic about how much time reps have to take away from that for non-selling activities. Plus, they have to account for the differences in performance — assuming that allsalespeople will perform and productively contribute at the same level can cause an underestimation in sales force size.
Just as executives consider selling capacity for reps, they need to make sure to add the infrastructure necessary to support and enhance selling activities. This can mean adding sales managers, inside sales reps, and administrative support personnel to the headcount. Even A-players can strengthen their impact when they have both administrative support and sales leadership. If you choose to hire sales reps beforehiring a manager, consider screening for candidates who are player-coaches: They possesses the experience and time to hone strategy, forecast sales, hold reps accountability, and support a healthy culture.
Building out a sales force means accounting for the structure and support required to achieve quotas.
Use a Sizing Tool or Technique
By considering the life-stage of the business and assessing both the role of territory penetration and selling capacity, leaders gain a general sense of the ideal sales force size. They can bring extra depth and accuracy to the process by implementing a scientific technique that balances common-sense approaches to these decisions.
Not only do statistical methods strengthen confidence in sales force sizing, they serve as definitive facts for leaders who need to advocate for sales resources within the organization.
Although data is not perfect, these two approaches help mitigate risk by pinpointing the optimal sales force size:
Return on Sales Optimization
Return on sales optimization (ROS) is widely practiced in sectors with large, established sales forces, but it’s just as relevant to growth organizations trying to break into new markets. This calculation takes into account both cost and revenue, maximizing profit on sales investments while limiting risk. When implemented correctly, it widens the operating profit margin.
As Business Executive summarizes, optimizing ROS depends on several pieces of data: the segment and product profitability, the sales response function, and the costs for sales employees.
Through this process, leaders compare the marginal profit contribution to the incremental cost attributed to each sales employee. The optimal sales force size is when the marginal profit is equal to the marginal cost — after that point, the ROS decreases because of the threshold effect and exhausted market potential.
Efficient Frontier Benchmarking
This “top down” approach is a tool that leaders can use to both target the most profitable sales force size and improve operational efficiency. Like ROI optimization, efficient frontier benchmarking (EFB) identifies the sales force size with the greatest possible return at a limited risk. However, unlike other methods, this calculation accounts for the differences in market potential and teams across regions, calculating the “efficiency frontier” among a company’s distinct sales units.
To accurately predict EFB, leaders need estimated data on sales revenue, sales costs, and sales activities in ten sales districts, as well as some general insights into competitors’ performance.
Dan Horsky and Paul Nelson of University of Rochester also details the formula for EFB in full, highlighting exactly how executives can use it to make a clear assessment of a sales force size. Their method works with each district, enabling leaders to identify the optimal sales size both on the local and national level. The formula specifically accounts for the changes in salaries, market potential, and expected performance based on geographical area:
SPEOP = The optimized number of salespeople in the district
g = Gross margin in the district
y = Number of salespeople
c= Fixed cost of a salesperson in the district
POTEN= Sales potential
The optimized sales force on the national level is the sum of the number of salespeople in each district. If companies have a limit to the number of salespeople they can hire nationally, EFB also gives leaders a tool to assess which markets would most benefit from those extra reps. In short, EFB is extremely precise and useful when executives input accurate data.
In conclusion…
These techniques and tips for sales force sizing in a new market ensure that business leaders pursue the right approach when executing their go-to-market strategy. Each method and tool moves beyond gut instincts to build on proven headcount sizing approaches that support long-term sales and profit growth.
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.
Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.
He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.
Whether you are happily employed, or actively looking for a new position, landing a sales job has become increasingly complex. A recent Wall Street Journal article revealed that 80 percent of corporate jobs are never advertised. Simply put, without expert knowledge, your career trajectory suffers.
Enter recruiters. Companies hire these professionals when a position is difficult to fill, when the role requires a very specific set of skills, or because they need the position filled quickly and lack the time or resources to get someone hired.
Recruiters specialize in building relationships with companies, sourcing and vetting top level candidates, and understanding the needs and goals of both. They are experts in the job market and understand hiring trends and challenges. But this is simply where it begins.
Here are the top ten reasons a sales recruiter is your best resource for advancing your sales career:
1. They know the industry
Much like sales professionals know their territory, sales recruiters understand their industry. They know who’s hiring, what positions are available, or will be in the future. Only a recruiter can provide this valuable insight.
2. They have access to jobs that will never be on the market
Often, recruiters are called to replace positions that are currently occupied or fill jobs that are new to the organization. These roles are rarely publicly advertised. The only way to find out about these potentially attractive positions is by partnering with a sales recruiter.
3. They have company insight
Retained recruiters spend a significant amount of time talking to and understanding companies since it’s their job to be informed and connected. These relationships enable recruiters to provide inside information about companies that aren’t readily available from other public sources. This provides an invaluable edge against other candidates applying for the same position.
4. Their reputation provides you with credibility
If you are qualified for a position, you can rely on the recruiter to get you an interview. They know the details of your work history and skillset and know how to effectively communicate this to the company. Since they have a relationship with the company, their advocacy of you is more meaningful than your resume.
5. They will improve your interview skills
In the process of working with a recruiter, you will become better prepared for the interview because he or she will have a good understanding of your prospective employer’s interview process. While good sales recruiters won’t “coach” you about what the interviewer is looking for or the kind of questions they may ask, they can provide you with advice on how to prepare for the interview and how to showcase your skills and accomplishments.
6. They save you time
The screening procedure during the interview process has multiple stages and takes a significant amount of time. Working with recruiters means it will be their time, not yours, spent matching your skills and experience with career opportunities.
7. They help you highlight your most relevant skillset
As someone who is an experienced sales expert, you likely have a great deal of sales experience to draw on when showcasing your work history. A sales recruiter can help you hone in on what’s most important in the role you are seeking.
8. They job hunt for you
Recruiters take much of the grunt work out of the process of making your next career move. Because they are constantly in contact with companies in the process of hiring, they are your source of insight and information when a potential role becomes available. You are able to remain employed in your career and only be contacted about positions that are in line with your career goals.
9. They help you negotiate
During the negotiation stage of hiring, your recruiter will act as a liaison between you and your new employer. He or she can provide you and the client with insight about the market of other compensation packages for roles at your level, helping you and your prospective employer negotiate a fair and effective compensation plan.
10. They provide support during the onboarding phase
During the onboarding process, top sales recruiters will prepare you for the first few days on the job, and then check in to ensure that you are getting comfortable in your new role. It’s a time when the recruiter can get any last feedback from the you as well.
Before choosing a recruiter to work with, do your research since not all recruiting firms are the same. Finding a great recruiter can mean the difference between remaining stuck in a less than fulfilling role and advancing your career to one that is meaningful and lucrative.
Click here for more industry insights and the latest on the B2B sales industry. To gain access to specialized B2B sales recruiters, submit your resume here.
Within the averaged 118 applications, you were among the 20% selected for an interview. But, you didn’t get the sales job. While it can be extremely frustrating when you fail to close your dream job, understanding the reasons behind your prospective employer’s decision is crucial to your success in future interviews.
That’s why at Peak, we put together an infographic detailing 7 reasons why you didn’t get the sales job:
An internationally known sales strategist, writer, speaker and entrepreneur, Shari Levitin is CEO of Shari Levitin Group, a global training and consulting firm with clients in over 48 countries, and one of Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies.
One of the biggest mistakes growth firms make when determining selection criteria for new sales hires is assuming that experience selling for large companies is desirable. However, selling for a start-up is very different than selling for an established company. While working for an industry leader, salespeople benefit from a 
As important as it is for leaders to set a clear foundation for hiring through strategy, it’s a mistake to wait too long to expand their sales force. Analysis of 3,800 companies and their performance from 
The ZS study also found a strong correlation between sales force size and longer term performance. Specifically, they found that, “the sales force size that maximizes companies’ three-year profits is 18 percent larger, on average, than the size that maximizes one-year profits.” Building out a bigger sales force from the beginning sets the foundation for continued growth.
When leaders have identified the time each segment requires, they can consider the selling hours at the disposal of each rep. The average rep has ~1200 hours of potential time a year. However, organizations need to be realistic about how much time reps have to take away from that for non-selling activities. Plus, they have to account for the differences in performance — assuming that all
Through this process, leaders compare the marginal profit contribution to 
