By 2025, the vast majority of the workforce will be comprised of Generation Y, also known as the Millennials. In order to compete in today’s global economy, employers will need to have a comprehensive understanding of Millennials in the workplace.

That is why at Peak Sales Recruiting, we wanted to gain a better understanding of the Millennial generation’s perception of a B2B sales career and their overall career preferences. We wanted to understand whether or not they had any interest in a B2B sales career and why, what attracts millennials to a certain job, and their workplace preferences.

The 2016 Millennials in the Workplace: Transforming the B2B Sales Industry Study reveals the answers to these questions.

Here’s a few key insights. Get the complete report by filling out the form below.

Millennials’ Perception of a Career in B2B Sales

At the beginning of the survey, participants were asked to rate their perception a career in business-to-business (B2B) sales. The chart above reveals the majority of respondents had a positive view of a B2B sales career, however, an alarming 17% did not know what B2B sales was. To find out what respondents said needs to be done to improve a negative perception, download the full study below.

Millennials Who Would Consider a Career in B2B Sales

As demonstrated in the pie chart above, the majority of respondents (62%) would consider a career in B2B sales. Following this question, respondents were asked to comment why they would or would not consider a career in B2B sales. The most common answers are revealed in the full study.

Millennials’ Top 5 Considerations When Choosing a Job

Participants in the study were asked to rate 21 items from most important (5) to least important (1) when considering a job opportunity. Each answer was given a point value and the sum of those points were converted into a mean number. The chart above reveals the Millennials’ top 5 considerations when choosing a job.

Work Preferences: Communication, Location, and Motivators

Study participants were asked to indicate their workplace communication, location, and motivational preferences. The results revealed that Millennials are seeking employers who are prepared to forgo traditional workplace arrangements and change their day-to-day operational practices.

HERE’S INSTANT ACCESS TO THE STUDY

relpost-thumb-wrapper

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

• About
• Latest Posts

Eliot Burdett

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

• 31 Must-Know Sales Follow-Up Statistics for 2024 Success – December 21, 2023
• 7 Success Characteristics That Define Top Performers – December 19, 2023
• 5 Reasons Your Top Employees Quit (Stop Doing This to Stop Them Leaving) – December 14, 2023

Appeal to these salespeople’s insatiable drive to advance their career, differentiate your company, and embrace the domino effect.  

Your competitor’s top salespeople are grounded in industry knowledge, know the pain points your prospects have and what decision makers to target, and have a proven themselves to be successful in selling environments similar to yours. Undeniably, these rival reps are a strategic addition to a sales team, ensuring that a company’s sales force keeps a competitive edge in the market.

The same momentum that pushes these top reps and managers to surpass quotas motivates them to take on bigger and better career opportunities. To recruit them from a competitor (or ‘poach’), hiring managers need to appeal to these salespeople’s insatiable drive to advance their career.

Through a discrete recruitment process and conversations that emphasize career advancement opportunities at a rival company, hiring managers can lure these stellar salespeople to their teams.

Use A Discrete Recruitment Process

Although some company leaders believe that lateral recruitment is controversial, poaching a competitor’s employees is ethically sound and can be a smart business move. Just as companies compete for clients, they need to be prepared to compete for top salespeople too and realize that not doing so can do more damage than good.

Ultimately, an unspoken “gentleman’s agreement” between companies not to poach each other’s reps is a detriment to the industry. When salespeople achieve their quotas year-over-year, they expect companies to actively recruit them. Without healthy competition between companies to attract these top salespeople by offering bigger accounts, better compensation packages, and better career paths, it can undermine a salesperson’s motivation to exceed expectations. In the long term, these agreements do little to further sales numbers and company company growth. In fact, it can damage a sales force’s morale. Recruiting from rival companies, however, does require more discernment than the traditional hiring processes.

Recruiters and hiring managers need to ensure that they use discretion when bringing in new talent to mitigate the risk of alienating their company or sacrificing goodwill between friendly competitors. Using these three methods for starting the recruitment process can shape whether the outcome will, indeed, be a smart business move. Each has advantages and disadvantages, so explore every option before making the first move:

Make Direct Calls

Direct calls are the most straightforward but controversial approach to recruiting a rival’s salespeople. Although they’re efficient and transparent, this tactic can also start a recruiting war and increase tension within an industry.

Because many employers monitor in-office communication, best practice is to reach out to personal email accounts and phones rather than to work accounts. Hiring managers need to be sensitive to the fact that reps don’t want their employers to know they’re talking to a rival company.

Use Third Party Recruiters

Recruiters offer companies a healthy distance from the hiring process. Unlike the organizations they represent, third party recruiters have no unspoken pact that they won’t poach a competitor’s salespeople. The number one obligation for recruiters is to attract the most qualified, exceptional salespeople for their customers — it’s only natural that they would reach out to high-performers from competing employers.

Third party recruiters can also talk to reps about a job at another company while keeping their client’s name confidential. This extra step ensures that only interested and qualified candidates learn that the job is at a rival organization, removing extra controversy from the situation.

Ask for Referrals

Referrals are another way to add subtlety to the recruitment process. If hiring managers know the sales talent they would like to recruit, they can look for personal or professional connections on LinkedIn or Twitter. Sales and hiring managers also benefit from asking business partners, clients, or friends to connect them with reps at another company.

Similarly, casual conversations at conferences, trade firms, and social events can lay a positive foundation to create a candidate pipeline. Ideally, these friendly encounters take place in a neutral location, giving company leaders the opportunity to gauge interest while still using discretion.

Differentiate Your Company

To benefit from a competitive advantage in the labor market and successfully recruit reps from rival companies, hiring stakeholders need to be prepared to outmatch their competitors. From the first moment of contact, hiring managers must communicate the selling points of their company, emphasizing the opportunities for new reps.

As Bastian Bergmann summarized in the Harvard Business Review:

“You are trying to sell complete strangers on your idea and get them to leave well-paid, attractive jobs for something completely unknown. In order for the recruits to trust you, you have to master telling your story. Others will only follow you if you really leave them with the impression that you yourself are completely captivated by the opportunity you’re presenting.”

To make a convincing argument to a high-performing sales rep that a different team is a better place for their talent, focus on these four attributes:

Present Your Company as an Industry Leader

The prestige of working for an industry leader — as well as the resources and administrative support that accompany employment at these leading organizations — is a major motivator for salespeople to change jobs.

Hiring managers need to start by emphasizing their organization’s current rate of growth, record of success, and position in the industry. Although start-ups do not necessarily have the advantage of a being an industry leader, they can emphasize substantial funding and the support of high-profile advisors, and underscore how their solution is going to disrupt the market.
While speaking to a competitors salespeople, get specific about practical details such as the ease of access to administrative support and the opportunities to clinch high-profile sales at a company. These seemingly small attributes can motivate salespeople to make big changes.

Develop and Maintain a Strong Employer Brand

Ninety seven percent of sales professionals read online reviews about a company before they accept a job offer. An organization’s reputation as an employer, both online and among industry professionals, is a significant part of attracting the best sales talent.

Develop a strong employer brand is more than just having a great online profile. The role of an organization’s culture play a major role in enticing happily employed, passive sales talent. We advocate for companies to bring attention to their on-boarding programs, the importance they place in maintaining their sales force’s work-life balance, and how they plan to invest in ongoing sales training and skills development programs.

Offer Market Leading Compensation

Top-performing salespeople know how much revenue they bring to a company, and they want to be compensated for their experience. To appeal to these star reps, offer generous compensation that surpasses competitors’. Here’s 6 compensation secrets that lead to great sales hires.

Research cited by Harvard Business School professor Doug J. Chung suggests that companies eliminate caps on commissions, which can be off-putting to top sales reps, and instead bolster overachievement commissions. When top salespeople at competing firms know that they’re rewarded for going above and beyond, they’re much more likely to switch organizations.

Provide Clear Advancement Opportunities

Craig Rosenberg, a co-founder at TOPO Inc., underscores how growth potential is a pivotal part of recruiting the best talent. “There are lots of salespeople and few managers so their internal growth opportunities are limited,” says Rosenberg. “I have met lots of salespeople who want to do a career change but then do the math on what they made with their biggest W2, and have trouble making the jump. That leaves them to try to advance, and in many cases, if they feel like they hit a wall, they have to jump.”

When recruiters or hiring managers interview to top performers, they should inquire into a candidate’s long term goals and match these aspirations with opportunities at their organization. Offering a clear path to advancement can open an otherwise closed conversation for leading reps.

Minimize Legal Liability

Before recruiters and other hiring stakeholders start interviewing a candidate, they benefit from asking if a salesperson is bound by a non-compete clause. If reps are not bound by a restrictive clause, the process can move forward as planned.

If your ideal hire is bound by restrictive agreement, you may still be able to hire them.  As Attorney Oberman Thompson summarized in a paper for the Employment Law Institute:

“Very few job applicants for key positions show up without any competition restrictions.  Hiring employers are recognizing that they may be able to make the hire and still avoid extensive and expensive litigation costs and risks; or that they have to take some risks to make good hires.”

Companies that want to recruit these salespeople need to weigh the expected benefits and potential liability of these hires. With the help of their legal team and or a third-party employment lawyer, hiring managers can minimize the chances of litigation through an intentional strategy. For example, companies might be able to tighten the terms of the hire so the activities of the job do not directly compete with the prior employer. Other firms may choose to include a contingency clause that only offers the position if the rep can perform his or her duties.

If hiring managers want to completely avoid risk, they can take a more creative approach altogether. Instead of directly recruiting current reps of a rival, managers can research past employees who left the organization for better opportunities elsewhere. Since the average non-compete agreement lasts two years, sales reps who have been working at other companies for two or three years could be cleared of the restrictive agreement.

Embrace the Domino Effect

According to a survey from Glassdoor, 68 percent of salespeople plan on searching for a new job in the next year, and 45 percent plan on looking for another position in the next three months. These statistics mean that even the most successful and satisfied reps are open to better opportunities at other sales organizations — they’re likely to follow the leader to another company.

If recruiters can successfully hire a top salesperson from a competitor, they can also encourage peers to reevaluate their choices, sparking a chain reaction among reps that can provide a steady talent pipeline for months. When allocating resources toward recruitment, concentrate on recruiting the best-of-the-best with the intention of further motivating other top performers to switch to a new organization.

Poaching Your Competitor’s Top Sales Talent Can Be Fruitful

These three practices — showing discernment while recruiting a competitor’s top reps, differentiating a company as an employer, and minimizing liability — ensures that companies maintain a strategic talent advantage in the field. These tactics not only bolster sales teams, they give a company inroads into their competitors’ clients, leading to further revenue down the pipeline.
*Note: none of the statements made in this article should be considered as legal advice and all recruiting activities should remain within the boundaries of the law.

relpost-thumb-wrapper

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

• About
• Latest Posts

Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting

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.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

• 20 Of Our Favorite Books About Sales Management and Sales Leadership – October 20, 2023
• How To Make Progress On Your Sales Goal Without A Sales Leader – September 15, 2021
• Augment Your Recruiting Strategy During “The Great Resignation” – July 26, 2021

Salespeople are the engine of a great company. They identify new opportunities for growth and are tasked with driving profitable revenue streams that propels organizations to achieve success. To help assess the effectiveness of their sales force, sales executives need to dive into their human capital metrics.   

When viewed as pieces of a larger puzzle, core human capital metrics illuminate the complex workings of a sales organization and a team’s ability to achieve aggressive growth targets.

We focused on eight metrics that offer sales executives a bird’s eye view of the human aspect of sales. Analyzing this data helps provide sales leaders with the knowledge they need to build a better sales team that consistently drives higher rates of growth and organizational success.

Here are the human capital metrics every VP Sales needs to track:

1. Turnover Rates

Turnover rates reveal an organization’s ability to retain employees. If a company can’t keep their salespeople happy, they incur high costs associated with additional recruitment, poor performance and low morale. A recent Sales Effectiveness Survey from DePaul University revealed that the annual turnover rate for inside sales roles is 26.9 percent and 27.7 percent for outside sales roles, with a reported average cost per turnover at $97,690.

High voluntary turnover rates indicate larger issues at play such as below-average or poorly constructed compensation plans, or even a toxic sales culure. Leaders who experience consistently high voluntary turnover need to analyze feedback from employees in exit interviews. Candid conversations with departing sales reps are the quickest ways to discern the primary reasons for their departures.

High involuntary turnover rates, or a high percentage of reps being fired, indicate a poor sales hiring process. In 2015, The Bridge Group conducted a study surveying nearly 350 B2B SaaS companies and determined that the average sales rep involuntary turnover rate was 20% – making up nearly two-thirds of all annual attrition. This alarming statistic reveals a lack of structure in the B2B SaaS industry’s sales hiring process. World-class companies understand the substantial cost of a bad sales hire, and implement effective sales hiring processes to lower involuntary turnover rates.

Sales executives also benefit from examining turnover rates to find out what level of salesperson is leaving the company. Andris A. Zoltners, PK Sinha, and Sally E. Lorimer break down sales turnover into three categories: top performers, poor performers with high potential, or low performers with low potential. High performance sales organizations retain top performers and poor performers with potential. Below is a detailed diagnosis for transforming the turnover rate for three pools of employees:

Low Performers with Low Potential

A high turnover percentage among low performers with no potential to improve their sales performance points to problematic recruitment. While it’s important for sales leaders to quickly rid their teams of consistent under performers, effective sales leaders determine the root causes of their poor hiring practices.

Reassessing the characteristics of the ideal candidate profile and adopting a structured and rigorous recruiting processes is proven to reduce the risk of hiring bad salespeople. For more information on how to construct a structured and rigorous sales hiring process, download our eBook – Sales Recruiting 2.0

Low Performers with High Potential

Front-line sales managers are vital pieces that should be relied upon to help executives discern if a low-performing rep offers significant future potential based on performance reviews and the exemplified traits of the rep. The best method to increase retention among this category of salespeople is to bolster coaching and manager support during and after the onboarding process.

A structured schedule for the first three months of employment paired with a system of accountability for sales managers helps ensure sales team members are set up to reach their potential. HBR also recommends giving these salespeople “warm leads so that they can taste sales success, which is the ultimate motivator.” For more information on how to develop a structured onboarding process for new sales hires, download our eBook – The First 90 Days.

High Performers

High performers are a sales organization’s greatest asset — and biggest asset that can be lost. To reduce voluntary turnover among top performers, sales executives need to offer the rewards that high performers look for in competing companies: extra recognition, more freedom, better pay, long-term incentives, and a pro-sales culture.

2. Average Revenue Generated Per Rep

The average revenue generated per sales rep sheds light on two important aspects of a sales team — overall performance and the fairness of sales quotas. Ryan Tognazzini at Sales Benchmark Index suggests that if the average revenue is low, managers need to assess the strength of the sales pipeline. As he told Inc. Magazine, “It’s literally getting down into the weeds and understanding if the pipeline is real, and if there’s hope.”

If, however, the average revenue generated by each rep rises significantly above the sales quota, sales executives need to increase their benchmarks. Research from academic Steven W. Martin reveals that over 80 percent of high-performing sales organizations increase their quotas every year. Successful companies strike a balance by aiming for higher quotas that are still attainable to reps.

3. Actual Revenue Generated Per Rep

The revenue generated by individual reps gives managers a clear metric to assess the contributions of each salesperson and the achievement of the team as a whole. Research from The Tas Group indicates that two-thirds of all sales people miss their quotas, and 23 percent of surveyed companies don’t know if their teams are hitting quotas or not.

By contrast, the top 10 percent of firms surveyed by CSO Insights report that 75.1 percent of their reps either met or exceeded quota, achieving 116.7 percent of their company’s benchmark. The best sales leaders conduct an analysis to ensure that revenue generated aligns with specific revenue goals, such as new account acquisition or renewals.

The actual revenue generated per rep also indicates rep performance, giving managers important information about their contributions to a company. However, Fred Shilmover, CEO InsightSquared suggests that managers take a deeper approach to assessing the impact of this metric in From Impossible to Inevitable:

“Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions and criticize or compliment anyone on the team right away. First look at their data to find out why and learn from it. A sales rep with highest consistent win rate may be talented at sales –– or talented at sandbagging/cherry picking. Don’t assume –– investigate.”

Sales executives can increase this metric by supporting individual performance with personalized talent development plans. Combined with heavy coaching, managers bridge skill gaps and radically impact the individual performance metrics of employees. This approach doesn’t mean that companies should keep bad hires, as research shows that top sales organizations cut chronic underperformers sooner rather than later.

4. Average Time to Hire

The average time it takes to hire a new employee from the original date of the job posting reflects both the competitiveness of the hiring market and the efficiency of a company’s recruitment process.

As baby boomers retire, the competition for top sales talent is steadily increasing. Bob Coughlin, a chief executive at Paycor, told The Wall Street Journal that a smaller sales talent pool meant his company missed out on $2 million more in 2015. Coughlin is not alone — the Harvard Business Review assessed that employers spent 41 days filling technical sales roles compared to 33 days for non-sales roles.

Glassdoor also supports that estimate; their researchers calculated 40 days as the average time it takes to hire a salesperson. Our own data suggests that across 3 industries (technology, professional services and industrial and manufacturing), the average time to hire a passive sales person — those who are actively and gainfully employed — and in the top 10% of their team, is 95 days.

The nature of a company’s recruitment processes also affects the average time to hire. By standardizing the procedure and focusing on qualified candidates who have achieved their sales targets year-over-year in the same or similar selling environments, sales leaders can decrease this metric over time.

An effective sales hiring process includes the following key elements:

1. Establish an agreement on how the position and company will be communicated to candidates
2. Establish a hiring benchmark and build an ideal candidate profile that defines critical sales skills and traits required for success in the position
3. Hunt for only qualified, top performing salespeople
4. Implement a rigorous and structured interviewing and assessment process
   1. 1st interview – high level qualification
   2. 2nd interview – skills and experience screening
   3. 3rd interview – behavioral interview, role playing, & psychometric assessment
5. Submit an offer to the candidate that is most likely to drive consistent, profitable revenue
6. Implement a structured onboarding program that sets new hires up for success

For more details on a standardized hiring procedure, read Hiring Salespeople: A Core Process You Must Perfect.

5. Average Ramp-Up Time

Companies measure ramp-up time in a range of different ways. However, a universal approach is to assess the time it takes for a rep to start significantly adding to a company’s revenue stream. (Based on the organization, executives can choose the most relevant supporting metrics, such as meeting monthly or quarterly quotas.)

The Revenue Conductor found a simple way to shorten the duration of this period. Their research concluded that employers who were most satisfied with their onboarding process experienced 34 percent faster ramp-up time for new sales reps. With the average ramp-up time of 10 months for B2B salespeople, a well-planned onboarding process can make a huge impact.

Increase early productivity by creating a structured training program that immerses new hires in company protocol and best practices. These onboarding programs should include both ‘classroom’ and in the field training, as well as concrete 30, 60 and 90-day goals that give new salespeople stepping stones toward yearly targets.

For a comprehensive look at how to implement an effective onboarding process, download our eBook: The First 90 Days – Your Guide to Making New Sales Hires Produce Fast.

6. Average Time to First Sale

The average time before a rep’s first sale serves as a benchmark for new hires. To coach new reps toward this goal, start tracking early and mid-stage indicators such as appointment setting and proposal generation to help build their confidence.

The most efficient leaders decrease the average time to first sale by hiring top performers. With 22 to 30 percent of salespeople lacking the skills to succeed at their jobs, recruitment is essential to ensure a strong average time to first sale.

If business development reps (BDRs) or inside sale reps struggle to make their first sale, sales managers need to change their tactics. Effective sales leaders direct new reps toward low-hanging fruit, giving them the opportunity to practice and get comfortable on the job. The positive momentum acquired by closing smaller transactional sales builds toward more lucrative deals.

7. Average Time to Revenue

The time to revenue is the average number of days between the date HR posted a job and when the new salesperson is profitable for their company.

Average Time to Hire + Average Ramp-Up Time = Average Time to Revenue

According to Imparta, a top performing salesperson will generate their first revenue in less than 6 months, while an average salesperson will generate their first revenue in 9 months, and a below average salesperson will generate first revenue in 12 months or later, or will never generate profitable revenue.

If the time to revenue surpasses nine months, it could be due to a slow recruitment process or a long ramp-up time. Leaders should investigate which challenge their organization faces — an instinct-based & non-objective hiring process, disorganized or poorly implemented onboarding processes, and poor front-line managers all contribute to a prolonged average time to revenue.

Tackle the issue by collaborating with HR and recruiters to examine each aspect of the recruitment and onboarding protocol to find the weak link. Since hiring and onboarding practices influence sales productivity, executives need to align those efforts with their goals.

8. Percentage of New Hires Meeting Sales Quotas

The percentage of new hires meeting their sales quotas points to the early successes (or failures) of new reps. If reps are failing to meet or exceed their quotas, an organization is hiring the wrong people or failing to train them correctly.

Mark Roberge, Hubspot’s Chief Revenue Officer, focuses on the coachability of job candidates during interviews. This approach ensures that new or ‘junior’ reps bring growth potential to their jobs. With the right coaching, great hires can steadily improve their performance. By pairing this method with a repeatable, formal sales process, Hubspot magnifies the early successes of their team.

Tom Hopkins, Sales Trainer and Chairman at Tom Hopkins International Inc., says that the answer to get more new hires to meet and exceed sales quota is through collaborative training and proper goal setting. “Before the training even begins, it’s important to set goals with the news hires – not for them. Salespeople will work much harder at achieving goals they’ve been involved in setting, than if goals or quotas are set by the company or a manager.”

Human Capital Metrics Matter

Human capital metrics are an integral aspect of assessing the rigor of a sales organization’s recruitment process, the effectiveness of its onboarding programs and the ability of managers to bring out the best in new hires. By tracking these statistics every quarter, sales executives gain a thorough understanding of what talent acquisition and retention methods are working — and what’s not working — within their organization.

relpost-thumb-wrapper

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

• About
• Latest Posts

Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting

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.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

• 20 Of Our Favorite Books About Sales Management and Sales Leadership – October 20, 2023
• How To Make Progress On Your Sales Goal Without A Sales Leader – September 15, 2021
• Augment Your Recruiting Strategy During “The Great Resignation” – July 26, 2021

The ability to recruit, coach, and develop effective sales teams; have a relentless pursuit of key strategic goals; and posses a long track record of high integrity transactions with peers, customers, and partners are all traits employers look for in their next (or first) VP Sales. But in order to attract and hire a great VP Sales and outpace competitors who vie for the same stellar candidates, employers need to understand the job traits that a VP Sales values most when evaluating prospective employers.

Why? Great VPs of Sales – those who consistently lead their teams to achieve aggressive growth targets – are happily employed and understand that they are the most highly coveted salespeople on the market, so they won’t consider making a move to a new employer unless the perfect opportunity comes their way.

So, what job traits do great VP Sales value the most when considering a new career opportunity?

In no particular order, here are the 10 job traits every VP sales considers when evaluating a career opportunity from a prospective employer:

1. An offering they believe in

If an executive decides to join a new company, it’s because they believe in what the company is selling. World-class employers understand this, and, when sales recruiting, clearly detail to candidates how their offering fills a need in the market, has an excellent market reputation, and will continue to solve complex business problems today and into the future.

2. A compensation plan that is above market

The number one thing all salespeople consider when evaluating an employment opportunity is compensation. A typical VP Sales compensation package will be comprised of a six-figure base salary plus additional incentives, such as equity, stock options, and bonus plans.

• Base Pay – A VP Sales expects to have the highest base salary on the sales team because of the functions they perform. Base salaries for the position, regardless of company size, industry, or location, start at $100k, with an average base salary of $124,193.
• Commission – A VP Sales expects commissions and bonuses to equal about 30% of their total compensation package.
• Equity and Stock Options – If the company is private, a VP Sales will expect equity, especially if the company is a startup and does not have the capital to offer a base salary that is at or above market.

No VP of Sales is going to consider a job that doesn’t have a lot of financial potential, whether that comes through a traditional commission structure or substantial equity.

“A VP of Sales wants to make money and wants to make a lot of money on their stock. They want to make coin. Anyone that’s good is not going to join your company at $5,000 or $20,000 MRR a month, it’s just not going to happen.” – Jason Lempkin – CEO Echosign.

3. Colleagues who share their vision

If a VP doesn’t respect (or like) their colleagues, or if their colleagues don’t respect their strategic vision or management approach, it’s going to be difficult for them to be effective. When a VP is assessing a new opportunity, they want to know who they’ll be working with on a day-to-day basis. They want colleagues who will execute their vision, as well as a leadership team that supports their strategic philosophy.

4. A company that understands its corporate objectives

Every company needs a corporate strategy to succeed in today’s marketplace. A good corporate strategy determines where resources are allocated, how the competition stacks up, what markets to compete in, and what advantages the company has in order to meet their growth targets.

When a VP considers a new role, he or she wants to see that the leadership has outlined clear goals and needs for the business, and that they’re committed to helping the VP execute their sales strategy.

Whether the company is an early-stage startup that requires the VP to create a sales process, or is an established business that needs a VP revamp existing processes, the VP Sales wants to join a company that understands their corporate strengths, weaknesses, and growth objectives.

5. Opportunities for growth and change

Great salespeople will only join a company that offers growth, change, and the ability to rise within the organization. In fact, one in three employees leave their jobs because of a lack of career growth.

When a VP of Sales assesses a new opportunity, they want to know if the company is private and going public, or if there is an opportunity to move into a C-level position. They assess the role beyond the moment, looking to the future to see how they’ll be able to grow within the organization. Specifically, they will want to know if there is the opportunity to become the VP over a larger territory, or move into an Executive VP, Global VP, or President role.

6. Ability and autonomy to solve challenges and provide real value

When assessing a new position, a VP wants more than just a large paycheck and a great product. They want to know that their future employer will give them the autonomy necessary to make significant changes and solve critical problems that will drive selling costs down and revenue up.

At the VP level, autonomy is extremely important. VPs want to have complete P&L control over their region and staff. If they feel the leadership team will micromanage and try to direct their every move, they will pass on the position, regardless of the compensation or room for growth offered.

“A Sales VP won’t be content if they’re not able to provide value to an organization. The best VPs want to be confronted with challenges they’re excited to solve.” – Brent Thomson, CSO, Peak Sales Recruiting.

7. A proven leadership team

When a VP Sales is assessing a prospective employer, they want to know everything about its corporate leadership team including:

• Who is on the existing management team
• The structure of the management team
• The background of the management team
• How much autonomy the management team intends to provide the candidate

Sales VPs also want to know that they will have the ability to learn from other proven executives who possess unique business experiences and who value their perspective on how to achieve aggressive growth targets.  

8. Organization stage

When a VP is considering joining a company, they want to know what stage the business is in.

Is the organization in the compete stage, where there is a deep need to build and grow a new sales team, or is the organization in the maintain stage, when there is an established sales force, but a need to continue to grow revenue without adding headcount?  

Why does organization stage matter to a VP? Running a medium-sized $50 million sales department requires a much different skill set than leading a large billion-dollar sales organization.

When a VP Sales is assessing a new opportunity, they want to understand the challenge they’ll be faced with and if their experiences and skills sets will help them be successful. Will they need to come in and build out a sales team, or overhaul an existing process? The best VPs enjoy a challenge, are intrigued by the possibilities, and will join a company if they feel they can make a difference.

9. An ethical approach to selling

There are some sales teams that will do virtually anything to make a sale, and there are others who work to make ethical choices about selling.

Unethical sales practices damage sales numbers, and repels salespeople from joining the team. These unethical practices include executives and reps making promises about product developments that cannot be fulfilled, misrepresenting products or promotions to close deals, and not being transparent about price changes.

When a VP sales is scouting a new opportunity, they look carefully at the company’s sales philosophy and ask the following questions:

• Are the target numbers realistic?
• Are the sales methods ethical?
• Are the sales practices and approaches something I’m comfortable with?

10. Being set-up for success

If an organization doesn’t offer the best tools, infrastructure, and budget to its sales team, it won’t be very attractive to an established VP Sales. In order for VPs to be successful, they need the organization behind them, and want the right tools and processes to make their sales goals a reality.

For a list of the top sales management tools, read our Sales Management Tools Study results.

Job Traits for VP Sales

Proven VPs are highly sought-after by employers. In order for them to accept a new role, they must feel that the new opportunity provides the challenges, products, leadership and compensation that they need to be successful.

relpost-thumb-wrapper

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

• About
• Latest Posts

Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting

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.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

• 20 Of Our Favorite Books About Sales Management and Sales Leadership – October 20, 2023
• How To Make Progress On Your Sales Goal Without A Sales Leader – September 15, 2021
• Augment Your Recruiting Strategy During “The Great Resignation” – July 26, 2021

Top-performing salespeople have one thing in common – they consistently achieve their sales goals. To recruit these talented and rare salespeople, employers need to take a hard look at what they are offering prospective candidates, and if they are doing what it really takes to attract ‘A’ players.

Hiring managers fail to acquire top performes when they don’t evaluate how their company is positioned to attract salespeople who are not actively looking for a new employer. “Organizations rarely examine what they can specifically offer to entice salespeople who are happily employed and progressing well in their career, and so they are continually disappointed by their recruiting,” says Brent Thomson, CSO at Peak Sales Recruiting. Companies need to evaluate the financial and intangible attributes they offer salespeople and outpace competitors who vie for the same stellar candidates.

Elite salespeople look for a specific set of characteristics from employers: they want to work for market leaders with strong value propositions that offer high earning potential and career growth opportunities. Shifting a company to embody these characteristics sets a clear path toward attracting and hiring the best talent.

Here are 3 ways employers can attract the best sales talent:

1. Define and Build an Employer Brand

An attractive employer brand is the primary reason great salespeople want to work for a particular company. As defined by Richard Mosley, author of The Employer Brand, this term denotes “an organization’s reputation as an employer, as opposed to its more general corporate brand reputation.” LinkedIn reports that 59% of executives are investing more in their employer brand in 2016 than last year, bringing new emphasis to marketing for job candidates. Appealing to top salespeople requires that executives develop their employer brands with these aspects in mind:

Position the Company as a Market Leader

Top salespeople are always interested in working for industry leaders or high-growth companies that are poised to dominate their sector.  If there’s no track record of success at a company and reps aren’t making quota, great salespeople are savvy enough to realize it’s not their best option to make a move. Respected employers, therefore, demonstrate their legitimacy by leveraging key client logos in the recruiting process and highlight the number of reps making and exceeding quota. By emphasizing their reputation and resources, they gain the attention of top talent.

Offer a Pro-Sales Culture

High-performing sales reps seek respect, not just within their immediate teams, but throughout an organization; they want to work for companies that value what they do. Therefore, in order to recruit top talent, sales executives need to highlight their pro-sales culture and underscore how they recognize that their sales reps are the primary drivers for company growth.

This kind of pro-sales culture stands out to prospective candidates because it emphasizes both team-wide collaboration and individual competition; both of which are job qualities that great salespeople want to experience on a day-to-day basis. A strong community of support that pushes salespeople to meet consistently high standards appeals to leading sales reps. Ideally, hiring managers emphasize this balance, as well as the willingness of a company to support the autonomy and ingenuity of their sales teams.

Create a Strong Career Track

To encourage top talent to join their company rather than a competitor’s, executives need to offer prospective candidates more than a better job. Top talent appreciates educational opportunities to build on their skillset and learn different selling methodologies, and want to know that a potential employer will provide the support necessary for them to build extensive sales portfolios. Outstanding companies combine these opportunities with fast career tracks, giving salespeople more agency to take on bigger accounts and move into management opportunities.

2. Offer Market Leading Compensation

If business leaders want to attract sales professionals with strong records of success, they need to provide competitive compensation. Mark W. Johnston and Greg W. Marshall, authors of Contemporary Selling: Building Relationships and Creating Value, explain why:

“Holding down sales compensation may appear to be a convenient way to hold down selling costs and enhance profits, but this is usually not true in the long run. When buying talent in the labor market, a company tends to get what it pays for. If poor salespeople are hired at low pay, poor performance will almost surely result. If good salespeople are hired at low pay, the firm is likely to have high turnover, with the resulting higher costs for recruiting and training replacements and lost sales.”

Top-tier talent only works for above-average compensation that matches their skill set, experience level and selling potential. When targeting these salespeople, executives need to offer premium compensation with simple-to-calculate commissions that have an immediate impact on their income.

3. Emphasize Job Meaning and Impact

The sense of meaning salespeople expect to experience on the job also motivates high performers to change companies. Patty McCord, who worked as the chief talent officer at Netflix for 14 years, believes that advertising meaningful work is an integral aspect of any recruitment plan.

At start-ups, in particular, sales reps can be part of a growth story, helping to form a company from the ground up. Instead of investing in outrageous perks — in-office bars, razor scooters, and pre-paid Uber accounts — emphasize the opportunity for employees to take ownership of their role within a company and have a material impact.

According to Fast Company, employees who derive this sense of meaning from their work are three times as likely to stay at their company, while reporting 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and 1.4 times more engagement on the job. Executives also need to recognize the role of these less tangible factors in motivating high-performing candidates to accept to a new position and stay with the company for the long-term.

Offer The Best to Get The Best

Talented salespeople are highly sought-after — they are used to receiving numerous job offers from a range of employers. Directly competing with other companies for a limited pool of top-tier candidates requires that leaders emphasize their employee brand, offer above-average compensation and stress the potential for each job candidate to impact their company in a meaningful way.

relpost-thumb-wrapper

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

• About
• Latest Posts

Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting

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.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

• 20 Of Our Favorite Books About Sales Management and Sales Leadership – October 20, 2023
• How To Make Progress On Your Sales Goal Without A Sales Leader – September 15, 2021
• Augment Your Recruiting Strategy During “The Great Resignation” – July 26, 2021

When millennials think about B2B sales roles, they imagine sleazy deals and rounds of golf. These deep-seated misperceptions fail to capture the needs of a 21st-century sales landscape and overshadow the reality of a fulfilling career in sales. Based on a false understanding, millennials forgo these lucrative, meaningful jobs to pursue other options.

Research from Harvard Business School’s U.S. Competitiveness Project revealed that in 2014, employers spent 41 days trying to fill technical sales jobs compared with an average of 33 days for non-sales roles over a 12-month period. This lag time reflects waning interest in sales jobs, a devastating prospect for companies. Without a clear channel for talent acquisition, companies will fail to meet aggressive growth targets moving forward. The long-term results — loss of revenue and reduced market share — could cripple even the most successful companies.

In this article, we break down millennial recruitment into its key elements, naming three reasons why it’s imperative for hiring managers to change their approach, and three complementary solutions they can use to transform their recruitment strategy in 2016:

An Image Crisis: Why Millennials Matter to Sales

Whether millennials realize it or not, characters such as Dwight Schrute in the Office and Jordan Belforte in Wolf of Wall Street falsely shaped their understanding of sales. These illusions stick with young people and amplify other hesitations about a career in sales:

• Millennials assume that the rise of digital marketplaces threatens sales as a viable career path. Young people perceive sales as a dying profession, although there’s significant evidence to the contrary.
• Also known as “the trophy generation,” millennials value constant praise. They struggle with the idea of a competitive environment that necessitates rejection.
• High commission rates signal risk to millennials, who naturally veer toward stable careers.

The prevalence of these doubts necessitates that executives rebrand sales as a cutting-edge career with strong financial incentives. When millennials understand the reality of these roles, they are much more likely to commit to sales jobs.

William Steigner, instructor and coordinator of Professional Selling Program at the University of Central Florida, wrote in The Huffington Post that when students first sign up for his classes, only 25 percent express interest in sales as a career. However, once they understand the dynamics of the industry, that number doubles to around 50 percent.

Dynamic B2B salespeople rely on heavy analytical skills, technical immersion and long-term relationship building. Sales executives and recruiters need to take the initiative to reframe sales according to these characteristics and reposition sales careers to appeal to the millennials.

Here are three reasons making this extra effort is imperative is the future of sales:

1. Baby Boomers are Retiring

An increasing number of baby boomers retire from sales every year, bringing urgency to millennial recruitment. Despite assumptions otherwise, Gallup polls show the age of retirement has stayed constant in the short term. Most notably, in To Sell is Human, Daniel Pink points to labor statistics that show some companies may lose up to 40 percent of their sales talent by the end of 2016.

The lack of millennial salespeople means sales teams company can’t relate to a new generation of buyers. According to Google, 50 percent of B2B buyers are individuals between the ages of 18 and 34. The same research indicates that millennial employees exert influence over B2B purchasing decisions, even if the final approval comes from the C-suite executives. Without sales professionals in the millennial demographic, companies are unable to tap into their target buyers.

2. You Need Millennials To Scale Your Services

After executives build a company, they enter the “compete” stage, during which businesses are likely to fail if they can’t scale sales teams to match demand. Steve W. Martin, a sales and strategy professor at University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, listed this challenge in the Harvard Business Review as one of the four reasons companies fail. To grow, business leaders need a robust recruitment effort that aligns with corporate expansion objectives.

The Wall Street Journal highlighted a powerful case study illustrating the effects of Martin’s hypothesis. Paycor Inc., a SaaS (software-as-a-service) company based in Cincinnati, missed their hiring goals for sales reps in 2014. This personnel shortage, which one of their executives attributed to low millennial interest in sales, meant that Paycor lost out on $2 million of revenue in 2015.

3. Emerging Sales Models Require Digital Natives

Millennials, more than any other generation, are equipt to use technology to evolve with a changing sales funnel. They innately understand concepts such as inbound marketing, prospect data and social selling, all of which are transforming the B2B sales model.

As PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) summarized in their global generation study, “Millennials’ use of technology clearly sets them apart….This is the first generation to enter the workplace with a better grasp of a key business tool than more senior workers.” With 59 percent of millennials on Twitter compared to 31 percent of baby boomers, millennials are more apt to engage leads through social media.

A 2012 study in the American Business Journal revealed that social media use positively correlated with performance among B2B salespeople. Eliot Burdett, CEO of Peak Sales Recruiting emphasizes the importance of these skills, “The top salespeople are technologically adept and inclined to use every tool and piece of data available to them to win business.” Companies need millennial salespeople to support increasingly digital strategies for business development and client acquisition.

Rebrand Sales Roles

A sales executive’s clearest path to a new generation of employees is to replace old stereotypes with a much more enticing package: consultant-style roles based on purpose-driven work and entrepreneurial thinking. By rebranding sales roles, sales and human resource leaders play to job attributes that appeal to millennials and heighten the chance of a positive match.

Sales as External Consulting

The average millennial doesn’t know that modern sales positions require consultant-style reports, deep analytical thinking and the fine-tuned ability to negotiate. To attract high-performing young professionals, debunk the age-old adage about natural salespeople and emphasize problem-solving and data-driven skills.

In a presentation at Forrester’s 2015 Sales Enablement Forum, principal analyst Andy Hoar supported this approach. Hoar suggested that salespeople fall into four categories: order takers, navigators, explainers, and consultants. Of these four sales archetypes, Hoar explains that the need for “consultants” continues to dominate the selling ecosystem.

These consultants guide prospects through a complex problem-solving process, matching their needs with the right services. “Consultants are a qualitatively different bunch of people,” Hoar said. “They can explain abstract concepts; they can solution sell; they can build relationships. They’re true consultants.” During the recruiting process, sell the sales-as-consultant concept, rebranding available positions to appeal to high-achieving college graduates.

“Sales has evolved from selling features/benefits to solution selling and now insight or thought leadership. A career as a thought leader delivering significant business value will be a very attractive option for the next generation of sales leaders.” – Gary Symth, Founder, Sales Elite

Purpose-Driven Work

The Deloitte Millennial Survey found that 77 percent of millennials chose their place of work based on the “sense of purpose” at the organization. Deloitte also linked these purpose-filled companies with significantly higher recruitment, job satisfaction and financial success.

Unbeknownst to most millennials, the ability to provide value is the foundation of a positive sales experience. Lisa McLeod, the author of Selling with a Noble Purpose, encourages companies to connect their strategy to a larger motivation that entails helping clients. This message of ‘sales as an act of goodwill’ is integral to recruiting millennials.

Hiring managers should share the purpose of their corporate brand and emphasize the role of buyer empathy in a job well-done to entice passive millennials. As Brian Halligan, the CEO of Hubspot summarizes, “The job is no longer to sell as much software as possible. It’s to help the customer get as much out of the software as possible.” This emerging approach to sales not only drives revenue, it appeals to the moral compass of a new generation.

Increased Responsibility

Salespeople have the power to author their own career: there are no limits to earning potential or the speed with which a salesperson can move up the ranks — unlike in other departments, it’s rare employees face red tape if they’re able to learn and perform.

The entrepreneurial aspect of sales means that these roles appeal to self-starting millennials who value extra responsibility and independence. Salespeople, for example, embrace the unique opportunity to take risks and experiment with their approach to clients without many constrictions.

Framing salespeople as entrepreneurs within larger organizations taps into the self-starting and creative mentality that millennials seek from prospective employers. The best sales reps flex their creative muscles and follow their own judgement when it comes to making a sale, rather than following rigid protocol. Furthermore, it is a requirement that sales reps rely on ingenuity to lead independent projects, which millennials frequently cite as a significant aspect of their work lives.

Reach a Different Set of Recruits

Millennials are increasingly college educated, from diverse backgrounds, and turning toward program-based sales training to solidify their careers. To appeal to the most promising professionals, employers need to expand beyond standard recruitment efforts and target a specific set of prospects.

College-Educated Millennials

Sales has reemerged as a dynamic field within higher education during the last ten years. Over 100 universities and colleges prepare their students with formal sales training, and the majority of marketing graduates start their careers in sales roles. These emerging programs align with an increasingly complex marketplace for B2B sales, which require new professionals to adapt and grow quickly. Qualified millennials exhibit analytical thinking and strong market insights grounded in higher education.

Recent graduates with formal sales training offer additional skills beyond the degrees in economics, marketing or business. According to the Sales Education Foundation, these sales program graduates onboard 50 percent faster and are 30 percent less likely to turnover than non-program employees. By focusing on a college-educated cohort, employers make a strategic investment in their sales team’s future and help offset the risk of bad hires.

Diverse Sales Personnel

As of 2014, women were 33 percent more likely than men to earn a college degree by the time they reached 27 years of age. At the same time, forty-two percent of millennials self-identify as minorities. Emphasizing diversity in recruitment efforts helps to ensure that hiring managers choose the best candidates for sales roles, not the ones that fit a perceived demographic. Not only is this practice tied to increased business performance, but it also overturns persistent myths that sales operates like a good ol’ boys club rather than a progressive team that values performance.

It’s important that human resources leaders recognize the inherent bias in frequently used sales language. When recruiters develop job descriptions and promotional materials, they benefit from using gender-neutral phrasing. During interviews, leave terms like “play with the big boys” and “get in bed with clients” behind in favor of case studies and examples that include people of both genders. Female millennial workers, in particular, need to know that collaborative, innovative and intelligent women are exactly what the industry needs.

Exhibiting “performance bias,” which experts define as giving inferior sales support and assignments to women, is a major detractor from recruiting efforts. To hire the most promising salespeople, pioneer diversity as a value among every team. Highlighting how each candidate will experience equal opportunities to acquire lucrative clients and achieve internal promotions is the key to ensuring diverse candidates want to work for a company.

Program-Based Recruitment

Through program-based recruitment, hiring managers can reach a diverse range of high-performing college graduates who see the potential in a new career trajectory. By gaining referrals, working in conjunction with universities and building on sales competitions and internships, employers build a sustainable talent pipeline:

• Employee-referral programs – When successful young salespeople recruit peers, it breaks down barriers and builds interest. These programs also reduce talent acquisition costs and shorten the hiring process. Plus, referred hires are more likely to stay at a company after one year, increasing retention rates.
• College recruiting – Companies can partner with universities that offer undergraduate and graduate sales courses to create clear channels for recruitment. These pre-trained employees understand best practices in sales and require less hands-on training.
• Sales competitions – Sales contests identify top-performing individuals through role-play scenarios. The software company Acquia, for example, started a sales competition at Bryant University to recruit young talent. One hundred and forty participants presented mock sales pitches to five recruiters, giving Acquia the opportunity to handpick top performers for interviews.
• Internship programs – Hiring rising seniors in college for paid, on-site internships gives teams extra insight into promising candidates. Interns are already familiar with a company and its industry, accelerating the onboarding process.

Transform Your Culture and Compensation

Corporate culture and compensation packages are two of the most impactful aspects any job decision, especially for millennials. Companies that adjust their approaches to these topics gain a competitive edge as employers.

Softened Compensation Packages

Millennials are the most financially risk-averse generation since the depression. They took on enormous debt to graduate from college and witnessed their parents move through the financial crisis. Plus, without the buffer of savings, they are most likely living from paycheck to paycheck.

Companies that ‘soften’ their compensation plan appeal to a new generation that values consistency over commissions. Leading employers are already leaning in this direction by increasing base salaries, which help taper the sense of risk around sales-rep jobs. The Wall Street Journal, for example, reports that base portion pay increased 11.7 percent from 2010 to 2014.

Some technology companies are taking this approach to compensation a step further. At Slack, a team communication software company, salespeople receive bonuses based on customer satisfaction rather than straight commissions. A radical departure from the status-quo, policies like Slack’s speak to millennials who value the long-term benefits of a positive relationship more than its immediate effect on a revenue stream.

Clear Advancement Opportunities

World-class employers don’t pitch a position; they pitch a career. Despite the association with risk, sales teams are essential to every business — they don’t go out of style. Millennial workers list their growth and development as one of their highest priorities at work (second only to personal wellbeing). Hiring managers and sales leaders need to respect this hierarchy of needs by creating avenues for vertical growth.

The most successful recruiters give millennials multiple advancement tracks. Promotional paths are clear and accessible, keeping senior sales roles and management opportunities within sight. In every conversation with a potential employee, they articulate the promotion process and list clear examples of sales reps who have furthered their career in the company.

Employers that prioritize career advancement opportunities benefit from increased interest among millennials and higher retention rates regardless of the position they’re recruiting for. In an industry with a notoriously high turnover, an emphasis on professional growth is one way to build a strong, loyal team.

Job Flexibility and Autonomy

Millennials value location-independence and personal freedom, both all of which align well with sales roles. It’s rare to find companies that insist sales professionals even sit at a desk in a traditional office setting — as long as they meet their quotas, they have the freedom to manage their own time.

“For their part, millennials do not believe that productivity should be measured by the number of hours worked at the office, but by the output of the work performed,” says PwC. The best employers recognize this approach to work and emphasize the flexibility that sales roles offer. In particular, millennials’ fluency with technology turns remote work into a realistic option, and the influx of innovative communication tools makes it easy for sales managers to oversee remote reps.

Road warriors also receive the benefit of paid travel, which is a major incentive for millennials according to Expedia’s Future of Travel Report. The most effective sales recruiters portray sales roles as a means to building relationships across the world within a flexible team that values their time.

Millennials will make up 50 percent of the workforce in 2020. Companies that fail to tailor their sales recruitment efforts to this demographic will not be able to retain or increase the size of their sales teams. By rebranding sales roles, appealing to college-educated millennials and evolving their culture to match the needs of young workers, executives strengthen their positioning as an employer of choice for the next generation of B2B sales talent.

For more information on Millennials’ sales career preferences and ideal workplaces, download Peak’s 2016 Millennial Study. 

relpost-thumb-wrapper

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

• About
• Latest Posts

Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting

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.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

• 20 Of Our Favorite Books About Sales Management and Sales Leadership – October 20, 2023
• How To Make Progress On Your Sales Goal Without A Sales Leader – September 15, 2021
• Augment Your Recruiting Strategy During “The Great Resignation” – July 26, 2021

San Jose is the largest city in Silicon Valley, home to a world-class roster of companies that have defined our era and irrevocably influenced the global economy. The region is a base for established Fortune 500 businesses while new, innovative startups are fueled by the highest concentration of venture capital in the world. The area offers world-class universities, produces the most U.S. patents, and attracts top talent to usher in the latest cutting-edge technologies.

San Jose is an ideal city for growth-minded leaders who want to build a team of the best salespeople in the country. Indeed, the Milken Institute ranked it as the #1 U.S. metropolitan area where jobs were created and sustained in 2015. The area is prosperous, and its rapid growth presents an ever-changing sales hiring landscape in which companies compete for talent.

Here’s how to successfully hire top salespeople in San Jose, with a look at the region’s sociocultural landscape, local job market, key drivers of economic growth, business challenges, and sales-specific hiring and compensation trends.

San Jose and Silicon Valley: an overview

Silicon Valley refers to a group of cities that were defined by the semiconductor industry of the late 20th century and named for the silicon used to make computer chips. The area is still dense with high-tech engineering and manufacturing companies, but today, it is best known for the internet and software companies that have originated in the area over the last two decades. The established giants and brand-new startups in the area make it the global epicenter of innovation in technology. San Jose is situated at the southernmost point of the Silicon Valley and accounts for most of the area, sprawling over 180 square miles.

Its neighboring cities are impressive and world-renowned in their own right. North from San Jose, on the peninsula that separates the Pacific Ocean from the San Francisco Bay, are a group of cities that includes Cupertino (Apple headquarters), Mountain View (Google headquarters), Menlo Park (Facebook headquarters), and Palo Alto (Stanford University). Palo Alto is also home to Sand Hill Road, the world hub of venture capital firms. San Francisco lies at the very northern point of the peninsula, about an hour and a half’s drive from San Jose — a cultural mecca and hotbed of young companies developing mobile applications, cloud-based software, biotech inventions, social media tools, and more.

These Silicon Valley cities form an interconnected network of suburban residential neighborhoods dotted with commercial areas and small downtowns. Residents commute across borders daily, living and working and playing in the mix of cities that blend to form a world-renowned nexus of tech businesses, startups, and venture capital.  

As the largest city in Silicon Valley, San Jose gets the lion’s share of its residents — and companies have taken note. San Jose boasts a population of one million residents and is the tenth largest city in the United States. It’s the largest metro area in northern California (for comparison, Los Angeles and San Diego dominate southern California with populations of four and one and a half million, respectively).

Silicon Valley’s cultural mindset values innovation, tinkering, big bets, and meritocracies, leading to a professional population that embraces risk and late nights in the office in search of big payoffs and products the world has never seen before. It’s also a self-aware culture, with shows like HBO’s hit “Silicon Valley” and Amazon’s “Betas” that parody the slang and archetypical characters of startup life.

San Jose is delightfully diverse, with immigrant populations from all over the world forming the majority of the workforce. It is also one of the most highly educated communities in the nation; over 46% of adults in the area hold a bachelor’s degree and 21% hold a graduate degree (while the national level is 11%). 30,000 students from San Jose State University supply local companies with recruiting opportunities for interns and new grad talent, and over 10,000 new science and engineering graduates come from other top area universities each year, including Stanford, Santa Clara University, and University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz. Local sales education programs include business programs from San Jose State, Notre Dame de Namur University, and Stanford’s MBA program. Professional groups and networking sites like Meetup.com give local sales talent ongoing opportunities for education, training, collaboration, and networking.

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group surveyed 218 Silicon Valley CEOs in 2015, and not surprisingly, they cited the entrepreneurial mindset (83%) and access to skilled labor (81%) as the top two reasons for doing business in the area.

Larry N. Gerston, Ph.D., a San Jose State University researcher leading the study, sums it up well: “The Valley’s stellar achievement is not an accident. Brilliant technologists and scientists, innovators, visionary corporate leaders and a 21st-century workforce have produced an environment nurtured by world class universities. Investors have provided incredible support for creative ideas, many of which have become the outputs of booming companies.”

And let’s not forget the quality of life.

San Jose gets an average of 301 days of sunshine per year, with a mean temperature of 60.5 degrees Fahrenheit. It is a lively cultural center with family-friendly arts and entertainment and has a growing young professional population in the downtown area.

The city offers many museums, including the beloved Tech Museum of Innovation and the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose. The arts are in full swing with the San Jose Repertory Theater, San Jose Ballet, San Jose Symphony, San Jose Jazz Festival, film festivals, musical theater companies, improv schools, and dance companies. Charming shopping districts like Santana Row are ideal for an evening stroll amid live music, frozen yogurt vendors, and designer shops. The active population partakes in rock climbing, yoga, and mountain biking in nearby hills, while sports stadiums and local hockey and soccer teams attract spectators (and a short drive away, Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium hosted the 2016 Super Bowl).

The San Jose International Airport links the city with countries around the world. Locally, residents can commute around the Bay Area with buses, light rails, train, and a planned subway expansion to San Jose connecting it to the rest of the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the transit options haven’t kept up with the economic and population booms, so vehicle traffic is a huge issue for residents. Innovative organizations are testing fixes for this problem, from Bike Share programs in San Jose, to rideshare startups like Uber and Lyft, to Google’s early pilot programs for self-driving cars.

San Jose’s subdivisions

San Jose’s sprawl can be divided into a number of neighborhoods, but for businesses, the city acknowledges three basic divisions: Downtown, North San Jose, and South San Jose.

Downtown San Jose stands out amid Silicon Valley suburbia and is marked by housing high-rises, a growing nightlife scene for young professionals, and many leading companies. Over 100 high-tech firms like Adobe and Oracle have buildings in Downtown alone, joined by top companies outside the tech sector, such as Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PWC, several banks, the San Jose Mercury News, and the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office. Stanley Yang, CEO of NeuroSky, explains why: “Our company has chosen Downtown San Jose, the region’s only urban experience, for its first headquarters. As the creative cultural center of Silicon Valley, Downtown helps recharge today’s top innovators.”

Nearby North San Jose is a growing live-work district spanning 5,700 acres of land, with the highest growth potential for jobs, housing, and office space. The local government boasts the area’s growth potential in terms of employment, employee housing, and office space, and the fact that 20% of residents in North San Jose have a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree. Stretching to the southernmost tip of Silicon Valley, South San Jose is a spacious residential area with stretching green spaces and parks; some companies are gradually moving to the area for the reverse commute and open space.

San Jose labor market and business landscape

San Jose is the land of opportunity for professionals, and sales talent is no exception. As Patrick Lo, CEO of Netgear in San Jose, puts it: “There is no other place in the world with the concentration of businesses, entrepreneurial energy, financial capital, talent pool of educated employees and government commitment to business development.”

San Jose had the #1 highest job growth rate in the nation in 2014 (4.6%) among United States metropolitan areas with a population of over 1 million people, and ranked #2 in the overall 200 largest metro economies. In 2015 alone, the Silicon Valley area added 58,000 jobs (11,000 more than the previous year); impressive compared with San Francisco, which added 18,000 in the same timeframe. According to the Milken Institute report, professional, scientific, and technical jobs grew 7% in 2014, while and information services jobs grew 23%. Over the past five years, the area added nearly 67,000 jobs in professional services.

A large share of San Jose’s economic boom comes from companies related to high-tech manufacturing for computers, electronic components, semiconductors, networking, telecommunications. The fastest-growing industry, meanwhile, is made up of high-tech services companies that create software and internet products. Other thriving industries include Energy and Cleantech, as well as financial, professional, and venture capital. The high wages and affluence that come along with tech jobs stimulate the local economy, driving housing, services retail stores, restaurants, landscaping, entertainment, healthcare, and more.

Economic growth and job opportunities are driven by large companies and tiny startups alike. Thirty-one Fortune 500 companies are located in the Bay Area; three of them are in San Jose itself, including internet retail giant eBay, Cisco Systems (networking), and Sanmina (semiconductors). In 2015, the metro area hosted 23 initial public offerings and served as a home for 8,600 startups (beating San Francisco, which had 7,400 startups).

The region’s unemployment rate reflects this at 3.9%, compared with the national average of 5.0%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What is driving growth?

The city’s population is projected to grow by 40% by 2040. It’s also making plenty of room for business growth — double the room, in fact. San Jose has 100 million square feet of currently-developed office space, and its capacity for office space is 200 million square feet.

Let’s not forget that growth in San Jose and the Silicon Valley are fueled by the highest concentration of venture capital investments in the world.

Venture capital investments reached $9.8 billion in 2015 — the highest level since the year 2000 during the dot-com era. Software companies received more than half of that capital. Patents and research in the area are key to the growth ecosystem and are a great indicator of innovation in the area. One out of every eight patents in the United States originates in San Jose, and registrations hit 17,000 in 2014 — a historical record. And with 8,600 startups based in San Jose, the city hopes to see some of them undergo rocketship growth.

The sheer concentration of companies in the area is a growth driver in itself. Companies move to San Jose to be close to potential customers, competitors, and world-class corporate partners — a key success ingredient for sales teams looking to build deep relationships with prospects and other business development contacts. In addition, much of Silicon Valley’s professional workforce lives in San Jose (it’s the most populous city in the area). Creating San Jose offices gives these employees better work-life balance and shorter commutes.

For these reasons, companies based in other parts of the Bay Area are expanding into North and Downtown San Jose — and tech giants are no exception.

Apple has signed impressive land and building deals in North San Jose that could bring over 10,000 employees into the area. Chad Leiker, vice president at commercial real estate brokerage Kidder Mathews, tells the San Jose Mercury News, “This is really incredible. It is aggressive. It’s a land grab … a major investment in Silicon Valley.”

Meanwhile, rumors circulate about Google scoping out land in the city, which Mayor Sam Liccardo welcomes with open arms. “It’s no secret that a good share of Google’s employees live in San Jose and we would certainly encourage Google’s expansion here,” Mayor Liccardo said. “We can accommodate a great deal of space for Google or other companies in San Jose. We have the advantage of scale. We offer ample room to grow that companies cannot find in some of our smaller neighbors.”

Samsung Electronics currently has its North American headquarters in San Jose, and recently announced plans to nearly triple its city footprint in a state-of-the-art building. “We will make this 1.1 billion square foot building a place of growth, with two thousand local jobs here,” said Dr. O.S. Kwon, CEO of Samsung Electronics.

Even smaller, growing companies headquartered in San Francisco are choosing to open offices in San Jose rather than expanding more of their the existing San Francisco operations. “This office will help our employees balance work and life so they can continue to make our customers successful, while also being a big help with recruiting new employees,” according to Sherry Lowe, the Vice President of corporate marketing at Splunk.

We also see growth activity in San Jose coming from businesses moving in from other countries. SMTC Corporation, a global electronics manufacturing corporation with 1,300 employees worldwide, moved its headquarters from Toronto to San Jose in 2015 to take advantage of the city’s location. “This new direction will better position SMTC Corporation to its investors while continuing to develop new customers globally and serve existing customers with the same world class service levels that we have been known for,” said Sushil Dhiman, the company’s CEO and President.

Sales hiring in San Jose

These businesses, large and small, depend on the best sales executive talent in the world to keep business booming. Demand is strong, and Peak Sales Recruiting has seen steady increases originating in the San Jose area: since 2010, the demand from late stage start-ups in the area to recruit senior-level reps and above has risen more than 15%.

These companies are looking for the best of the best. Sales hiring requirements for Peak Sales Recruiting have concentrated on the following advanced skillsets:

• Successful experience managing and growing an international territory
• Successful experience growing company-wide revenue
• Successful experience increasing profit margin
• Successful experience managing a sales team of 15+ reps
• Successful experience selling enterprise solutions

The local culture breeds top-notch sales teams, and some of San Jose’s top companies are led by CEOs with strong backgrounds in sales. Cisco’s Chuck Robbins, for example, was the Fortune 500 company’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, which includes the sales organization, until he was named CEO in 2015. David G. DeWalt, Chairman and CEO of cyber security giant FireEye, served as Vice President of Sales at Segue Software and Quest Software.

Strong, experienced, pro-sales executive teams that set clear sales objectives and growth targets are one of the primary factors that Silicon Valley’s best salespeople evaluate in prospective employers. And, of course, they assess compensation packages.

Sales salaries in San Jose

Pay levels in the San Jose region are much higher than the national average. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers in all industries in the San Jose-Santa Clara Metropolitan Area earn an hourly wage about 60% higher than the nationwide average.

Sales positions are no exception. Our data shows that companies requesting support from Peak Sales Recruiting in the San Jose area must offer compensation plans with on-target salaries that are 30% to 35% higher than the national average in order to successfully attract top producers.

Although pay levels for specific positions vary, the tables below provide a glimpse of how much higher sales job wages are in the San Jose area compared to national pay levels using the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. Annual wages for all occupations stand at $75,770 for the San Jose area, compared to $47,230 nationally. Sales managers come with a significant premium at $165,570 in San Jose (versus the national average of $126,040) while sales engineers command an average pay of $133,060 in San Jose (versus $104,660).

And, according to our data, sales salaries are rising:

• For senior sales representatives selling software and SaaS solutions, annual base salaries have risen 6.58% ($95,899 to $102,209) since 2014.
• Regional sales managers base salaries have also increased, with top performers earning a base of $125,192, up 5% from 2014.

Business challenges

The economic boom in San Jose comes with challenges for businesses looking to operate in the area and employ top talent. Companies and employees cite ongoing problems like traffic, the high cost of living, and the cost of doing business in a relatively restrictive regulatory environment with high taxes. Indeed, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s annual CEO survey found that 90% of the CEOs consider housing costs to be the largest issue for their employees, followed by traffic congestion (63%) and taxes (56%).

The median home price in San Jose was $965,000 in the third quarter of 2015, an increase of 12.2% compared to a year earlier, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Meanwhile, the national median price for a home in 2014 was $298,100.

California is well known for its high taxes and large number of regulations impacting businesses, like The California Environmental Quality Act. In the 2015 Silicon Valley CEO Survey, 54% of CEOs surveyed think that state legislature is on the wrong track for creating a healthy business climate (while just 18% think it’s doing well). These businesses also ranked their top requests for the local government: invest in traffic relief programs, create affordable home developments, and streamline regulatory and permit approvals.

San Jose officials are aware of these issues, but it remains to be seen whether they can implement changes quickly enough to ease the issues and prevent more of them as the city grows. As San Jose’s vice mayor Rose Herrera said, “The big thinking is more transit; we have to bite the bullet, and spend the money.”

Looking ahead 

Opportunities are abound in San Jose for businesses focused on growth, world-class innovation, and hiring top sales talent. The area provides access to a vibrant community of sales and business professionals coming out of the nation’s top universities, amid a culture and legacy of amazing innovation and entrepreneurships. Not to mention the perfect weather.

It’s for these same reasons that companies need to contend with stiff hiring competition from tech giants and hot startups. To build a sales team that will continually hit aggressive growth targets, businesses not only need to offer a salary at or above market rate, but also differentiate themselves with a positive, pro-sales culture and disruptive offerings. They need to show top candidates that sales is a priority, express interest early and consistently, and move the hiring process forward. If companies can keep up, San Jose is the place for business growth stoked by the best sales talent in the world.

relpost-thumb-wrapper

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

• About
• Latest Posts

Ryan Thornton

Latest posts by Ryan Thornton (see all)

• 3 Ways Your Employees Will Sabotage Hitting Year End Targets – December 27, 2023
• 7 Ways to Hit Your Year End Target With Ease – December 20, 2023
• How to Handle Counter Offers — and Win Top Talent – December 18, 2023