5 Answers You Need To Hire Top 1% Sales Talent
Hiring a sales leader at a growing company is tricky. When done right, double digit growth could be realized, and the unicorn status could follow. When done wrong, the trajectory of your company and dollars lost can be catastrophic. In fact, a bad sales leadership hire could cost your company north of $1M when you factor in time, onboarding, recruiting fees, lost revenue, and employee attrition.
Below is a list of five questions that the leadership team should know and be prepared to answer when hiring a sales leader for a growing company.
#1 What Does Your Company Do?
This is a clear “no duh”, but it shouldn’t be understated how important it is that companies and sales leaders can effectively articulate what their solution does. If the person you are trying to hire does not understand the who, what, where, and why it is going to be very challenging for them to sell it. Be clear, be concise, and use language that non-technical folks can understand.
#2 Why Do Companies Need You?
This is an expansion on the “why” for the question above. Okay, great job telling me what your company does, now please tell me why companies need this. Is this a problem a target client knows they have, or will half the battle be making them simply aware of it? If it is not a known problem the sale will most likely be harder. The simplest answers are usually the best to start with.
#3 What Type of Companies Need Your Product?
Strong sales candidates are smart, so save the “everybody could use this” speech. Even if there’s a large universal use case, anybody who has watched Shark Tank can tell you that you need a defined audience to focus on initially. To go one step further, talk through what departments or divisions within the companies you will focus on selling to. You should be as specific as possible and could even drill down to target buyer or revenue size if needed. Spoiler alert: This should align with the answer to the #3 around which companies use your product.
#4 What Companies Currently Use Your Product?
You do not need to give away the farm and open the CRM, but you certainly can’t just rattle off a few big companies and think that will be enough. Companies like to reference the sexiest and most notable logos they have, such as Bank of America, Boeing, or even Facebook. The smart sellers know that these companies pilot thousands of new vendors a year, so while it is a good opener, it is far from engaging. Instead, walk them through a client you have secured, how you secured them, and why they are happy. What is the price they are paying to use the service? Are they a profitable account? How did the implementation go? Are there other similar companies in the sales funnel? If they had the chance to redo this deal, what would they have done different? Make sure that when speaking about existing logos, it’s consistent to everything we covered before.
#5 What Is The Culture And The Team Like?
This will be tricky in a fully virtual capacity. Gone are the days of free cold brew and open-air offices. Here are the days of virtual work, flexible hours, and zoom collaboration. You should also bear in mind that how a CEO feels and acts both politically and professionally is greatly felt on the organization they lead as well.
Onboarding – how have you been onboarding new hires during the pandemic? Is it working? The #1 reason reps churn early is onboarding. But most scaling companies have an onboarding process I would call “bad to okay” at best.
Work life – do you have mandatory work hours or are you a “find a way to get it done” place? Meaning, if there is a companywide, weekly meeting at 9 AM, do you have to make that call or can you listen to the recording after you get your kids situated for school?
Collaboration – what tools and technologies are you utilizing to foster an engaging and innovative workplace?
Leadership – Has anyone on the leadership team scaled a start-up before? Candidates who choose to join your team will be betting on the product, but they are also betting on the people and leaders of the organization. You will need to showcase strong leadership during the courtship to win over an A player, especially when lacking a track record of success should it be a very early-stage company. It’s fair game to reference advisors but be sure those references are active in the business versus those who are not.
Extra Credit: What Is The Long Term Growth Plan?
This is a bonus answer as growing companies change course often. Regardless of the fluidity your business will have, you should have a carefully crafted long term growth plan. Do you want to take on financing? If so, when, and how? At what point would you consider an acquisition? Will you be looking to acquire other companies? Will you the founder stay in the seat or eventually hire a CEO? So many of the questions will affect how a candidate feels about joining.
Summary
The best candidates will not be fooled and are extremely diligent when deciding on joining a new firm. Not to mention they will likely have other offers they will be considering in competition to yours. Speak to the potential of the opportunity, but also be transparent about the challenges these candidates will have in store. The last thing you want to do is “trick” someone into joining and them starting at your company already frustrated by unforeseen problems that could have at least been disclosed beforehand.
If you want to talk more about this or hiring salespeople in general let me know, that is what I do best!
