In today’s competitive business landscape, employers need more than a sales team with motivation and product knowledge, they need to attract, select and develop the “right” team members who have the right industry experience, skills, maturity and motivation that FITS the sale and customer environment.
The Challenge – The Right Candidates
Rarely today does a job description or online ad accurately define the real role of sales, often it’s designed to attract any candidate resulting in average candidates that make for an average sales team. To accurately hire and develop the right team, a company must 1st define the metrics or “Picture” of Top Performance in a role that accurately defines the skills, attributes, motivation and FIT of the right sales professional who fits the role, customer environment and role complexity.
Defining Top Performance in Sales
To accurately develop the proper metrics for sales success, a company must look carefully at critical aspects of the role that define success and failure. Analyzing a role correctly allows you to not only attract the right candidates, it allows you to effectively build and develop the right sales organization. These may include:
To define top performance, it is crucial to analyze the complexity of the sales role. This may include:
-
- Ideal/target customer
-
- Sales complexity or difficulty
-
- Customer environment/market pressures
-
- Customer buyer/decision-maker types
-
- Ideal/target customer or sale
-
- Sales process/methodology
-
- % of current vs. new customer development focus
-
- Competition/marketplace
-
- Industry expertise required
-
- Skills/technical knowledge required
-
- Internal & marketing support
-
- Leadership resources
The Result – The Right Team That Performs & FITS
All of these critical topics must be evaluated carefully to put an accurate “picture” on the type of skills, experience, knowledge and capability the “right” team member must have to succeed. And, most important… defining what percentage of their time will be focused on prospecting and new business development VS customer account management. The mix is crucial because it defines the type of drive, motivation and expertise the team member must have to perform. Sales people that are “Hunters” don’t do well with account management roles, and account management sales people don’t often survive a role focused on new business development.
To attract, hire, develop and build the right sales organization, it all starts with defining the “picture” of top performance in sales. This creates a foundation that establishes target recruitment practices, can drive training and development for your current team, or establish leadership efforts that help sales leaders guide, coach and drive team performance.