Finding talented salespeople has never been easy.
Finding naturally talented salespeople has always been more difficult than finding successful sellers. Far too often, we confuse success with talent. We go after the big name at the big competitor who has some big sales numbers. Experienced salespeople tend to have bad habits that follow them.
We default to looking and hiring experienced salespeople over inexperienced talented salespeople because it's easier.
Challenges of the Great Resignation
Over the last year, I've seen sales leaders struggle with the uncertainty of a pandemic, and now they are facing the dilemma of the Great Resignation.
One survey by According to PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 65% of employees said they were looking for a new job. Potentially 65% of your employees are considering leaving your company for another.
So, if you haven’t dealt with the consequences of the Great Resignation, chances are you will be, so you better be ready to recruit and select the best possible candidates for your team. The key to success in selecting the best candidates for your sales team often depends on the selection process that you have implemented with your sales managers.
Building A Selection Process
One of my clients, Bonneville Bay Area, has faced the Great Resignation head-on by being proactive in setting up a hiring hierarchy and delegating certain aspects of the selection process to various managers on the team.
In 2021, several of their markets experienced unexpected turnover, often due to people reacting to the pandemic and deciding to make life changes. As a result, the number of open sales positions was much larger than traditionally for this organization.
With so many open positions and facing an already difficult employment market for companies, they decided that they needed to create a selection process that was designed to spread responsibilities and activities over the entire management team while also relying on the team for the decision-making process.
-
First, they selected a Talent Team leader.
The talent team leader was responsible for leading the process and owning the recruitment and selection of new salespeople. “It’s important to assign ownership to the recruitment of talent for an organization. It’s easy for all the sales managers to get “busy,” and it falls through the cracks. By selecting a lead, it helps us stay on track”, said Steve Dinardo, DOS at Bonneville Bay Area.
-
Next, each sales manager is assigned the task of adding at least one candidate to the Talent Bank.
This helps fill the funnel for the talent bank and gives the team options as they are reviewing STA’s and selecting the best talent and fit for the role and organization. They also began subscribing to LinkedIn Recruiter to help increase the number of candidates that they can add to their talent bank.
-
Then, determine a good fit.
After all of the candidates take the sales talent assessment, the manager that found the individual is tasked with interviewing the candidate to find out if this person is a good fit for the culture, sales role, and job specification that they need to fill this sales position. If the candidate passes that test, then they interview with the Director of Sales and another manager to ensure a consensus of managers agree before an offer is made.
Conclusion
This detailed selection process allows the organization to find the best talent and best fit for the specific sales role they are looking to hire.
Though the process does take a little bit longer to implement, they’ve seen the number of candidates in their talent bank has grown, and the talent level has increased greatly.
*This article originally appeared in the 2022 Talent Magazine.
