Creating an exceptional product or service is really only the first step in building a world-class software sales team. Long-term success is more dependent on growing your sales team properly. From marketing professionals to sales managers, picking the right talent is the key to your top-line growth. The journey toward building a world-class software sales team always starts with choosing the right recruiting partner to get the competitive advantage needed in today’s marketplace.
Then, you can shift your focus to promoting a sales culture that retains your best sales professionals and provides them with the training and tools needed to optimize their potential. I’m going to discuss a few main things you can do to help you and your company when it comes to building these excellent world-class sales teams.
- World-Class Sales Teams Need Effective Managers – If sales are consistently down and you’re struggling to retain your best employees, then it’s time to look at the ratio of salespeople to managers. To put this into better perspective, U.S. sales forces average 10-12 sales employees per manager. Why does it matter? Because if a manager is responsible for too many employees, they don’t have the time to constructively coach and supervise each one of them.
Sales managers aren’t only referred to as people development experts; they also help build an appealing sales culture that will draw passionate sales reps. So, make it a priority to recruit more assertive sales managers with the right presence, psychology, and personality to keep employees engaged and execute your organization’s strategic goals. Finally, use some of these keywords when screening sales managers: setting sales team targets, monitoring sales performance, handling key customers, and preparing sales reports.
- Match Your Selling Style with New Hires – Even hiring the right salespeople can have negative effects on a business when they are in the wrong positions. That’s why it’s important to clarify what the role is before making offers to candidates. If you need to generate sales now, then you’ll need to hire a closer.
Otherwise, a sales consultant might be a better fit for creating ongoing leads. Then, always consider experience, energy level, reputation, and personality to confirm that they will match your company’s selling style. You can always try looking internally and asking for employee referrals, and if that isn’t producing results, the right recruiter can be your secret weapon.
- Developing Your Sales Professionals – Once you have a solid team of sales managers and other professionals in place, it’s time to provide them with a relevant internal training program. Just ensure that it focuses on equipping people with both the hard and soft skills, like objection handling and empathetic listening, that can help salespeople maximize their potential.
It is imperative to remember that there is a right way and a wrong way to building your sales team. Hiring bad software sales team employees will result in lost profits, damaged customer relationships, and ruin your reputation. Partnering with an experienced recruiter and using these strategies can help transform any startup into a world-class sales organization, with the ideal world-class software sales team.
At Sales Search International, we are in the business of knowing our clients’ needs, their sales cultures, where they are in the market—and where they want to be. Through expert software sales recruiting, we provide access to the passionate software salespeople who are a vehicle for business development.