Many organizations cite a strong inside sales team as a driving force to meet and exceed revenue goals. While such a team is necessary, figuring out how to assemble it isn’t always easy. Company leaders looking to create an inside sales team should keep in mind that it all starts with hiring the right people. It’s much easier to follow a slow and deliberate process in the beginning than to undo the damage created by poor hiring decisions months or years down the road.
A Great Hire Starts with the Recruitment Process
Both the recruitment and sales process needs to be data-driven so companies can compile and analyze data to ensure effectiveness. If new hires turn out to be disappointing, it means that organizations must adjust in attracting new candidates to apply for sales positions. This could also signal the need to adjust pre-employment screening and assessment tests.
Lucid Software, a highly profitable company interviewed for a Sales Hacker article, suggests establishing relationships with local colleges to connect with students about to graduate from a sales-focused degree program. While companies can expect to spend more time training new graduates, the benefit is they can mold them into an ideal performer from the start.
Determining Traits of Top Performers
The key to inside sales success is identifying who will go on to become a top performer during the first interview. This will look different for every organization. Before interviewing a candidate, management should come together to create a list of traits they would expect a high performing sales representative to have. Hub Spot, a top Internet marketing company, identifies prior sales success, work ethic, coachability, intelligence, and coachability as the most important qualities of a prospective sales representative.
Once hired, management needs to continue measuring salespeople against the company’s list of desirable traits. Those who fail to meet most of the standards should be replaced as soon as possible. Keeping underperforming sales representatives on staff too long will have a negative impact on revenue.
Promoting New Sales Representatives
Salesforce follows a standard process with their sales representatives as part of building their inside sales team. Starting as business development reps (BDR), sales reps can earn a promotion into field work after about a year. This takes them away from prospecting primarily on the Internet and puts them into situations that force them to look at things from their prospect’s point of view. Salesforce accomplishes this by having BDRs roleplay different situations where they take on the persona of the customer.
Besides developing empathy for their sales prospects, BDRs learn how to have conversations not driven by product. They speak to the prospect’s pain points instead because they understand them in an entirely different way. It puts less experienced sales professionals in the position to present solutions to problems that ultimately lead back to the product. The company has enjoyed much success with this method, including reduced time to schedule the first meeting and increased pipeline growth.
Data-driven recruiting, smart hiring, and providing growth opportunities to new sales representatives can all help organizations create effective inside sales teams going forward.
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