What to Focus on When Hiring Sales Talent

This week Richard Gray-Smith, our Division Manager – Sales, Marketing and Business Support, shares what he believes is important to look for when hiring sales talent: 

Don’t worry about the fact that they potentially don’t have relationships with your key customers.

Focus on hiring people that move your business forward commercially, rather than the relationships they have. Look for sales talent in other industries with different techniques for learnings and unique problems that they have solved. Really focus on capability and leadership.

Many job seekers entering the market get new roles because of the companies they have worked for in the past and the customers they have sold to, not necessarily for what they can add from a capabilities point of view. Hiring a diverse skill set will enhance your team’s potential.

Obviously, relationships still matter, but hiring someone because they have a relationship is not effective hiring. It can narrow the candidate pool and increase salaries. You also don’t get the depth in peoples’ experiences. Look for sales talent who have gone through a sales cycle and increased market share and learnt from it. Dive into their achievements, as opposed to who or what customers they have worked with.

Finally, once you have attracted and hired this talent, invest in training them to get them up to speed with product knowledge, and then also look at different ways in which they can engage clients with a customer centric approach. Training and development should sit side by side with sales to make them better and smarter than the competition.

I hope this helps! If you’d like any more information on these or any insights into the current market that could help you with your recruitment planning as you gear up for the year ahead, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me on 09 410 7235.