Sales Productivity Lacking? It Could Be Due to Under-qualified Sales Reps


Sales recruitment

Recent research shows that 20 percent of sales leads are never followed up, and that sales team turnover is over 40 percent each year. Additionally, of the sales professionals in the United States, 40 percent will miss quota, 22 percent are un-trainable and only 10 percent will actually provide a ROI. These statistics suggest that organizations are struggling to hire high quality, and qualified employees to fill a role of a career in sales. This is largely due to the difficulty involved in measuring the intangible skills evident in the best sales people.

Hiring employees for a career in sales can be a difficult task. Often times, the tangible skills, such as multiple years of experience, do not equate to the best sales people. It is the intangible skills and personality traits that successful sales representatives often possess. A good example of these intangible skills are confidence and communication. Since the majority of what a sales representative does involves communication, both written and verbal, strong communication skills are essential for a salesperson to be successful. Meanwhile, confidence and selling ability go hand in hand. Building confidence, and reflecting it when selling can be tricky, but possessing other personality traits such as adaptability, charisma, and enthusiasm, along with a warm smile and firm handshake can go a long way with a career in sales.

Measuring these intangible skills during an interview while looking to hire sales reps can be pretty difficult. For many organizations, utilizing the services of a recruitment firm or recruitment agency is an effective solution when hiring sales people. A recruitment firm or agency, typically known as “headhunters,” specialize is locating qualified candidates for sales positions and interview them to see if they are right for your business. These firms work with you to understand exactly what you are looking for in your sales representatives, and will provide you with a list of solid candidates to chose from. This process is beneficial, as it saves the organization time to handle regular business operations, instead of wasting their time in an extensive hiring process, interviewing many candidates who are not qualified for the job.

Many clients expect high-level presentations from sales representatives, so your sales reps need to be comfortable using the technology, and in some cases designing their own presentations. Finding a sales rep who is confident, a strong communicator, and has a good understanding of current technology, will typically prove to be a good hire for your business. To feel more comfortable in your new hiring decisions, utilizing the services of a headhunter is a reliable, and valuable solution. Learn more at this link: salesforcesearch.com


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