Since we talked about conversion rates and using CRM to track and evaluate sales activities, it’s important to look at recruiting and hiring as well. You can have the best systems and tracking in place but if you don’t have the best people those systems will continue to leak. How do you recruit?
If you don’t have a process for recruiting, hiring, and training competent salespeople, you’re going to end up employing unsuitable team members. And that will cost you—in lost sales and marketing dollars, wasted salaries, and a drain on your energy. The ability to build a successful team is essential to the enterprise. Can you hear the dripping profits here?
Don’t take this responsibility nonchalantly. Invest the time in developing a process that will be followed for every new hire. Establish how to evaluate a prospective salesperson, hiring terms, performance expectations (including working within the team), and all the other details that go into a cohesive recruitment program. Set up checklists of required skills, knowledge, and experience, including track record.
A potential homebuyer wouldn’t go out and spend $450,000 or more on a brand new home without massive due diligence. They make sure it meets their needs and can fulfill their expectations. Prospects shop by elimination, running through the features of the home and match them up to their own checklist. Use that same, logical approach to recruitment.
- Hire for attitude, not merely experience.
- 20 years of experience sounds good, but doesn’t speak to results, only duration.
- Hire by process of elimination.
- Don’t rely on instinct or feelings.
- Don’t wait until you need someone to fill the position. Build a bench.
- Desperation leads to bad choices.
BOTTOM LINE: A thoughtful recruitment process ensures that you can build a strong team that is single-minded on results.
