Does your company deserve that sales rep unicorn?
Hiring sales talent is one of the most important roles to hire for in your business. After all, it’s sales reps who generate necessary revenue. But I see time and again how companies rush the process and leave out critical steps.
Too many job postings for sales reps read like “If you’re a sales unicorn, we want to hire you.” Top sales professionals are likely being headhunted and don’t need to scrape job postings to get hired. If you want top sales talent on your team … or sales potential that you can develop … you need to reverse engineer the hiring process.
Start earlier. Develop your hiring system that you can use for future sales hires as well. Take the time to get this right, and you will be a company that sales reps clammer to sell for.
10 Steps to Hiring a High-Performing Sales Rep, in Reverse
- Define what sales rep success looks like: What are the new sales rep’s quotas, daily activity goals, KPI’s? Be crystal clear about what “winning” means in this role. Brainstorm and finetune it.
- Onboarding plan: Map out the first 30, 60, 90 days. Include systems training, product knowledge, and real selling practice.
- Coaching plan: How will you support your sales rep in those crucial early days and beyond? And who will be responsible for coaching?
- Training plan: Beyond onboarding, what structured training will accelerate performance? Think process, messaging, objection handling, and tools. Your new sales hire will be the face of your companay and brand. Get this step in place to ensure they are on-brand from the start.
- Compensation & structure: Define the base salary, commission, bonuses, and incentives tied directly to success metrics. (Need help with this? Grab my free Smart Sales Hire Calculator™ tool here.)
Revisit step 1: Are the quotas and activities a match for the compensation structure (i.e. will you see a positive return on investment for your new hire)? Like all things HR, this is a dynamic process. Tweaking and finetuning will be always be needed, so you’ll likely go back and forth between steps 1 and 5 until it feels right. - Write the job description: Now that you’ve done the other steps, you should have what you need to write a job description with clear responsibilities, expectations, and alignment with your company values, culture and goals.
- Job posting: Be realistic and compelling in how you write your job posting. Have mandatory requirements and nice-to-haves. Get creative. Does your company culture shine through in the job posting? Don’t advertise for a “unicorn” that may well dissuade strong contenders from applying.
- Interview questions and process: You have everything you need now to prepare interview questions that help you get hyper-focussed on indentifying the ideal candidates. Rely on what you’ve developed in steps 1 to7 to write thoughtful interview questions.
- Talent Assessments: Decide on a sales-focussed assessment tool to help you narrow down candidates and select your star future sales rep. Not sure which one to use? Check out the one my clients love for sales hiring and coaching: Sales Talent Assessments. Don’t skip this step! A sales assessment provides many benefits, including reducing risky hires.
- Make the Offer: You have everything in place to hire with confidence and onboard your new hire to success. Finetune and repeat this process for future hires, and you will build a well-aligned sales team, and strong team culture.
Avoid Costly Mistakes
The job posting is an important part of the hiring process, but it’s not the best place to start.
Reverse engineering your hiring process like this ensures you attract, evaluate, and onboard the right people…and avoid costly mistakes.