Building a Successful Sales Team: The Four Ingredients to a Winning Mix

Knowing what to look for in evaluating reps.

Understanding what the best reps are looking for when they’re evaluating prospective career opportunities.

Effectively recruiting and hiring top talent.

Equipping reps with the resources they need to be successful.

Aptitude. The inherent mindset and characteristics the candidate brings to your organization.

Experience. The roles your candidate has held prior to joining your organization.

Skills. The talents and capabilities the candidate has developed.

Making money. Solid reps will want to get a good handle on the position’s money-making potential. Try to show how sales efforts and goal attainment are repeatable, and not one-time events.

Joining a winner. Like anyone, a good sales rep will want to go to a company that has a bright future. If two positions are available with similar salary ranges, most reps will opt for the company with the best prospects. That’s why, as detailed below, it’s critical to sell the company and position to candidates during the interview process.

Advancing a career. Strong sales reps will be looking for a position that helps them fulfill their career aspirations.  Therefore, early on, it’s important to identify what the candidate’s aspirations are, and map out a path that realistically delivers on that vision.

Benefiting from a strong corporate infrastructure. Seasoned sales reps will realize that they can’t do it alone; they need a strong corporate infrastructure behind them to succeed, and they’ll be looking to make sure those resources are available in any new role they’re considering.

Harness the recruiting power of happy employees. When it comes to attracting and retaining the right people, happy employees can have a multiplier effect—representing the best way to attract qualified new talent. In this regard, it’s important to view employees like clients: They need to be willing to act as a reference for your business. Also, an incentive-based employee referral program can be a key driver in attracting top talent to the organization.

Recruit by engaging in the community. It is also important to be part of the service provider community. Today, there are forums, groups, conferences, panel discussions and a host of other arenas in which you can participate in this community, and contribute to its advancement. By gaining visibility as an expert and a contributor, you and your organization can enjoy a range of benefits, including getting help with recruiting.

Nurture and recruit from within. Some of the best sales talent is inside your company today. Service provider executives need to make employee development a priority.

Sell your company during interviews. During interviews, it is important to recognize that selling needs to go both ways. Candidates need to sell their background and talents, and you need to sell the value of your business, including its culture, people, potential and opportunities. To effectively sell the candidate on the opportunity, it is critical that they hear a consistent story from every company representative they speak to.

Effective sales leadership. Successful sales teams don’t just happen, they are built, and the role of sales and business leadership is vital in this effort. Whether yours is an early stage or mature service provider organization, it’s vital that executive leadership themselves have solid sales and mentoring skills. If you’re currently managing the role of sales leadership, it is important that you take an honest look at your aptitude, experience and skills, and determine whether you’re the right person to be in that role long term, and, if not, find someone who is.

Enablement resources. Having a well-defined service catalog is one of the key components to helping build scalability and repeatability into your sales efforts. Having strong reference accounts is also a critical success factor. In addition, your business should provide reps with sales and marketing collateral, value propositions, objection handling and target customer profiles.

Standardized training. Standardized training is a highly effective way to build consistency and repeatability across your sales team. This can include training on specific solutions and services, as well as detailed insights into organizational processes, which is vital to helping ensure sales reps can get things done efficiently within the organization.

Sales process and systems. To cultivate leads and ultimately close business, sales reps need to go through a series of workflows and steps, and the better your organization supports these efforts, the more effective the sales team will be.

Technical resources. Having a strong solution architect or engineering team member available to participate in meetings and field technical questions is vital in establishing confidence with the prospect and furthering the sales process.