Advice on hiring sales person

[kp001]

Hi Folks

Thanks to all who have contributed, I'm a long time lurker and have read many of your posts but never really posted myself!

We started a business 5 years ago that sells high end training to banks and financial institutions (B2B). We are ex bankers ourselves, and found the quality of training within these places was poor, learning didnt stick and we hated uninspiring "death by powerpoint" training from people lacking practical experience and subject matter expertise.

We've been very fortunate, and the business has grown considerably. Pleased to say our programs are consistently #1 in our banking clients. We havent really tried to expand overseas, but interestingly overseas banks have reached out to us and last year we generated ~40% of our income offshore.

We've got a very small team and have largely built our client base using referrals and word of mouth - no real marketing, cold calling or sales. Personally I dont think we're great at sales, but by the grace of the almighty, we've had some success.

Now, our aim is to establish a formal sales function. We're seeking a Head of Sales to lead the sales process, target new clients, and drive revenue. Of course, we intend to share our accomplishments with this individual.

To be completely honest, this territory is unfamiliar and causes me anxiety! I'm concerned about bringing the wrong person into our small business and am fixated on making the right selection. On the flip side, if we don't take this step, we'll remain a small yet profitable venture, never fully exploring our potential.

Would greatly appreciate any advice from the forum.
- How would you go about finding people? What strategies would you recommend for finding someone with a blend of sales / banking / learning & development skills (all 3 great, 2/3 can work)?
- How would you test their capability? I feel like people can interview well, but you never really know untill you see someone on the job.
- How would you incentivise the right behaviours?
- How could we help "set them up for success" in this role?

These questions might sound amatuerish, but appreciate any blunt feedback.

kp001

 

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[ZCP]

What is your rough yearly revenue? What is the rough gross margin on the product?
What is the top level generic sales cycle? What processes are in place? CRM? Scripts?

 

[BizyDad]

Former bankers are everywhere. And they have sales experience.

Many female bankers get out of the driving sales environments of big banks and go into more community focused companies or role (like smaller banks, marketing for small companies or training/admin roles at small businesses). Males do this too, just to a lesser extent.

My point is I don't think it will be hard for you to find a talented individual with the right mix of background. In Phoenix as my reference I feel like type are "everywhere".

Sign up for indeed.com's account that allows you to peruse résumés and reach out to those people directly via email or LinkedIn.

"Hey so and so, I saw your resume on indeed, and I'm wondering , are you still in the job market?"

A simple message like that gets the conversation started.

As a former banker yourself, you should have no problem talking about sales and salesmanship with another former banker. Just ask for some of their more successful sales stories, and you'll get a sense of how successful they are at sales...

Personally, if I found a good fit, I would mentally be prepared to offer one of 2 packages:

For the hard driver/type A salesperson: Offer a low salary, high commission type of structure.

For the nurturing type salesperson: Offer a little more security, higher salary, some quarterly or semi annual bonus, plus benefits.

 

[kp001]

What is your rough yearly revenue? What is the rough gross margin on the product?
What is the top level generic sales cycle? What processes are in place? CRM? Scripts?

Hey ZCP, thanks - Revenue ~US$2m, gross margin ~70-80%...

Sales cycle differs - In some instances, we used some affiliates we know to do intros, we have done discovery and then if successful, we have shared revenue with the affilitates. More recently, we've been receiving a lot of direct inquiries on the back of successful programs delivered, which we will follow, spend time really understanding the client problem and then propose a tailored solution to them.

to be honest, processes are lacking - we have lots of marketing material built up over the years but (you will laugh) no formal sales process, some use of hubspot, no formalised scripts....

 

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[kp001]

Former bankers are everywhere. And they have sales experience.

Many female bankers get out of the driving sales environments of big banks and go into more community focused companies or role (like smaller banks, marketing for small companies or training/admin roles at small businesses). Males do this too, just to a lesser extent.

My point is I don't think it will be hard for you to find a talented individual with the right mix of background. In Phoenix as my reference I feel like type are "everywhere".

Sign up for indeed.com's account that allows you to peruse résumés and reach out to those people directly via email or LinkedIn.

"Hey so and so, I saw your resume on indeed, and I'm wondering , are you still in the job market?"

A simple message like that gets the conversation started.

As a former banker yourself, you should have no problem talking about sales and salesmanship with another former banker. Just ask for some of their more successful sales stories, and you'll get a sense of how successful they are at sales...

Personally, if I found a good fit, I would mentally be prepared to offer one of 2 packages:

For the hard driver/type A salesperson: Offer a low salary, high commission type of structure.

For the nurturing type salesperson: Offer a little more security, higher salary, some quarterly or semi annual bonus, plus benefits.

Thanks @BizyDad, your answer in itself has given me a lot of confidence, always felt like this might be a hard role to fill. Gonna get my a$$ into action next week and start searching activly.

Q: In your experience, how do you test for sales capability? People can sound great, interview well, but I imagine you will never really know untill they hit the ground? Or am I too narrow in my view?

 

[BizyDad]

Thanks @BizyDad, your answer in itself has given me a lot of confidence, always felt like this might be a hard role to fill. Gonna get my a$$ into action next week and start searching activly.

Q: In your experience, how do you test for sales capability? People can sound great, interview well, but I imagine you will never really know untill they hit the ground? Or am I too narrow in my view?

Do your best. In this case, I feel past performance is the best predictor of future results. It doesn't always work out.

I'm a big fan of good questions and reading body language. You can tell who enjoys telling stories about their past sales accomplishments.

Ask about their favourite sales story. And their proudest sales accomplishment. Their most difficult adversity in sales and did they overcome it (how)?

I don't care what the answers are. I care to see excitement in their eyes. A smile on their face. Are they leaning forward or sitting up? I want the person who remembers little details. What was the prospect/client's name?

I also ask who is the best banker they knew and why? Tells me something about how they evaluate their job and gives you insight into who views sales as hitting numbers and who views sales as dealing with people.

You obviously want the latter.

I avoid the ones who present vague confidence. "Yeah, I totally rocked it at every sales job. I love being #1 on the leaderboard." I also avoid anyone for whom these questions seem hard.

Once on the job, I look for three things.

1. Positive attitude. A downer or complainer can kill work enjoyment for others. Hopefully you filter this out in an interview, but not always.
2. Are they doing the expected tasks (making X calls, setting X appts... You decide the metrics)
3 Are they committed to and demonstrating improvement.

In the long run, I am patient with the person who steadily improves because they are more likely to continue improving even once their goals are being hit, whereas others hit their goals and don't really push past that. Those improvement focused people get a longer rope and I often am rewarded for my patience.

Hope that helps.

 

[kp001]

Do your best. In this case, I feel past performance is the best predictor of future results. It doesn't always work out.

I'm a big fan of good questions and reading body language. You can tell who enjoys telling stories about their past sales accomplishments.

Ask about their favourite sales story. And their proudest sales accomplishment. Their most difficult adversity in sales and did they overcome it (how)?

I don't care what the answers are. I care to see excitement in their eyes. A smile on their face. Are they leaning forward or sitting up? I want the person who remembers little details. What was the prospect/client's name?

I also ask who is the best banker they knew and why? Tells me something about how they evaluate their job and gives you insight into who views sales as hitting numbers and who views sales as dealing with people.

You obviously want the latter.

I avoid the ones who present vague confidence. "Yeah, I totally rocked it at every sales job. I love being #1 on the leaderboard." I also avoid anyone for whom these questions seem hard.

Once on the job, I look for three things.

1. Positive attitude. A downer or complainer can kill work enjoyment for others. Hopefully who filter this out in an interview, but not always.
2. Are they doing the expected tasks (making X calls, setting X appts... You decide the metrics)
3 Are they committed to and demonstrating improvement.

In the long run, I am patient with the person who steadily improves because they are more likely to continue improving even once their goals are being hit, whereas others hit their goals and don't really push past that. Those improvement focused people get a longer rope and I often am rewarded for my patience.

Hope that helps.

That is a terrific help, thank you very much! Hope that also helps other members of the forum in assessing sales capability for their business!

 

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[WJK]

You can also do a trial period based on a contractual relationship for a number of months. You could create a special project for that offering that will showcase the person's skills or lack of skills. I usually know everything I need to know within the first 3 months. It's a long enough period of time where they "let-their-hair-down" and expose their real self, but short enough to let you off of the hook if you need an out.

 

[Beijing]

I'm not speaking from experience, but here are a couple ideas I'll throw out just for the purposes of brainstorming. I encourage those with actual experience in hiring sales people to express disagreement with these suggestions if they wish.

(1) You (and your cofounder(s)) know your company and a typical client's needs better than anyone else. Consider nailing down a sales process before hiring someone as head of sales. The learning curve on understanding your company and its clients well enough to develop a sales process might be 3-6 months for an outsider.

(2) Hire two or three sales people on a temporary contractual basis (with an option to offer them a full-time contract after 3-6 months or so) and encourage them to both experiment with developing a sales process. Promote the one that does the best job at developing a sales process to head of sales. This will motivate them all to be the best they can be.

 

[Kevin88660]

Hi Folks

Thanks to all who have contributed, I'm a long time lurker and have read many of your posts but never really posted myself!

We started a business 5 years ago that sells high end training to banks and financial institutions (B2B). We are ex bankers ourselves, and found the quality of training within these places was poor, learning didnt stick and we hated uninspiring "death by powerpoint" training from people lacking practical experience and subject matter expertise.

We've been very fortunate, and the business has grown considerably. Pleased to say our programs are consistently #1 in our banking clients. We havent really tried to expand overseas, but interestingly overseas banks have reached out to us and last year we generated ~40% of our income offshore.

We've got a very small team and have largely built our client base using referrals and word of mouth - no real marketing, cold calling or sales. Personally I dont think we're great at sales, but by the grace of the almighty, we've had some success.

Now, our aim is to establish a formal sales function. We're seeking a Head of Sales to lead the sales process, target new clients, and drive revenue. Of course, we intend to share our accomplishments with this individual.

To be completely honest, this territory is unfamiliar and causes me anxiety! I'm concerned about bringing the wrong person into our small business and am fixated on making the right selection. On the flip side, if we don't take this step, we'll remain a small yet profitable venture, never fully exploring our potential.

Would greatly appreciate any advice from the forum.
- How would you go about finding people? What strategies would you recommend for finding someone with a blend of sales / banking / learning & development skills (all 3 great, 2/3 can work)?
- How would you test their capability? I feel like people can interview well, but you never really know untill you see someone on the job.
- How would you incentivise the right behaviours?
- How could we help "set them up for success" in this role?

These questions might sound amatuerish, but appreciate any blunt feedback.

kp001

Sales result tends to overlap with grit. Hardworking people don’t tend to do badly in sales.

 

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[ZCP]

Hey ZCP, thanks - Revenue ~US$2m, gross margin ~70-80%...

Sales cycle differs - In some instances, we used some affiliates we know to do intros, we have done discovery and then if successful, we have shared revenue with the affilitates. More recently, we've been receiving a lot of direct inquiries on the back of successful programs delivered, which we will follow, spend time really understanding the client problem and then propose a tailored solution to them.

to be honest, processes are lacking - we have lots of marketing material built up over the years but (you will laugh) no formal sales process, some use of hubspot, no formalised scripts....

dm me ... let's do an 11 minute call later today

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

- How would you go about finding people? What strategies would you recommend for finding someone with a blend of sales / banking / learning & development skills (all 3 great, 2/3 can work)?
- How would you test their capability? I feel like people can interview well, but you never really know untill you see someone on the job.
- How would you incentivise the right behaviours?
- How could we help "set them up for success" in this role?

1. Read chapter 5 of the Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes

2. If you're in the market for high-end sales folks, here are two options (where I currently look/hire from outside of direct referrals)

Cole Gordon: Closers.io | Scale Your Sales Team
Jeremy Miner: 7th Level HQ - Jeremy Miner - Persuasion & Psychological Selling for Entrepreneurs and Sales Professionals

Cole owns a sales placement agency. Very easy to work with. Nice guy. Most of their team is young but hungry and super professional.

Jeremy has the fastest-growing sales training these days (he's catching up with Sandler fast). They *have* had a placement agency, I haven't recruited from there yet but I would.

3. Career salespeople are looking for a great comp plan, a quality product to sell, and occasionally some good leads. Most are guns for hire that really would sell anything as long as it fits their values.

Since most are High D, details will always be shakey. If they're working with high end clients like these banks you may want to hire an assistant (once they prove themselves) specifically to keep them organized.

Scaling commission comp plans are usually best.

These questions might sound amatuerish, but appreciate any blunt feedback.

Not amateurish at all. You're light-years ahead of most people.

 

[Andy Black]

Maybe reach out to someone like Brendan McAdams who hosts www.letschatsales.com

Tell him I sent you. I cohosted the first dozen of those podcasts.

 

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[kp001]

You can also do a trial period based on a contractual relationship for a number of months. You could create a special project for that offering that will showcase the person's skills or lack of skills. I usually know everything I need to know within the first 3 months. It's a long enough period of time where they "let-their-hair-down" and expose their real self, but short enough to let you off of the hook if you need an out.

Thank you, great advice. Certainly thinking of a trial period with achievable yet stretch targets and see how they go (3 months).

I'm actually considering as part of the interview stage, putting together a case study - something like a 1 page briefing on the business and then ask them how they would approach selling into client X , Y or Z. Give them a week to come back, see the quality of the questions they hit me with

 

[kp001]

I'm not speaking from experience, but here are a couple ideas I'll throw out just for the purposes of brainstorming. I encourage those with actual experience in hiring sales people to express disagreement with these suggestions if they wish.

(1) You (and your cofounder(s)) know your company and a typical client's needs better than anyone else. Consider nailing down a sales process before hiring someone as head of sales. The learning curve on understanding your company and its clients well enough to develop a sales process might be 3-6 months for an outsider.

(2) Hire two or three sales people on a temporary contractual basis (with an option to offer them a full-time contract after 3-6 months or so) and encourage them to both experiment with developing a sales process. Promote the one that does the best job at developing a sales process to head of sales. This will motivate them all to be the best they can be.

Thanks for taking the time @Beijing - my thinking has changed and is very much aligned to this approach.

 

[kp001]

1. Read chapter 5 of the Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes

2. If you're in the market for high-end sales folks, here are two options (where I currently look/hire from outside of direct referrals)

Cole Gordon: Closers.io | Scale Your Sales Team
Jeremy Miner: 7th Level HQ - Jeremy Miner - Persuasion & Psychological Selling for Entrepreneurs and Sales Professionals

Cole owns a sales placement agency. Very easy to work with. Nice guy. Most of their team is young but hungry and super professional.

Jeremy has the fastest-growing sales training these days (he's catching up with Sandler fast). They *have* had a placement agency, I haven't recruited from there yet but I would.

3. Career salespeople are looking for a great comp plan, a quality product to sell, and occasionally some good leads. Most are guns for hire that really would sell anything as long as it fits their values.

Since most are High D, details will always be shakey. If they're working with high end clients like these banks you may want to hire an assistant (once they prove themselves) specifically to keep them organized.

Scaling commission comp plans are usually best.





Not amateurish at all. You're light-years ahead of most people.

Thanks for the advice, book has been purchased and it will be my commute reading this week!

 

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[kp001]

Maybe reach out to someone like Brendan McAdams who hosts www.letschatsales.com

Tell him I sent you. I cohosted the first dozen of those podcasts.

Thanks @Andy Black, quietly chuffed that you've responded to my post!

There are some great episodes on that website, thanks for sharing, hope fellow fastlaners take a look. My new listening while at the gym

 

[WJK]

Thank you, great advice. Certainly thinking of a trial period with achievable yet stretch targets and see how they go (3 months).

I'm actually considering as part of the interview stage, putting together a case study - something like a 1 page briefing on the business and then ask them how they would approach selling into client X , Y or Z. Give them a week to come back, see the quality of the questions they hit me with

I do the same with tenants. I use month-to-month rental agreements rather than leases. Within 3 months, I know who they are and if I want to keep them as tenants. It takes that period of time for them to really reveal themselves. Most "bad" guys have great facades, but they can only keep that face on for a short time. They sound great when they are interviewed.

That's an interesting plan. Are you going to tell them that you are looking for good questions to give them direction? Otherwise, it is possible they will spend all their time telling you a plan rather than asking questions. A lot of people might be afraid to ask any questions. They may feel that they need to be all-knowing and they don't want to look weak. You might think about asking them for a brief selling plan (limit the number of pages) and a list of questions in the order of importance, so they'll understand what you are looking for. I'm afraid otherwise you'll get a 100-page presentation that looks like an endless PowerPoint lecture. How can you narrow it down to get what you need to know?

Another "tell" you can look for when interviewing is when they are too good to be true. People with no obvious flaws, weaknesses, or failures are all talk and no walk. Those who are truly competent are humble and know that they don't know everything. They work on their game skills every day. Everyone struggles with their lives.

 

[Antifragile]

I’ve hired probably over 100 people so far and with mixed success. Frankly, it’s as much science as it is art.

What worked best:

• Interview in different settings. Once at the office, the other time at a coffee shop, next time on a hike together. Exercise and booze tent to loosen the lips. And since I don’t like booze, my mind stays sharp.
• Hire for aptitude and not some “paper experience”. Sales is something capable people can pick up quickly.
• Throw people off with questions like “what’s the one thing most people disagree with you on?” Watch their body language.
• References matter. Call and have a chat with previous employers. If getting references is a problem, don’t hire.
• Most of all, after you’ve followed your process, then trust your gut.

How to find people?

I typically use recruiters. It saves me a lot of time. It’s expensive! I pay 25% of first year’s all-in pay. And for a senior role, that’s a big number. But I get a “placement guarantee”. If it doesn’t work, they go looking for another person for free.

 

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[ZCP]

@kp001 great talk! Appreciated your time!

Note to those reading this ..... he is in Sydney, I'm in Atlanta. We still talked and helped each other in business and will be talking more. That's how this works. Make connections. Talk. Help each other get better. Hold each other accountable. LFG!!

 

[kp001]

@kp001 great talk! Appreciated your time!

Note to those reading this ..... he is in Sydney, I'm in Atlanta. We still talked and helped each other in business and will be talking more. That's how this works. Make connections. Talk. Help each other get better. Hold each other accountable. LFG!!

To all those reading, @ZCP Is a legend and loved speaking with him. There are a lot of people on here who want to help you and I'll be sure to pay it forward