Guest Post: 9 Steps Proven to Build a Successful Sales Team From Scratch

by

Eliot Burdett

 Building a sales team from scratch is one of the most difficult and important tasks of a CEO. Generating revenue through sales, especially as start-up capital diminishes, can make or break a company’s success. However, hiring the wrong salespeople costs dearly in time and treasure. Fortunately, there is a well-defined formula for success.

Eliot Burdett, co founder and CEO of Peak Sales Recruiting, offers some advice.

1)   DON’T BUILD TO SOON: Any entrepreneur yearns for revenue streams but if the product is not ready, the offering is shifting, the budget for an industry leader is not there or the appropriate management support is not in place, hiring salespeople can be a waste of limited resources. This is because the salespeople won’t have enough stability to be successful. Furthermore, prospects will want to speak to founders that have high domain knowledge and the authority to reduce the fear of risk associated with a young company. When these conditions stabilize, the time is right to start the recruiting process.

2)   DEFINE SALES TEAM STRUCTURE: Before hiring can commence, clearly defining the structure of the sales team is critical.  Will a rep handle everything from prospecting to closing or will there be separate teams for new business versus inbound leads? It is critical to define the process in advance so selling behaviors are aligned with the sales structure and strategy.

3)   ASSIGN TERRITORIES: Defining sales territories focuses selling efforts and prevents employees from targeting the same accounts and cannibalizing their efforts. Territories can be defined by geography, sector, or business size.

4)   MAP OUT INDIVIDUAL SALES GOALS:  Identify the goals used to measure success for each sales rep. These should include not only revenue goals but also the sales activity required to achieve the revenue. To derive these, work backwards, start from the desired output divided by the number of sales to arrive at the target number of sales wins, then determine the number of prospects, calls and amount of time required to win each sale. It is important to be realistic.

5)   DETERMINE BASE AND COMMISSION: Sales compensation plans vary widely across industries and companies, but as a rule of thumb, new business development positions pay a 50/50 split of base salary and commission. The compensation plan may need to be adjusted to provide fair reward for the effort and risk assumed by the salesperson, but more importantly, make sure it is high enough to attract the right sales people from competing employers.

6)   HIRE BASED ON SALES DNA AND NOT RESUME: Ideally, hire a candidate that has a proven track record of selling in startups. However, more important is to measure their sales DNA which we define as key traits of successful sellers such as ambition, perseverance, confidence, optimism, sense of urgency, desire to influence others, flexibility and ability to deal with uncertainty. The right DNA is the biggest predictor of sales success.

7)  FOCUS ON THE THINGS THAT ATTRACT TOP SALES TALENT: With limited funds, attracting top salespeople is difficult for startups, but not impossible.  The key is to make eye catching job ads, offer a viable and well defined career as opposed to just a job, get compensation offers right, and focus on attracting gainfully employed sales people, since the best of the best are always progressing well in their career. 

8)  IMPLEMENT A STRUCTURED ONBOARDING PROGRAM: The first 90 days of a sales rep’s employment is a critical time. Each day should be mapped out in terms of training on the product/service, the market and customers, and the selling approaches, systems and tools. Territory and account plan development and various other tests should be used to gauge learning progress and knowledge retention.  Companies that take the time to invest in onboarding reap the rewards down the road.

9)  MEASURE SUCCESS: It is critical that a new sales hire’s performance be monitored and measured closely. This is easy to do in companies with a shorter sales cycle, where it will be reasonable for a sales person to generate sales very quickly. In companies with a longer sales cycle, the focus needs to be on activities such as calls, meetings and pipeline of qualified opportunities. In either case, failure to monitor the activities can lead to poor habits, poor results and a failed hire which has awful consequences.

Building a sales team from the ground up is no easy task, but when done properly, it will lead to a powerful sales force that delivers strong and consistent revenue.

Eliot Burdett is the Co-Founder and CEO of Peak Sales Recruiting, a leading B2B sales recruiting company launched in 2006. Burdett received his Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.  He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast.

Guest Post: Entrepreneurs - Surviving Burnout and Achieving Success Year after Year

by

Diana Ennen

Having your own business for the most part totally rocks! You’re the boss. You get to decide what goes on in the day-to-day operations, and most importantly you have a big influence in how fat that bank account looks. Life is good! But as many entrepreneurs will admit, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. And especially for those that have been in business for years, it can be challenging to keep excited about their biz. Not too worry, we are here to help.

Here are tips on Building and Maintaining a Successful Business:

·         You need to remain passionate about what you are doing. That’s the only way to keep going and face those odds, exhaustion and temptation to throw in the towel. You aren’t going to love what you do every day, but on the whole you have to believe in it and want to continue doing it.

·         Day to Day Business – You have to work your business right. And when you’ve been in business a while, let’s admit it, we can get just a tad bit lazy or bored. You don’t have the same jump and down ambition that you had in the early days, and that’s AOK. But you do need to once in a while give yourself a jumpstart. When you notice that you are getting tired and cranky of doing the same thing day in and day out and things take you three times longer because your heart just isn’t into it, that can be a sign a change is needed.

The good news is as an entrepreneur you can easily change. You don’t have to give up your business or your awesome clients. Figure out ways to get the passion and fun back. It can be as simple as adding new specialties or it can mean a complete reboot is necessary. Just be willing to evaluate it, know you need to do something, and then commit to doing it. Just do whatever it takes to get the energy and excitement back. And one more thing, don’t feel guilty at all because of this. It happens to the best of us. The smart entrepreneurs are those that recognize it and make the necessary changes.

·         Marketing can be Fun Too – We know marketing your own business almost always gets put on the back burner, especially when you aren’t as into your business as you once were. Now this can be a critical mistake. What you need to do is get back your marketing mojo. You do this by first doing something you really enjoy. The goal is to get you back into the marketing mode. When you do something fun, that can help and not feel like such a chore. Now add to it. Slowly add in more marketing that you know has been successful in the past. Before long, you’d be back at it and not even realizing you are doing it. Then the marketing magic happens.

·         Boundaries – Keep Them - We all know about boundaries. And we all know that they are hard to keep. Let clients know as a business owner and a valuable resource to them, you work best within those boundaries you have set. Reassure them that this enables you to always give 100%. Now, there might be times that a client really needs you and if it works out for you, then you can be a little flexible. Just let them know this needs to be an exception, not be the norm. If you do have to work an evening or weekend, take Friday afternoon off. Just remember to do what works best for you and your business.

·         Take Time for you -  I know everyone tells you to do this and next week when you have more time and this project is over you will. Stop it already! Take out your planner right now. Turn to next week and schedule in some “me” time. Now next week it might be a little difficult because you might already be booked, but do this for the upcoming month. Consider doing it at the same time each week so it becomes more of a habit. Now stick to it as much as you can. Consider getting an accountability partner who you love to talk with who can motivate you and inspire you to keep doing this. Just getting to talk with someone else, and truly be honest helps!

See how easy it is to keep your business going. The last thing to remember is sometimes you just need to take a break. It’s AOK to take a few days off and really think about what you want in your business. Go to the beach or get a change of scenery to get out of the office. It works. And of course, if you need help, consider hiring it. You don’t have to do your business alone and most businesses thrive because they realize this.

Diana Ennen, President of Virtual Word Publishing, www.virtualwordpublishing.com offers PR and Marketing services and PR and Virtual Assistant Coaching. She’s the co-author of Virtual Assistant - The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA and So You Want to be a Work-at-Home Mom.

Business Resource: OWN IT A new network dedicated to small business success

OWN IT, a new trusted network of thousands of small business owners dedicated to supporting each other in creating thriving businesses.

In partnership with  QuickBooks, OWN IT is designed for small business owners and the self-employed to share stories and make better, more informed decisions via the experiences of experts and business owners. There are more than 56,000 members.  

I did join OWN IT, to see what it's like. (It's free).  You can connect with other like minded business owners and add topics of interests you would like to see in your field.  Kind of reminds me of a Facebook layout but for entrepreneurs.  

Business Lessons I learned from watching Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters Rockin1000 Official Video

You have to watch this video for a variety of reasons.  Not because it is a music video or Foo Fighters.  Because there are lots of valuable lessons that professional business people can learn.  Here are some lessons that I learned.

1.  This takes A LOT of planning from both ends--coordinators and participants.  Think of all the communication taking place.  Every single person in the video had to receive the appropriate information of his or her role in the video.  They functioned as one team despite playing different roles.

2.  A lot of passion and energy is seen throughout the video.  Musicians were into their work.  They  believe in what they are doing.  The passion is shown throughout the video. You must have passion in what you believe, especially in business.

3.  Work is serious, but you can have fun while working.  These musicians were working, but I couldn't tell because they were having fun.  Having fun attracts people to your business idea, product and service.  

I encourage you to watch this video and tell me what kinds of lessons you learned.