Recruitment: 5 ways to build a great sales team
On the list of priorities, a good sales team is probably quite high on most businesses’ lists. It should be high on your list of priorities too. For an office supplies business owner, a sales team is your route to new customers and increased revenue from new accounts. They can also help build relationships with existing clients to keep them coming back to you for all their office product needs.
We share our top five tips for recruiting the best talent for supplies businesses in ways you may not have thought of before.
1. Make the smart choice
If you want to succeed, hire smart. What this means is you need to hire intelligent people and that means hiring people who are smarter at selling than you are.
By doing this, you know you can rely on your team to sell while you decide the strategy and direction and also have time to manage relationships with key accounts.
You should also hire smart by choosing the right person and skills for the job, as opposed to the person with the most years of experience. Whilst they do have experience, do they also have fresh ideas to bring to the table? You’ll put yourself at a major advantage if you choose a team of sales people who add a new dimension to your existing team and methods of working.
2. Has anyone impressed you?
If you’ve recently met someone at a business networking event and been impressed by the way they communicated, perhaps you even arranged a second meeting with them to consider what they were selling. You may even have bought from them because their selling skills were so good.
If you did, then you might want to look at this person as a potential candidate for your own sales team recruitment plan. Anyone who can impress you and sell to you could surely sell well to your customers and you know that person’s skills and sales personality before you hire them. Giving you that, combined with an interview to find out if they are the right candidate.
3. Always be scouting
Hidden sales talent lies all around you. Ever found yourself upsold to a more expensive bottle of wine at dinner or booked a more expensive hotel room or excursion through your travel agent – for no apparent reason other than it sounded like a great idea?
If you have, then these people you bought from have the skills you need in your team. A gentle approach and subtle sales skills that make someone want to spend more is exactly the type of sales people you need.
4. Who’s saying it
Who is the person out there meeting your customers? Who they are is important than what they say. You can teach them your preferred style of selling, but ultimately you need a person who has a friendly personality and is able to connect with people on a friendly level.
5. Improve your job ads
You might be posting adverts on all the job sites but if it doesn’t appeal to the candidates you are hoping to hire, you’ll have no hope of receiving any CVs in application of the job.
With so many companies offering several perks to the job, you need to highlight what these are. In today’s tough climate for both employer and employee, you need to remember that you’re selling the benefits of your company to the potential candidate as much as they are selling their skills and experience to you.
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