How to Get (and Keep) Great Sales Reps on Your Team

The success of any business rests on several key pillars. This includes a solid business strategy, attractive products, scalable services, and quality sales reps. No matter how good your offer is, someone still has to convey its value to prospects. They also have to help you build a strong client base and keep your customers happy.

Quality sales reps are some of the most sought-after employees. This also means a lot of people of varying skill and aptitude will frequently apply for sales positions. So how do you recognize good sales reps? And more importantly, how do you keep them?

What makes a good sales rep

Overall, the best fit for a sales rep are people who are confident speakers, communicative, and outgoing by nature. They are relaxed in social settings and often aren’t big fans of traditional office work. Sales usually come naturally to them—rarely perceived as an effort.

Still, every sales job has its specifics, requiring different skills, attitude, and approach.

Recognizing the right candidate can be a bit tricky as first impressions are often deceiving. It’s hard to assess a person’s finesse for the job and their willingness to work. You can’t tell how they cope with stressful situations or show self-initiative within a couple of interviews.

Education isn’t everything, and people who seem sharp and confident at first glance can fail to meet your expectations.

So let’s look at some useful tips to help you recruit the best sales reps in the business.

Define your ideal candidate

The success of your recruitment efforts depends on knowing exactly what you’re looking for in a sales rep. This is in terms of competence, experience, and responsibilities.

These attributes differ depending on the nature of the business. For instance, a product rep should know the product inside and out. Additionally, she should also be able to convince the buyer that it’s the best product for them

A service rep should be able to act in a consultative capacity, offering guidance and reassuring the client that their business is in safe hands.

It’s great to find a person matching your vision and requirements precisely. But it’s also a good idea to hire outside the box and give people a chance to evolve into the role you have envisioned for them.

Ask the right questions

To choose the right candidate, your questions must be properly formulated. This way, you can learn a lot about a person’s mindset, strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations. A good sales representative will be confident and assertive in their answers.

Ask them how they approach prospects to learn more about their needs, desires, and concerns. Find out if they use professional networks to gather professional and personal information about the prospects when devising the right approach strategy.

Given the importance of customer retention, ask candidates what they do to ensure lasting customer satisfaction and how they cultivate customer relationships.

Make it practical  

To be sure you’ve hired the right person, see how your candidates behave in a hypothetical situation. This can be a scenario where they are asked to sell a product, deliver a presentation, or answer client questions. Observe their behavior and the way they handle tough questions. Sometimes, even candidates with an excellent educational background simply lack the edge and skill to make it as sales reps.

Make sure the candidate fits into your “office family”

Having rapport with your staff is extremely important for business. In short, to be able to work with a person, you have to resonate with them. Also, their personality must be a cultural fit for the rest of the team.

We all spend a large portion of our day interacting with co-workers. A single disruptive team member can ruin things for everybody. They won’t contribute much to your corporate environment, or your business.

How to keep your best sales reps onboard

Good sales reps can keep the churn rates low and do wonders for your business growth. So, once you’ve done a good job recruiting, you have to know how to keep them happy. Of course, people are different and the same approach won’t work for everyone.

Let’s delve into some popular retention strategies that you can try.

Help your newcomers adjust

Starting a new job can be stressful. You don’t want to overwhelm and discourage your sales reps early on.

Give them all the support they need in the first several months. Help them integrate into the company and familiarize them with your products and objectives. Create an induction booklet for quick reference and a digital library of relevant sales resources and information.

Assign a more experienced team member to act as a mentor. A good mentor will help them develop their communication and listening skills, teaching them the best ways to close a sale.

Motivate your sales teams

Sales reps don’t have it easy. They have to multitask, handle obstacles and difficult clients, and always keep smiling no matter what. Working in a high-pressure environment will undoubtedly take its toll. That’s why you have to do your best to keep them motivated.

Make sure you acknowledge their success and reward their efforts. Whether it’s a bonus, an office party, or a kind word, motivation boosters are a must.

A good way to promote collaboration is to do team building. It can be a bowling game, a day of biking, or hiking in the mountains. The objective is the same. You should give your sales reps a chance to socialize. Let them have fun and become better friends and colleagues in a relaxed environment. This is even important for dispersed companies— so get together whenever you can!

Proper compensation

Make sure your reps get a fair compensation. Sometimes, the choice of territory can limit the performance of hard working sales reps, thus making them appear as low performers. At the same time, an average effort is enough for a rep to sign new accounts if the territory is good. Reward the reps that manage to do a good job in a poor territory to keep things fair.

Learning matters

The market is constantly changing. As a result, new trends are emerging and additional skills are always needed. Hence, you should encourage continuous learning through seminars, workshops, or other forms of training.

Talk to your sales teams about new technology and market perspectives. This will help you see what else you can use to promote certain sales aspects. For instance, are you always using the right sales tools? A good demand generation tool can be a valuable extension of your sales team.

Given the fierce competition, your reps need all the help they can get when it comes to customer acquisition. Keep them empowered by providing the best possible tools to assist them in their sales efforts.

The expert team at DemandZEN can help your teams excel at their job through a variety of customized strategies. Using a combination of closed loop marketing and inside sales efforts, DemandZEN will provide an abundant supply of warm leads, boost the response your campaigns are generating, and ensure a smooth sales process.