Is Your Business Ready for Sales Reps?

If you are thinking about expanding your market reach by hiring more sales reps, there are some important factors that you should consider. In the end, being smart and hiring a sales rep at the right time can make all the difference for a profitable business.

Whether you just received funding or your company is consistently growing, there are several reasons why you might want to expand your sales team. Once you have decided it’s time to hire more people, you should think about recruiting and interviewing sales reps. Important things to consider for attracting top sales talent are commission structures and fringe benefits.

When you partner with the sales recruiters at CulverCareers, we will give you hands-on guidance in successfully growing your sales team.

Sales Recruiting with CulverCareers 

At CulverCareers, we know how hard it can be to locate quality sales talent. Whether it be sourcing, interviewing, or offer negotiation, only the very best recruiters can handle the complexities and competitive nature of sales recruitment.

Contact Us to build a winning sales team!

Growing Beyond Startup Phase

One of the most common times to hire new sales representatives is when your business grows beyond the startup phase. While many entrepreneurs handle sales themselves when their companies are still young, the time will come when you need to expand with a dedicated sales team.

In the early days of a startup, it’s actually a good idea for business owners to handle sales themselves. By experiencing the challenges of sales first-hand, you can develop methods to coach your sales team. It’s also helpful that you understand your business offerings better than anyone.

It’s simply not realistic to hire a sales rep with the expectation that they create your entire sales process. For many small businesses still in the bootstrapping phase, founders often handle the creation of sales funnels, value propositions, and prospecting techniques. In the event that you have acquired investor money, it’s also possible to hire a sales director to oversee the creation of your sales process.

Knowing Customers & Understanding Objections    

Before you hire any sales reps, you must have a strong understanding of your customer base. This means knowing your customers’ needs and having the ability to present solutions to address these needs. Even more, you must know the most common objections that your sales team runs into in the field. Without this important knowledge of your sales funnel in hand, it’s virtually impossible to train sales reps.

Understanding customer needs and dealing with objections are more reasons it’s a good idea for business owners to handle sales early on. When you are out there selling in the field, you can make appropriate adjustments in your sales pitch and even product pricing if necessary. After you have learned to overcome the most common objections you can address them in training manuals for your sales reps.

According to Investopedia, a value proposition “is a concise statement of the benefits that a company is delivering to customers who buy its products or services. It serves as a declaration of intent, both inside the company and in the marketplace.” Training sales reps on your value proposition is another great way to touch on customer needs and overcome objections.

Expanding Into Sales New Territories  

When your company is ready to expand into different territories, you must hire sales reps to develop business in these new locales. If your company is generating consistent revenue but has hit a ceiling with new leads in your established market, it’s probably a good idea to expand with sales reps in other places.

As your business spreads into new locations, you will undoubtedly face new challenges with sales along the way. Simply because, diverse regions pose unique obstacles to business development – especially concerning cultural and socioeconomic differences. In like fashion, certain locales will be more saturated with competitor businesses than others.

When you hire sales reps for a new territory, they should be familiar with the region where they will be working. In the best-case scenarios, established sales reps might already have a network of prospective customers in their region. At the very least, they should understand the local cultures and business climate – especially when your company expands on an international scale.

What Qualifications Should a Sales Representative Have?

While specific qualifications with product knowledge will vary across different industries, there are some common qualifications that sales reps almost always need:

• BA degree in business or a similar field.
• Experience with sales, lead generation, and account development.
• Ability to use sales tools such as CRM software.
• Be results-oriented, have a strong understanding of the sales pipeline process, and excel in new customer acquisitions.
• Capacity to operate independently with minimal supervision in remote work scenarios.
• Have strong record-keeping abilities and organizational capacities.
• Possess excellent written, presentation, and negotiation skills.
• Knowledge of the industry/goods or services specific to the business.

Please note, outside sales positions almost always require a good amount of travel. As such, outside sales candidates often must also be comfortable traveling up to 50% of their time.

Need Help Recruiting Top Sales Talent?   

When your business hits a certain growth threshold, you can’t move forward without hiring a strong sales team. When you work with CulverCareers to hire sales reps, you get 40 years of expertise behind your Human Resources department.

Beyond being the best sales recruiters in the industry, CulverCareers has also developed programs dedicated to employee wellness and retention. To this end, we are firm believers that holding on to key employees is just as important as recruiting them. As trusted advisers for your HR department, CulverCareers will help make your company a talent destination in itself.