Startup sales are Hard, but hiring a successful first salesperson is Harder!

If you own a startup that is growing quickly, it might be time for you to hire some new employees to take on some of your tasks. One of the most important employees you can hire is a salesperson.

However, your hiring decision should not be one that you take lightly.

Many small businesses fail in the first five years due to a lack of sales and your new business may be at risk as well, if you do not choose a driven salesperson that is capable of consistently bringing in new customers and create a culture & reputation of your company as you want.

Now, you may be wondering:

How can I find the best possible salesperson and convince them to work for me?

Keep reading and you will learn how to hire a salesperson for a startup successfully — even if you have no experience interviewing and hiring employees.

At what point should a startup hire a salesperson?

Well this depends onseveral factorssome of which are:

· the stage of the startup

· the nature of the industry

· current team’s capabilities

· and resources available for hiring & retaining the appropriate salesperson

Sales people typically like to work with companies where the processes are well defined, the value propositions has been proven, marketing material & sales packaging are working fine.

Therefore, ideally you should hire a salesperson when you check off the following items on the list:

· You have mastered the sales process yourself: before expanding your sales team it is always advisable that you should know your product first, and no one can know this better than a CEO of the startup. A CEO has to sell everyday: to investors, employees, the board of directors, etc; A CEO is always selling. He / She has to sell up & down and around the chain. Even if he / she is not from a sales background or just hates selling. CEO has to take the initial steps and do customer development himself / herself. Be as close to your prospect as you can.

But, how do you know that you have mastered sales? Simple, try closing at least 3 new prospects into customers; from this I mean prospects who have gone through your complete sales funnel, from cold contact to paying customer. If you’re able to do that then this means that you’ve mastered the art of Sales.

This step will not only help in gaining more confidence in your product but will also help you in focusing early stage sales explorations:

-Gain insights into your market.

-Listen to your customer requirements and issues.

-Try out new tactics and strategies in order to overcome the objections. Further these tactics and strategies can be used in your go-to market process.

-According to your interaction with different customers come with a phone call pitch. This later can be shared with your sales team.

· You can afford it: this is one factor that sometimes holds you back from hiring a salesperson for your team. You have to have a right plan of how much you’ll be paying them, how much amount will be spent on tools, training, etc. If you are hiring a salesperson then you should have all what it takes to be in order to make sales and retain them.

· Ready to guide your team being a sales lead: no other employee can challenge you more than your salesperson. They will put up questions on every step: your product, marketing strategy, pricing structure, etc. You have to be present there in order to guide them through the right path. As you already have gone through the same in your initial stages and through your analysis provide them with satisfactory answers and complete guidance.

· You have done enough marketing so that salesperson can sell: Really! But, why is marketing so important for sales? Because it is the initial step where the interested customers are brought in, which we call lead generation. Sales on the other hand is a process which converts those interested customers into clients. If your marketing is not up to the mark then it will be difficult for your salesperson to sell your product in a much efficient manner.

A good indication that marketing is going well and satisfactory is when you have enough leads to follow up and a sufficient number of new ones to call too. This means that you have refined your value proposition, your ideal customer and how to reach to them.

· When you are well aware of your target group, the place where you stand in market and solutions to market’s most common objections: once you start your company you need to have a clear image of your target group. But once you start targeting them and get to talk to them you get even more clear image of who all are exactly your target group, are they directly or indirectly related your product. You keep doing that and you end up on your ideal customer which listens to you and even responds to you.

Before stepping in to your market it’s better that you do some research on your direct and indirect competitions. In order to get better results go for experimental research i.e. going out and selling it yourself.

While this process is going on, it is obvious that you will be facing some objections like I’m not interested, happy with current product, will think about it, etc. You have to dig deep for solutions so that you can overcome them. This will help you in refining your pitch and will also save a lot of time in solving those objections with new salespersons prospect that you are not able to overcome.

So try checking off these items from your list and once it is done, you can proceed towards to salesperson hunt.

A Salesperson is one of the most important ingredients of a startup. He/She makes calls, closes deals and if time comes does other multitasks as well. So, if you are on hunt for a salesperson do make sure that you have a whole list of qualities in your hand that you are looking for.

Quality traits that should be focused on while hiring a salesperson

When you are hiring someone who could potentially determine whether or not your business succeeds, it is important for you to take a strategic approach.

Here are a few ways you can find a good salesperson:

· A recently promoted sales manager can be considered as an option for your startup. This is so because the person has just crossed the line and has come to the other side but is still in the same suit of making calls and closing deals.

· Always consider a person who is hyper-competitive and highly compassionate. This type of salesperson maintains a parent relationship with the prospect where they provide the prospect with the best possible solution.

· Look out for a salesperson that can stretch himself/herself to his/her extremes. This is where the real test begins. While in an interview the candidate will speak out all his / her rehearsed answers but the real interview will begin when you will push him out of his comfort zone. Moving beyond the rehearsed answers will help you in judging the person in a much better way! Keep pressing the candidate and that will bring out the “real me”.

· If you are impressed with some of the candidates after an interview so do not just hire him/her right after. Oftentimes, a candidate who looks great on paper will produce disappointing results. On the other hand, an inexperienced salesperson with a less-than-ideal resume may be able to skyrocket your sales and push your startup toward long-term success. It is better that you go for a trial, see how the candidate is holding on to his/her work; his/her attitude towards the work; is he/she giving his 100%?if caught up in any situation, is he trying his level best to come out of it? To what extent is he/she pushing himself/herself?

If you are satisfied with the answers of these questions then Onboard him/her!

· Look out for goal oriented salesperson. Ask questions about goals and pay more attention on how fast he/she responds. Sometimes goal achieved track record shown on paper does not always imply that the person is goal oriented. There are might be other factors which could have been in his favor the whole time.

· Check out candidates social media profiles like LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Mostly conversations start when you post a job requirement on any social media and interested candidates replies on your post. While checking out the candidates profile you may gain a sense of their worthiness in terms of timeliness and dependability.

· Salesperson should be a good listener. Theyhave to listen to the customer’s pain before they start pitching your product/service. Great sales people sell solutions to problems and they do that by understanding and listening to the customers.

· Find folks that can fill current and future corporate product, marketing and sales position. Your startup will succeed in the marketplace if you place right talent in the right performance conditions. But what would it take you to do this successfully?

-Understand the other functional activities. First of all make your mind clear with what talents are you looking for?

-Once clear with knowledge, shift your focus to profiles.

-Following the profiles, assessment kicks in. Do you have the right people in your organization?

-Next step comes is sourcing. As discussed earlier it is important to find the right source in order to fit in the best talent in your startup.

-Once you get to know the right source, start hiring or trials.

-If you are satisfied with the customer onboard him. Onboarding is not only some introductory videos or classes. It is about shortening the road to productivity. You must teach the skills and behavior needed to perform the job.

Everything that we have discussed seems pretty simple to follow but there are certain mistakes that startups and small business owners make in particular, when it comes to hiring practices.

Here are a few most common hiring mistakes and why you, as a business owner, should avoid them:

· Hiring someone you know: this is the most common mistake a startup owner does. Taking an interview of someone known on a personal level makes it difficult for you to accurately gauge their talents, skills and abilities until you work with them. Even if you hire them it will be difficult for you to assert authority, clearly define their responsibilities and evaluate their work in an unbiased manner.

· Hiring a senior leader: directly hiring a senior leader or sales manager is a bit risky. Why?

-They are not in a practice of making sales and closing deals. You need a person who can immediately hop on to the boat and is ready to sail.

-As soon as you hire a manager or leader, first question they will be asking is where is my team or assistant? They have been working with a team in their previous company so they are expecting the same in here too. As you are still in the beginning level of hiring your first lot, so you have no team to give it to the leader or manager.

· Too much pressure on experience: if you are hiring a salesperson your question should not emphasize more on their working experience. It is better to hire a candidate who has less experience but more capabilities than hiring a candidate with more experience but fewer capabilities. A person with more capabilities and different ideas will be ready to jump into any idea to make it a successful one.

· Do not avoid adaptability towards work: before hiring any candidate make sure that you have already completed your homework of go-to market strategy. It is not important that the strategies that you used in your previous company will be applicable as well as successful with your product too. It is advisable that you should come up with a different go-to market strategy which is according to your product, company, target groups, team, etc.

The candidate that you will be hiring as a salesperson should have the quality of adapting to new strategies, environment, etc.

· Overlook the previous sales process development experience: do not hire a person by just going through the achievements shown on the paper. A person might be good at following the pitch, blueprint, sales model, target model but might not be good at creating the same. Always keep an eye on that salesperson who can work in a less structured environment and can build a model, pitch, blueprint if asked to.

· Must have the knowledge of how to handle your early bird prospects: while hiring a salesperson you will come across a lot of candidates who will gather all the information about the product and when given a chance to interact with the prospect will dump all the information on to them without knowing the importance of every detail.

Yes it important to pass on the information to the prospects but only the necessary ones. But sometimes startup owners make a mistake in choosing a pitcher salesperson over a consultant salesperson. A consultant salesperson will be good at consulting and building relationship with your prospects and will retain that bond too. On the other hand a pitcher salesperson will be effective at closing deals, but will be terrible in building and maintaining the relationship.

This will hurt your reputation and can cost you a lot in terms of time and money both.

· Asking the wrong question: as discussed earlier in this article, asking same old questions will not help in getting you the best salesperson, like

“Tell me about yourself”

“What was your role in your previous company”

These are the questions which have been well rehearsed before coming for the interview. Ask questions that will push him out of his comfort zone.

· Taking candidates for granted: candidates will use all kinds of attributes to describe themselves. Words like creative, relentless, resourceful, etc will be used to impress you. But it is your job to separate fact from fiction.

Make sure you are aware of all the traits that you want in your salesperson. Craft some questions that guide candidates in demonstrating what you are looking for. This will help you see whether a candidate can live up to those fancy words or not.

· Hiring too quickly: when you are taking interviews for your first sales team you sit with a mindset where you are thinking to start the calling at the earliest. Don’t let that thought drive you away. Do not get impressed with the very first candidate. At least interview 5 more candidates so that you can compare and pick the best one instead of picking up the very first person that excites you.

Remember that early hires will play an important role in the progress and success of your business so you cannot afford to be reckless or not give them the time and effort that they require.

Keep these mistakes in mind and remember to check yourself during the hiring process. If you feel that you are not close to finding the right candidate, be sure to take a break from the process and evaluate your hiring practices.