Definition: The division of a business that's responsible for selling products
or services
Evaluating your current sales force is an important step in the
process of deciding whether and how to grow your sales team. If
your existing sales force is fine and will be more than adequate to
fuel future growth, you can keep the number of people the same and
simply add some additional training or perhaps a revamped
compensation package. On the other hand, your sales force may need
to grow by a few heads, or you may choose to stay the same size but
have different people filling the sales positions.
Step one in evaluating your sales force is to decide what you
want it to do for you. For some companies that do most of their
selling through mail order or the Internet, a sales force is
strictly an option. In this case, you may expect your sales force
to handle only the larger accounts, leaving the smaller orders to
customer service personnel and order-takers. For other companies,
however, the salesperson is the most visible-and perhaps the
only--outward manifestation of the company seen by customers. This
type of salesperson carries a heavy load. He or she has to uphold
the company's image, hold the customers' hands, interface with
delivery and repair departments at headquarters, and, of course,
get the sale.
It won't require a lot of thought for you to come up with a good
description of what you want your sales force to do. Make sure
you're not evaluating your sales force based on some other
company's needs. For instance, if your salespeople are primarily
charged with following up on leads generated by your advertising,
don't penalize them if they aren't making a lot of cold calls. Once
you decide what jobs your sales force is intended for, simply check
their performance against the requirements. The key measure when it
comes to evaluating a sales force is sales productivity.
The simplest measure of sales productivity is the dollar amount
of sales per salesperson. That's easy enough to figure out: Just
divide the volume of sales by the number of salespeople on staff.
That will give you an average sales productivity figure and let you
know how the average salesperson in your organization is doing.
More useful, though, is to know how each individual salesperson is
doing compared to the average. You may have a handful of relatively
productive people who are carrying the load for a raft of
underperformers. This is the kind of information you'll need to
know to decide whether to make a change.
Be warned, though: Sales productivity may involve more than
simply generating dollars of sales. Your sales force may be moving
a lot of product now but costing you sales later by alienating
customers with poor service. They may be making promises you can't
deliver on, overburdening your production and shipping departments.
They may be selling a lot of the wrong products (items with low
margins or high support costs) while ignoring your more profitable
lines. Check to see if certain salespeople have large numbers of
returns or tend to sell to customers who don't pass credit checks.
These salespeople could be costing you more than they are
worth.
Adding salespeople can result in steadily increasing sales. This
can free you up to spend time and energy on other tasks. Hiring
salespeople could also hurt sales, erode profits, damage valuable
customer relationships, and destroy your image in the marketplace.
The difference between these two scenarios is the difference
between hiring the right salespeople and the wrong ones.
Salespeople are not just the people responsible for building
your bottom line. They're also your front-line troops, the ones
with the most daily contact with your customers. With those caveats
in mind, it's important to not only grow your sales force, but to
grow it properly.
To start with, understand that there may not be any truly bad
salespeople. There may just be good salespeople in the wrong
positions. To hire the right salesperson for the job, you have to
understand and be able to describe what the job is. That means
clarifying whether this sales position is intended to immediately
generate sales or perhaps develop contacts for a sales cycle that
may stretch into months or years. Do you want someone who is a
closer or one who takes more of a consultative approach? Matching
your company's sales needs and selling style to your new hires is
the first step in getting good salespeople.
Few salespeople are motivated by altruism, and misunderstanding
your company's compensation package is one of the main reasons for
sales staff dissatisfaction and turnover. For all potential new
hires, explain precisely what the compensation plan is. In
addition, clarify the territory, your performance expectations, any
training you will offer, and any sales tools you will provide. You
should also provide candidates with a thumbnail description of the
market and the competition. Then you will know that you have
explained the opportunity accurately to anyone who is
interested.
Don't stop by describing your needs. Imagine the ideal
salesperson for the job, including his or her personality,
experience, energy level, reputation and abilities. You may not
find someone exactly like that, but if you don't know what you
want, the odds of making a bad hiring decision are high.
Only now should you actually start looking for salespeople. But
before dashing out a three-line ad and calling the classified
department of your local newspaper, consider some other
options:
- Look internally. You may have technical, support,
operations or administrative people who would and could
successfully move into sales. Post the ad on a bulletin board and
see what happens.
- Ask for employee referrals. Chances are your existing
employees know the kind of people who would be happy working for
you. They may be able to suggest some people for you to
contact.
- Network with suppliers, customers, colleagues, advisors and
social contacts. This can be cheaper, faster and more reliable
than advertising to the general public.
- Check with professional associations. They may have job
lines to help members find employees.
- Try online advertising. The speed, freshness and
searchability of online job banks make them attractive options for
both candidates and employers.
- Check with your local college. You may be able to hire a
recent graduate who is enthusiastic, effective and less expensive
than a seasoned professional.
- Contact headhunters. Headhunters specializing in sales
personnel aren't cheap, but when labor markets are tight, it may be
worth the cost to find a solid salesperson.
- Consider using temporary and staffing services.
Temporary and staffing services can provide you with sales and
marketing personnel on a temporary, temp-to-perm, or permanent
direct-hire basis.