Why Recruiting Should Be a Sales Leader's Top Priority

I worked with a sales leader who put recruiting first, always. He’d recruit anyone from anywhere. If he saw someone working hard at a conference or a trade show, he’d get their name or find out where they worked.

My first recruit for him came off a list he kept of President’s Club winners from a competitor. He handed it to me and said to get him any one of these people, and he’d hire them. Mission accomplished.

His team was full of top sales reps, and this was why. He was always paying attention. And every one of them went to President’s Club three years in a row.

If you’re a sales leader, recruiting the right team members is the fastest way to succeed, and it requires a top slot on your priority list. Here are five reasons it belongs there.

1. Great Salespeople Make Everyone Look Good

Hiring motivated, passionate professionals makes your job as a sales manager 10x easier.

Without the right talent, you’ll waste time. You’ll be busy with performance discussions, one-on-ones, and meetings about why your reps aren’t hitting their goals.

You can prevent the problems that come with bad sales hires through tenacious recruiting. That means taking an active role and doing what you must to get the best people on your team. Average reps are always easier to find than the top 10%.

2. Hiring the Right People Is Transformative

You can’t transform the unmotivated or unwilling into top producers.

Unless you enjoy motivating by fear, you’ll need to hire people who are driven and excited about the work. They’ll also need the skills to succeed in your specific sales environment.

You’ll have a revolving door if you approach recruiting with short-term thinking. Turnover costs money, time, and future star hires.

When you’re recruiting, take the time to ask well-thought-out questions. Then listen closely before you decide.

Get the right people on the team, and the difference shows up everywhere. You’ll spend less time coaching reps on filling the pipeline. Deals come together with greater predictability. Your forecasting is on the mark, and it becomes easier to meet revenue targets and secure more resources.

3. Recruit Consistently, and You’ll Hire Top Performers

Because you’re always looking for talent, you’re more likely to find adaptable candidates with the right attitude and help them become exceptional. As you get better at developing sales talent, your reputation grows. You’ll become known as the leader who gets people to President’s Club and/or promoted.

You’ll attract ambitious sales talent, the kind that sees value in working for you and being part of your team. You’ll also get better at recruiting and at letting go of underperformers, because you have an active pipeline of sales talent. Experienced software sales recruiters can help you build and maintain that pipeline, and understanding key recruiting cycles can give you a real advantage.

4. No Sales, No Company

Great products, exceptional service, cool branding- none of it matters if your organization doesn’t have sales. It’s obvious but easy to forget. If your team isn’t selling, it won’t be long before the company closes its doors.

As a sales leader, it’s your job to make sure you have the right people on the team. You must recruit salespeople who will help you protect the company’s cash flow.

Hire the best sales talent you can find. The problems that come from not having the right people start to disappear.

5. When Recruiting Is Your #1 Priority, You Hire the Best

The leader with the President’s Club list wasn’t lucky. He was in the market year-round, which meant he saw star talent the moment it became available, and the right people don’t become available on your schedule. Watching a rep hustle at a trade show booth is a sourcing channel if you’re paying attention.

There are no shortcuts for recruiting star sales talent. But staying in the market saves you time in the long run, because you won’t be hiring people who can’t close deals, can’t motivate themselves, or miss quota again and again.

Recruiting Is Sales

First, develop your criteria for hiring top sales talent. Then build a pipeline, fill it with strong candidates, and move them through the recruitment process.

A few metrics can help you measure progress and predict the pipeline you need to staff your team. Interview-to-hire ratios, second interviews, and offer-to-acceptance ratios are all predictive measurements you can track.

Recruiting for your sales team takes a lot of time and energy, and getting it wrong costs a fortune. Getting it right looks like a whole team at President’s Club three years running, and that started with a list and a leader who never stopped recruiting. 

The same principles apply one level up: sales leadership hires are just as hard to get right. Making recruiting the priority is the mindset; the sales hiring playbook is the method. If recruiting your sales team is where you’re stuck, let’s talk.