What President's Club Sales Reps Want in Their Next Job

Are you looking to grow your team by recruiting President’s Club caliber sales talent? Today’s job market is competitive, and top sales talent has more choices than ever. So how do you compete?

Here’s what separates the offers top performers accept from the ones they turn down. Getting this right consistently is where a software sales recruiter starts to make a real difference.

1. Remote Work

Remote roles give you access to the largest possible talent pool, especially when you’re recruiting for a specific industry or vertical background. We hear from candidates every day who won’t consider a role that isn’t 100% remote.

I was talking to a candidate recently who’s a five-year running President’s Club winner. He travels so much for client meetings that an in-office requirement wouldn’t make sense for his role, or his life. He’s flying home at 11pm and back at the airport by 5am the next morning to make it to his next prospect.

Require someone like that to commute into an office, and you’ve disqualified him before the conversation even starts.

2. Customer Retention Rate

Most President’s Club level candidates won’t ask about your retention rate directly, but they’ll find out anyway. They’ll check your reviews on G2. They’ll ask their own network whether anyone uses your product, or would want to.

If they take the role and churn turns out to be high, they won’t stay engaged for long. They’ll start rebuilding their network and looking for the next move, and they’ll usually be gone within 12 to 14 months.

We saw this happen with a VP of Sales who joined one of the top two solutions in his market, a company with a strong reputation. Within six months of hearing directly from clients about churn, he was gone. He’s not a job hopper, he’s still at the company he left for, but he wasn’t willing to spend his days selling a product he knew wouldn’t stick.

3. Sales Infrastructure and Support

Sales infrastructure is a dealbreaker for most strong salespeople, the same way remote flexibility is. Enterprise deals are rarely won by one person alone. It takes a real team to get a deal across the finish line.

When a President’s Club seller evaluates a role and doesn’t see the infrastructure to support enterprise deals, they’ll pass. They know exactly what it takes to win, and they’re not interested in taking a job where the odds are stacked against them from day one.

4. Healthcare Costs

Healthcare costs add up fast, and changing jobs usually means changing plans. We had a candidate turn down an offer specifically over this: the new company’s family coverage ran $1,700 a month with a deductible over $10,000.

The base salary and commission structure were close enough to what he already had that the healthcare gap alone made the move not worth it. Most candidates aren’t digging into provider networks or plan details. They’re looking at two numbers: the monthly premium and the deductible.

Sales Talent or Sales Training?

Hiring for SaaS sales roles is competitive, and most candidates aren’t in the top 20%, which makes competing for that group even harder. Today’s top performers expect more from their next move, especially around flexibility and how they work.

If you can’t offer at least some of these four things, your ability to compete for top sales talent will suffer. That may mean building your team with average reps who have high potential, or reps with less experience, and investing more heavily in sales training to close the gap.