Six Reasons to Recruit SaaS Sales Talent in a Downturn
1. New hires often bring new ideas.
Hiring new people can be invigorating. If you hire right, you’ll be surprised what kind of motivation a new person can provide to a comfortable team. Strong sales hires share what they’ve learned elsewhere and tend to raise the level of competition on the team.
2. Talented salespeople still change jobs in down markets.
Some exceptional sales leaders and reps have seen things that changed their minds about their current companies. Some organizations are not handling the downturn well and are giving top reps plenty of reasons to explore new opportunities. Internal changes, layoffs, and lack of direction also push talented salespeople to consider other organizations.
3. Hiring well, often with the help of a software sales recruiter, affects future revenue.
In any market, top salespeople tend to be highly profitable, which is why hiring them is worth the cost. ROI is straightforward to prove because sales results are easy to measure. It’s been proven repeatedly that top performers bring in 3X to 5X the revenue of the bottom performers on your sales team.
4. If your competitors are making changes, it could be a great time to recruit their top sales talent.
When your competition is slashing compensation and moving territories around, firing staff, and trying to regroup, you might get a shot at picking up their top sales reps. At the very least, it’s an opportunity to start a dialogue. There isn’t a sales leader or a salesperson who will be on any sales team forever.
5. You may have stronger sellers interested in working for you now than ever before.
The job market keeps changing. During uncertainty, more candidates become available, and the pool extends well beyond those recently laid off.
Many salespeople are ready to leave after witnessing poorly executed layoffs and firings, even though they kept their sales jobs. However, some of these people are excellent sellers and only consider opportunities once every four to seven years. If you stop recruiting now, you will miss out on hiring top sales talent.
6. There’s less competition for sales talent.
When the economy cools, competition for talent slows. So, those employers who amp up their recruiting focus will have more choices. Of course, top salespeople will still receive offers, but many employers may choose to lower their compensation targets or even hold on to hiring. With less pressure in the market, your offer carries more weight.
Looking into the Future
Recruiting high-performance SaaS sales talent is both risky and challenging in any market. Today’s modern salesperson must be driven, willing to open tightly closed doors, knowledgeable, communicative, tech-savvy, reliable, and somewhat organized. Getting any one of these traits wrong can derail a rep’s performance, which is why many teams revisit common sales recruiting mistakes when refining their hiring process.
Companies that keep hiring strong people through a soft market are usually the ones positioned to gain share when conditions improve. That position is available to companies willing to keep hiring now.
If you’ve been frustrated with your sales talent pool over the last twelve months, now’s a great time to recruit your next sales rep.
