Hiring a Sales Manager can be one of the most important decisions a company makes. This guide will provide you with the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully recruit an exceptional sales manager who will guide your team to success.
The potential financial impact of inadequate sales management is $3.5 million, as underperforming sales managers commonly fail to meet revenue targets by 24% on average.
Furthermore, that is not all.
A poor sales manager has the potential to negatively impact the performance of an entire sales team and even the department as a whole.
It is truly astounding how many poor sales managers exist in the industry.
Why, then, are they employed to begin with?
To put it simply, it is due to weak recruitment practices.
Certain organisations erroneously promote their most talented salespeople to managerial positions, only to discover that being an exceptional sales manager requires considerably more than mere sales expertise. Conversely, other organisations that are pressed for time ultimately complete the position without conducting the necessary research. Conversely, recruiting managers may rely on intuition when making hiring decisions instead of making well-informed and objective choices.
Hiring an exceptional sales manager does require effort. However, being meticulous pays off, as 75% of marketers, on average, achieve their annual goals under the guidance of a high-performing sales manager.
In summary, the process of selecting exceptional sales managers is facilitated by a streamlined recruiting procedure that accurately and efficiently identifies the most qualified candidates and knows whom to seek out.
How to recruit an exceptional sales manager
Employing an exceptional sales manager can profoundly impact a company, boosting revenue and inspiring employees to strive for excellence. A mishire, on the other hand, can have severe financial repercussions for a company, including, at worst, dragging down the entire sales force with underachievers, low morale, and unnecessary expenses.
How can one effectively identify and recruit the most promising candidates?
The process of selecting an exceptional sales manager to guide your sales team consists of the six stages outlined below:
Step one- Understand what makes an excellent sales manager.
Step two – Determine whether you will employ internally or externally.
Step three- Compose an outstanding job advertisement.
Step four – Employ evaluations to screen candidates.
Step five involves conducting structured interviews.
Sixth step: Conduct a case study
Understanding what makes an excellent sales manager is the initial step.
The top-line sales managers. They exude assurance and possess formidable leadership capabilities. They are not averse to providing sales instruction or executing challenging decisions.
Identifying these differentiating factors in advance will, without a doubt, assist you in avoiding wasting time, money, and effort on potentially unsuitable hires.
An exceptional sales manager is:
- Like others, resilient individuals encounter setbacks but swiftly recover from them, perceiving adversity as an opportunity to grow.
- An exceptional communicator who can easily convey positive and negative information to team members.
- Solving problems without hesitation, this individual is solutions-obsessed.
- Proficient in coaching and adept at recognising opportunities for team member’s professional development and progression.
- Recognises and accepts personal and collective errors.
- Extremely enthusiastic about celebrating; enjoys rallying the entire team, boosting the morale of others, and commemorating both major and minor triumphs.
Step two – Determine whether you will employ internally or externally.
Internally hiring a sales manager:
Pros:
- You indicate to employees that the organisation provides professional development and progression opportunities.
- Internal hiring can aid in employee retention and enhance team performance.
- Hiring internally typically results in reduced hiring expenses and a shorter engagement time.
Cons:
- When considering internal replacements, assessing whether the current employee will be missed is important. Even if the individual in question is a sales prodigy, they may not generate as much revenue for the company as the manager.
- Employing from within will inevitably result in the creation of vacant positions within your organisation. Who shall assume the role? Considering this, vacant positions can be onerous for the remaining team members.
- Merely selecting an employee for a managerial position does not guarantee their aptitude as a manager. A successful sales manager possesses various abilities, including coaching and leadership, whereas a salesperson works more autonomously with their targets and is primarily concerned with making sales.
Even though approximately 96% of businesses rely on internal promotions to fill sales management positions, less than half believe they are competent.
Externally hiring a sales manager:
Pros:
- Successful organisations experience expansion in both revenue and intricacy. Innovation and positive change may suddenly appear at your doorway if you occasionally abandon the herd mentality and recruit a new team member with a fresh perspective.
- Expand the scope of your candidate pool by extending an inclusive invitation to a diverse range of individuals.
- Potentially complementary talents and experiences may be possessed by candidates.
Cons:
- External recruits are more expensive.
- When recruiting externally, it is more difficult to find a good employee; in reality, external hires result in a 16% higher termination rate than internal hires, for Hiring A Sales Manager
- External recruiting can reduce the time required to onboard a new employee effectively. A novice sales manager takes an average of six months to become proficient in their role. Your sales force may experience a slump in momentum during this period.
Regardless of whether you employ internally or externally, identifying the ideal candidate remains the key to success. Success in this situation depends on your comprehensive comprehension of a candidate’s capabilities and preparedness to thrive.
Moving forward, let us examine the process of effectively locating those obscure treasures!
Step three is to compose an inclusive job advertisement.
The job advertisement establishes the overall recruiting atmosphere, thus rendering its accuracy of the utmost importance. Before creating the job advertisement, HR and the recruiting manager should extensively discuss its content. Once both parties clearly understand the responsibilities and objectives of the position in alignment with those of the organisation, the writing process can commence.
There are two essential components to an effective job advertisement:
- Selling the Company – The word “selling” may not sound as intimidating as it sounds. Specify in the job description what distinguishes your organisation from others and why potential candidates should select you instead of another applicant. Highlight your company benefits and position rewards prominently in the listing; do not hesitate to go all out.
- The second aspect could be more challenging. While avoiding deterring potential candidates with an extensive enumeration of demands and qualifications, it is equally crucial to provide sufficient details to identify individuals who fail to meet the role’s prerequisites. Maintain your advertisement’s simplicity and inclusiveness, employ inclusive pronouns, and avoid gender-encoded language to strike a balance.
Fourth step: Assess sales managers utilising candidate evaluations
Candidate evaluations are an invaluable asset to possess.
Why? In essence, these assessments gauge an individual’s personality and cognitive capacities, thereby aiding recruiters in identifying candidates who exhibit promising potential during the recruiting procedure.
Personality science-based psychometric assessments, such as the Big Five Model of Personality, can furnish candidate profiles grounded in empirical evidence. This enables recruiting decisions to be guided by data-driven insights. Furthermore, these evaluations effectively eliminate bias during the recruiting process.
Why utilise evaluations when selecting the next sales manager?
- Evaluate candidates’ proficiency in overseeing, mentoring, and directing a sales team.
- Evaluate whether a candidate possesses the necessary qualities for the position, such as initiative, integrity, leadership, and adaptability.
- It has been demonstrated that hiring assessments can shorten the time required to engage a candidate from forty-two to five days.
- Enhance the likelihood of executing a successful hire by obtaining a precise assessment of a candidate’s suitability for the position during the initial stages of the hiring procedure.
- Time spent conducting candidate interviews can be optimised instead of manually sifting through hundreds of applications.
Step Five – Structured interview queries for a sales manager candidate.
Strive to be extremely specific when posing enquiries to candidates to elicit comprehensive responses.
Additionally, be wary of candidates who can provide concrete examples and specifics; these are the types of responses you want to see during an interview.
- Describe a time when you assisted in the professional development of a member of your team.
- Please recollect an instance in which you successfully managed a dispute between two team members. What transpired? What steps were taken to rectify the situation? Elucidate upon the occurrence.
- Describe how you would manage a team member who failed to meet objectives.
- Have you ever modified a procedure to increase revenue, decrease expenses, or enhance efficiency? Elucidate the initial cause of the process’s failure and describe the modifications you implemented to rectify the situation.
- What is your approach to goal setting?
- How would you instruct a newly hired sales representative for your team? Please describe the process to me.
Why are structured interviews beneficial?
In contrast to unstructured interviews that rely on intuition, structured interviews provide a systematic approach to evaluating a candidate’s potential performance in the position. Structural interviews are, therefore, among the most accurate indicators of future job performance.
Structured interviews involve administering identical enquiries to all candidates and evaluating their responses by comparing them to a predetermined baseline criterion. In this manner, the influence of bias in candidate selection is reduced, and the probability of executing a precise hiring decision grounded in data-driven insights is enhanced.
Sixth step: Conduct a case study
Case studies are an exceptional method for determining whether an applicant merits further consideration in the hiring procedure.
Some organisations conduct case studies before interviews, whereas for others, they are the last step in the application process. Be certain that case studies are only beneficial when they are pertinent and customised to the particular position for which you are recruiting. When evaluating candidates for sales manager positions, consider their proficiency in coaching and speaking, familiarity with the organisation and its products, and interpersonal abilities.
Frequent enquiries concerning the hiring process for a sales manager
1. The recruitment process for a sales manager. Before hiring a sales manager, it is essential to determine why your company requires one and to identify the qualities that make for an exceptional sales manager. The following step is to develop an efficient and streamlined employment procedure that screens candidates objectively and expeditiously before shortlisting them for interviews. A well-designed recruiting procedure typically comprises a battery of psychometric evaluations utilised to screen applicants, structured interviews, and a pertinent case study.
2. What is the role of a sales manager? A sales manager oversees the company’s sales operations and manages the sales team. They lead the sales strategy, establish objectives, and monitor performance. Typically, their responsibilities also include mentoring and instructing sales personnel.
3. Which professions do sales managers enter? After working as a sales manager, you can advance to a more senior sales leadership position, such as sales director, vice president of sales, or chief revenue officer.
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