Recruiting The Best Salespeople Requires A Good Job Profile9 min read

Your Expectations For A New Salesperson

Once you’ve determined what you are looking for in a new salesperson, the next steps are to develop a Job Profile, followed by the Job Description and a plan to cultivate your new team member’s success.
For now, set these expectations:

• Where the new salesperson works.
• Who the new salesperson reports to, what does he report and how often.
• What territory the salesperson will work. If you have only one salesperson serving a metropolitan area, limit the territory the rep initially works.
• What vertical markets the salesperson will serve.
• What revenue targets apply to each vertical market.
• What existing clients the salesperson will work with.
• What the salesperson’s objectives will be in working with prospects.
• What the salesperson’s sales production quota will be and how it ramps up during the first six months, and year.
• How the quota will be divided by products and services for each month, quarter, and year.
• The program for onboarding the new salesperson.
• The sales training program. All salespeople, especially experienced salespeople, need regular training to develop and hone their sales skills.
• The involvement of the other departments in onboarding and sales training.
• Operations must be involved in acclimating each new salesperson and ensuring that your company’s new sales representative understands its products, services, and capabilities.

The Job Profile

This profile will outline:

• Who the salesperson will report to
• Skills required
• What the job is on a daily basis
• Onboarding process
• Ongoing sales training
• Technical training

The Job Description

When advertising the position inside or outside your organization, or posting it on your website, create the most attractive and complete job description possible. Make sure it is easily understood by anyone who reads it.

You want to make sure it shows why an applicant would want to work for you and not your competition.

Five key points to keep in mind while creating your job description:

1. Check out the competition.  Do your research and see what the competition is offering in their recruiting.
2. Look at and understand what would make your company appealing to a candidate.
3. Know why someone would want to work for you.
4. Have your management team read the job description.  Ask each manager if he or she were a salesperson, would they apply for this job? If yes, why? If no, why not?
5. Does this job description clearly describe what you’re looking for?

Leadership has not taken the required time to analyze, plan, and develop a strategy for their sales efforts. They haven’t taken the time to put their salespeople in a position to win, and that’s the one thing planning does.

To produce exceptional results requires exceptional dedication. That dedication is shown in your commitment to put in the time to develop your strategy, to constantly challenge the effectiveness of the strategy and insure that you have the tactics in place to make that strategy successful and, in turn, to challenge your salespeople to make the same commitment to excellence.

By developing an accurate job description, you are taking the first step in sales leadership. In the process of developing the sales job description, you are learning more about what you need to do to insure their success.

If you have any questions or comments, give us a call at 1-800-232-3584

Indeed: “How to write an Outside Sales Representative Job Description”

Monster: “Create a Job Description that Entices Candidates to Apply”

RecruitLoop: “5 Simple Steps To Writing A Concise Job Description”

Larrabee Ventures, Inc. (LVI)

LVI is staffed by highly experienced alarm professionals.

William Larrabee (“Bill”) has started three alarm companies from scratch, been president of five different alarm companies, and worked through crisis situations in numerous companies, either as an on-site executive or paid financial advisor. Bill knows the alarm business.

Michael Carter (“Mike”) has been a sales manager and vice president of sales and marketing for five of the largest alarm companies in the US. He also has ten years of experience driving sales and marketing programs as a consultant and coach. Michael knows sales, marketing, and sales management for alarm companies. For more information about LVI please visit our website: Larrabee Ventures.com.

Together we will answer your questions and help you get your business out of the fog and back on the open road.