Sales tales: you’re selling not buying, when sales hiring

Today’s tale: “You’re selling, not buying, when sales hiring!”

By Stephen Allott, Venture Partner, Seedcamp Sales Tales

Business is about sales. Selling things to customers. Your business results are your sales results. Hire great sales people and success will largely take care of itself. So what’s the secret?

“You’re selling, not buying, when sales hiring!”. That’s the secret.

Here’s today’s sales tale.

There was a time when I had to hire a new sales leader (a head of EMEA) and retained a leading specialist headhunter. The candidates they produced were solid but not special. None with pizzazz despite many with years of experience in household names. But for someone great, we had the sweetest career opportunity. What was the problem? We had on offer:

• Red hot high growth market
• Killer product undefeated by competition
• Amazing consistent track record of growth
• Generous uncapped commission plan

I wanted to hire the best in the business. So I called the headhunter and said I didn’t understand. During the conversation I found myself selling the job. The headhunter said:-

“Well I know exactly who this is right for. I’ll send them along”

And I ended up hiring the best in the business. I had had to explain what I wanted and then I had had to give the sales pitch to the headhunter so the headhunter could sell it on to the candidates.

USING A PITCH DECK TO ATTRACT “A” PLAYERS

I had produced a pitch deck for the job (the graphics are showing their age). Not a boring 3 page job description with text and bulleted lists of responsibilities. No, a real pitch deck which explained why this job was a great opportunity. Nowadays I share an example pitch deck with every company I work with today. They all say it is a game changer in their sales hiring success. It nails down both the story and the candidate specification. You can send it to candidates. You can send it to your network to send on to candidates. The headhunters can send it on to candidates.

A pitch deck for a sales role works because:

• Great sales people have a lot of choice about where they go and work
• Great sales people do real due diligence. They are making a career investment decision
• Great sales people like to be sold by a company that can sell

Your pitch deck has to include a slide on what you are looking for in a great candidate. Phrase it so you are speaking to them. They are looking for a fit with your needs just as much as you are searching for a fit with yours. Headhunters write a “brief” which covers much of the same ground but it’s usually portrait text that is used to crystallise the requirements of their client rather than a salesy deck.

The next stage in the sales (not hiring) process is the interviewing. They’re interested enough to come for a meeting (the interview). Think about what they are looking for in you. They are checking you out. Once, I was in Cleveland, Ohio interviewing what turned out to be the very best sales leader I ever hired, now chairman of a Fortune 100 company. He came with a page and a half of questions to ask me, the most I have ever seen.

Put your best people from several key functions in front of the candidate. Give your people some engaging questions to ask the candidate. Make sure your people know they are selling not buying. My favourite engaging questions are:

“Tell me about your best innovation in sales management?”

“What do you do in your job that is really distinctive?

“Tell me why your forecasting method is the best.”

Making the hire means you have to agree their deal. As well as doing thorough due diligence, a hallmark of top sales talent is they want to negotiate their accelerator structure (bonuses over target) more than their base and on target variable. Top talent are planning to blow out their numbers. Be ready with your proposed commission plan for them. Be ready to justify their first 2 quarters’ targets with a bottom up sales forecast.

For those wary of overpaying, let’s consider each element of a commission plan: the key is accurate target setting. Set only 2 quarters at a time rather than 4 quarters. If you get them too low you limit the over-payment to 2 quarters. Moving the goal posts by raising agreed targets during a measurement period will destroy trust. If you get targets too high, you can always reset them lower. Better to reset after 2 quarters to ensure your team believe that a target is not a moving target. Next is accelerator structure: you can have tiers with a rate from 100% to 130% and a higher rate above 130%, for example. I always recommend a 50:50 split between base and on target variable. The on target earnings (“OTE”) will have to align with market. I often use uncapped plans which scare some managements. But, you want your sales people to make a lot of money. It motivates them and other team members. Word will also get around and attract more top talent. Practice varies on personal objectives (“MBOs”) and team related bonus elements of compensation. Theses are more common at sales VP level.

So be ready to move quickly and have board approval in advance for a stock option package that may be uncomfortable. And take them out for a classy dinner to get the deal done. I am not suggesting you pay more generously than you pay your existing sales people, just that you sell the role better.

Today’s Tale: do a deck.

“You’re selling, not buying, when sales hiring!”

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THE SALES TALES blog series covers:

• “You’re selling, not buying, when sales hiring!”
• Making your first sales hire
• Structuring your sales team
• Commission or not?
• Monthly or quarterly targets?
• Territory design
• Channels and “partners”
• On-boarding and training
• China and USA market entry
• “Rifle shot” (sales led) or “spray and pray” (marketing led) lead gen?
• Sales / Presales / Implementation / Customer success
• Forecasting accurately
• Closing tactics
• Diagnosing sales problems
• Competitor playbooks
• Quarterly sales kickoff
• Weekly sales meeting
• Sales tool stacks (Salesforce or not?)