Targets are being missed, and the CEO and investors are asking why the revenue isn’t coming in fast enough.
The product isn’t 100% there yet, the brand isn’t well-known, and the flow of leads is slow. But maybe a different salesperson could do better?
Now the dilemma:
Do you bring in a new salesperson in the hope that they succeed where the others have failed, or stick with the hope that they will come through and start to perform?
I have seen companies turn over salespeople in droves, but the performance doesn’t improve. Recruitment costs, onboarding resources, and the reputational cost of the market and clients seeing turnover can be painful to bear.
I have also seen companies stick with salespeople who are simply not good enough, with decision paralysis costing missed revenue.
So how do you know what the right course of action is?
The first thing to say is that no salesperson can perform miracles. Talk to high-earning salespeople and you’ll find they have the core skills, motivation, and process to succeed, but they will almost always have a saleable product, lead engine, and support system behind them as well.
Here is the process we recommend:
- Hire salespeople who are a good fit for your stage, your product, and your culture.
- Equip them with the tools to succeed, for example, proper onboarding, leads, pre-sales support, collateral, etc
- Set them achievable ramp goals over the first 12 months to build confidence and momentum
- Support them if they are not performing (sometimes a few tweaks unlock their potential)
- Cut them if they don’t deliver
Too many companies jump from step one to step four, or at best step two to four.
If this is an area where you need help, we would be delighted to have a short discovery call with you to understand your challenges and see if we are the right recruitment agency to help.
About Indigo
We are SaaS GTM recruitment specialists with extensive experience recruiting professionals across sales, marketing, and sales engineering for US, UK, and Israel-based tech companies. Our start-up and scale-up customers rely on us to find the best people for their businesses, and we take pride in knowing our work helps companies scale quickly.