Filling key roles and trying to find sales reps that can have an immediate impact on your business is a challenge many in the B2B space are facing. Lead pipelines must be full to reach growth KPIs, but it’s not as simple and straightforward as hiring any sales rep.
Your rep must offer an immediate:
- Cultural fit
- Sales impact
If you want to hit the average sales win ratio of 21%, it’s imperative that you hire the right type of rep based on your company’s unique needs.
Let’s explore how to find sales reps the right way.
What Is a Sales Rep?
Sales reps are not created equal. Your company has goals that must be met, and you may need one of the following to reach them:
SDR
Sales Development Representatives (SDR) focus on sales prospecting. If your company needs leads but has a closer who has exceptional win ratios, an SDR is a good fit because they:
- Connect your company with leads
- Qualify leads
But, the SDR will not close the lead.
Instead, they work to gain as many inbound leads as possible to help your company’s sales increase.
BDR
SDR vs BDR roles are confusing at first because your Business Development Representative works in a very similar capacity to an SDR. A BDR will prospect and qualify leads, but they focus on outbound leads.
Often, the BDR will meet with an account executive, while an SDR will meet with sales execs.
Account Executive
You can hire multi-level account execs, but the most basic is a professional who spends their time on:
- Outreach
- Supporting relationships
- Prospecting
- Closing new business
The focus of an account exec is on new business rather than retainment. When new clients need support, the account executive is the one who ensures that their needs are met.
Sales Representative
You hire sales reps because they sell products or services. These individuals are the main liaison between your company and potential customers. Deep relationships are formed between the rep and the client so that the rep can:
- Better understand the lead’s needs
- Recommend solutions to best fit the customer’s needs
A sales rep has many roles that they’ll fill within your organization, and they may head target market research, lead generation, relationship building, price negotiation and educate your prospects on your product or service.
Sales reps are not specialists like many of the other positions on the list, but they fill a vital role in growing companies trying to elevate sales.
Are You Ready to Hire a Sales Rep?
B2B sales require a sales rep who knows your product and service inside out. These individuals know the intimate features that can help customers reach their goals, and more importantly, they know how it will solve pain points.
But knowing when to hire is a challenge.
For example, you may have a sales rep who can handle 3 discovery calls a day and 3 demos. You may have a complex SaaS solution that requires a long call or demo, so you’re looking at a maximum of 180 leads a month.
In other sectors, leads may be 400 – 500 a month from a sales rep, but it’s very dependent on your business and target market.
A few questions to ask:
- How many potential leads can your business generate based on current market demand?
- How many sales reps (total leads / average leads handled per rep, per month) can you handle?
If your sector can expect to generate 1,200 leads per month and you have three reps who handle 400 leads each comfortably, it may not be a good time to hire sales reps.
Companies who do have a need for a sales rep, which if hired, would generate more sales and help you reach your KPIs, need to ask two additional questions:
Do you have a repeatable process?
Repeatable processes maximize a sales rep’s results and allow them to work at a high level of efficiency. And if you don’t have them in place, it’s best to wait until you do before finding sales reps.
You can begin creating these processes by:
- Meeting with the existing sales rep to create processes
- Reviewing processes and testing them
- Refining them until they’re streamlined and effortless
Sales reps and leaders can work on documenting and creating repeatable processes that allow new reps to follow them the moment they start working with you.
If you have these processes in place, there’s another question you need to ask yourself: can you afford to hire a rep?
Can you afford to hire good sales reps?
Finding sales reps takes time and resources. Without considering these costs, you’ll also need to pay a base salary, which is estimated to be $76,200 per year, but ranges from $37,600 – $154,100.
You’ll may need to pay commission, which averages $10,900 per year, but this figure can be much higher or lower, depending on your product or service.
Add in the cost of:
- Hiring
- Benefits
- Etc.
If you want to hire a good sales rep, you need to find a comfortable range in your city that will attract the top talent.
Finding sales reps is also challenging if you’re trying to replace an employee who has left your team.
Why?
It’s a time-consuming process, and with one less rep, you may be losing sales. What does finding the right fit for your business mean?
Find a Sales Rep Can Be Time Consuming
You need a sales rep, and you have the budget for one and processes in place. But there’s more to do. Businesses and hiring managers must:
- Source talent. You can find talent with job postings, sales recruiters and many more sources, which we’ll cover in greater detail shortly.
- Vet talent. You must vet talent to weed out those who are a good fit and the ones who are not.
- Interview talent. Next, you need to interview talent and find the right candidate for the job. Multiple interviews may be necessary,
HR will spend extensive resources to find the right sales rep, and you’ll also need to research benefits and compensation packages to find one that attracts the right talent.
Hiring takes time.
Statistically, you can expect the following:
- 44 days to hire
- 1 day longer than a year prior
Many job positions are unfilled for two to three months.
Once you find sales reps that you want to hire, you also need to onboard them, which will take time. Your repeatable processes will help ease this burden to some extent.
You can also find a rep faster using some of the strategies below.
How To Find Sales Reps
If you want to find sales reps, you have multiple sources that you can tap into that will help you fill the position.
Hire a Sales Recruiter
One of the first avenues for finding great sales talent that should always be considered is working with a sales recruiter.
What is a Sales Recruiter
Sales recruiters are specialists who work with your business to hire the right sales professionals for the job.
Benefits
- Advertising. The sales recruiter will handle all of the hiring and job descriptions for you.
- Network: If you hire a well-known sales recruiter, they often have a network of potential hires that you wouldn’t find otherwise.
- Screening: HR doesn’t need to screen the candidates because the recruiter handles this for you.
A recruiter will also schedule interviews and prepare materials for it.
Hire a Headhunter to Find Sales Reps
Talent may already be employed with someone else, and they may be the perfect fit for your company. A headhunter can help.
What is a Headhunter?
Headhunters will recruit a sales rep on your behalf. They will track down reps who may already be employed and will work to hire them. The headhunters may also have a strong network of candidates who are a good fit.
Benefits
Working with a headhunter offers many benefits:
- Efficient hiring
- Passive candidates may be hired
- Costs are reduced
- Reduce internal resource requirements when hiring
Source Sales Reps Yourself
Businesses can also hire reps themselves. HR may be responsible for the hiring, and this has many benefits and a few drawbacks to consider, too.
Pros
- Candidate replies may be higher
- Refine the targeting process
- May be cheaper in the long-term
Cons
- Hiring is time consuming
- Extensive resources go into hiring, making it expensive
- You may lack the tools to streamline hiring
If you have a larger human resources team, you may have an easier time hiring than a smaller business that is experiencing a growth spurt. You’ll need to evaluate if sourcing sales reps yourself is cost-effective or not.
Leverage Your Current Team
If you’re going to source sales reps yourself, one of the first places to start is your current team. Each member of your team has their own network of contacts, and some of them may be looking for a job in sales.
Give your employees an incentive to connect your organization with these candidates by setting up an employee referral program.
Tap Your Current Network
Along with leveraging your current team, you should also tap your current network to look for potential candidates and referrals.
Friends, family members and former colleagues are all people you trust. They may be able to connect you with candidates who are reliable, skilled and experienced.
Attend Industry Events and Conferences
What’s a great way to connect with talented sales reps? Good old-fashioned networking. Attending industry events and conferences will give you an opportunity to meet talented reps and expand your network of contacts.
Even if you don’t find your next hire at an event or conference, you may find someone who can refer a great candidate.
Check local event calendars to see if any events or conferences are planned in the near future. You can also plan ahead and secure a spot at some of the top industry global events, such as:
Use Job Posts to Hire Sales Reps
Job postings are a tried-and-true way to find and recruit talent, but to connect with good sales reps, you’ll want to focus on the top job posting platforms. These include:
- Indeed
- BuiltIn
- ZipRecruiter
- Wellfound
- Monster Jobs
- SimplyHired
- Glassdoor
- FlexJobs
- The Ladders
- RepVue
- TheLions
To attract the right candidates, you’ll need to do more than just post a job opening. Make sure that you’re:
- Writing effective job descriptions that detail the essential duties of the position and potential growth opportunities.
- Covering the most important aspects of the job as early on as possible. You have just seconds to catch the candidate’s attention.
- Using bullet points in your job postings to get your most important points across.
- Using the right keywords in your listing. Include terms that candidates are likely to search for when looking for jobs.
Use a mix of different job posting platforms to find and recruit a wide range of different candidates.
Post on Social Media to Find Reps
An estimated 92% of employers use social media to find and hire new talent. With billions of people actively using social media every day, it’s easier than ever to find and connect with candidates on these platforms.
Social media can be an especially valuable resource for scouting young, fresh talent. While you can potentially connect with candidates on any social platform, you’re most likely to have success on:
- TikTok
In addition to posting open roles at your organization, make sure that you’re sharing content that shows off your company as a great place to work. These posts may attract even candidates organically.
Use Alumni Networks
Alumni networks are an overlooked resource for scouting sales talent. Leverage platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to find and connect with alumni who may meet your qualifications.
Post in Online Sales Communities to Find Sales Reps
Online sales communities can be great resources for finding active and passive candidates. Members of these communities are often passionate about their work and maximizing their performance.
Consider joining and posting on these platforms to connect with skilled and experienced reps who may be a good fit for your organization.
Some of the top online sales communities include:
Develop Your Own Sales Reps
Investing in the development of your own sales reps can help improve retention and potentially eliminate the need for outside hiring.
But to succeed with this strategy, you’ll need to do three crucial things: develop a solid sales training program, support your reps with sales enablement and hire skilled sales managers.
Invest in Sales Training
If you’re going to develop your own sales reps, then you must invest in sales training. Through training, your sales reps will develop more than just product expertise. They’ll develop consultative selling skills that will position your reps as valuable resources for buyers.
Naturally, sales training will also ensure your reps have the necessary skills, tools and knowledge to succeed in their roles from the get-go.
Developing a solid sales training program is key. When creating your program, consider:
- Your goals. What do you want your training program to achieve?
- Learning objectives for individual team members. When you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team, you can develop a program that addresses skill gaps.
- How you’ll deliver training. Will you use online courses, instructor-led training, coaching or another avenue?
- How will you track and measure results? Define your expectations before creating your program, so you can measure them against your training results.
Developing a sales training program isn’t just a one-off process. It will need to be continually refined and improved over time to ensure it meets your needs.
Support Reps with Sales Enablement
Ongoing sales enablement will give your reps the support they need to feel confident in their roles and improve their performance over time.
Research from Gartner found that sales reps forget 70% of what they learn within a week of training and 87% forget within a month. A sales enablement program will help your reps retain crucial information, but it will also ensure they have the tools, content and resources they need to excel in their roles.
Hire Good Sales Managers
Sales managers can make or break your sales team. If your goal is to develop your own reps, you’ll need good sales managers to lead your team.
A great manager will:
- Uplift and support your reps
- Help team members find opportunities to grow and evolve
- Communicate with reps effectively and clearly
- Solve problems
- Hold themselves and others accountable
- Celebrate wins – no matter how big or small
Make sure that you assess candidates carefully to ensure they’re a good fit.
Final Thoughts on Finding Sales Reps in 2024
To find good sales reps, you’ll need to take a strategic approach when hiring. Knowing where to look is an important first step, but knowing what to look for in a candidate is just as important. Developing your own sales reps is another avenue that can prove to bring great returns for your sales team.
