The essential salesperson hiring checklist
>
The essential checklist for hiring your next salesperson
Hiring salespeople is not cheap, especially when you factor 🤔 your time training them. Use this sales hiring checklist to make sure everything is in order before hiring.
Learn about
this checklist
Before you
hire your next
salesperson
you must read
this book
run frictionless helps founders of startups achieve predictable sales. The book expands on the checklist and provides essential advice on how to free yourself from a sales role.
IDENTIFY THE CUSTOMER WHO YOU SERVE TODAY
The customer profile is a mutual understanding between the salesforce and customer service about who is allowed to become a customer. The salesperson should not be evaluated on the basis of serving anyone but rewarded when they serve a specific customer profile.
CALCULATE CUSTOMER EXPIRY
A customer may appropriate one hour, one day, or one year to making a buying decision, depending on whether they classify the decision as low or high involvement. If the salesperson does not understand customer expiry they may serve the customer too slowly.
TEACH THREE WOW MOMENTS
Wow moments occur when significant value is delivered to a customer, or an important decision is made that will triage the customer into the right customer flow. In an experiment we conducted, we proved most businesses can be reduced to three wow moments. It is imperative a disproportionate amount of time is spent training the salesforce to master wow moments.
MATCH VALUE PROPOSITIONS WITH CUSTOMER PROFILES
In general, the more ways a company has to begin a dialogue with a customer, the more chance it has of creating a customer. Each value proposition presents a way to begin talking to a customer on their terms, looking at the problem the way they think and feel about it. If the salesperson promotes the same value propositions as the rest of the business, their consistency is rewarded with more sales.
WHAT BUYING TRIGGER GETS A CUSTOMER TO SAY ‘YES’
A buying trigger is an event that drives a customer to make a buying decision. Back to school is a trigger for parents to buy stationery for their children. The end of the financial year is a trigger for customers to switch accounting firms. If the date a buying trigger can be predicted, the salesperson has an advantage.
NAME TWO FRICTION-POINTS IN YOUR SALES PROCESS
Many organizations try to solve sales friction by hiring more and better salespeople. However, the best salesperson in the world will perform mediocre if the sales process is lousy. Name two friction-points where customers become stuck and are prevented from reaching their goal. Make sure you can demonstrate to the salesperson how to drive down this friction using tools and techniques.
