October 2021

Are You Sure You Need to Hire “More” Salespeople? By Mark Allen Roberts M any businesses are as busy or busier than they were pre-pandemic. My clients share they want to hire more salespeople to keep up with demand and give their current customers the best buying experience as possible. What I often ask my clients often surprises them: Are you sure you need more salespeople? Having led several sales teams over the past 36 years and now provide sales consulting, training, and coaching I have experienced some interesting trends, data points if you will. In most sales teams I serve 20%-30% of the people in a customer-facing quota carrying sales roles should not be in sales. Another34%of salespeopleare inthewrongroles based on their skills, beliefs, and motivations. Salespeople today are spending less than 20% of their sellable time selling. Over 50% of salespeople have not received any formal sales skills training. 25%-30% of sales teams have not updated their sales structure in over 12 months. Buyers shared in a recent survey in a typical one- hour meeting with a salesperson only 6 minutes were actually valuable to them, the buyer. So, let me ask you again…Are you sure you need more salespeople? Or do you need to improve the overall effectiveness of your current sales team? Before you invest in more salespeople, I suggest the following to ensure your current sales team is as effective and efficient as they could be. I. Assess sales skills Conduct a sales skills assessment to determine the current state of your salespeople by sales role. Do you have Hunters, Farmers, and Fishermen? Do you have the right people in the right roles? Do your people have the right skills, motivations, and beliefs for the role there are in?