Staffing to Fill Open Territories in a Software Company

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STAFFING TO FILL OPEN TERRITORIES IN A

SOFTWARE COMPANY

STAFFING TO FILLOPEN TERRITORIES IN A

SOFTWARE COMPANY

INTRODUCTION:

Filling open sales territories in early 2013, will make or break your company’s year. Internal recruiters are cheap, but slow. External recruiters are fast, but expensive. With the head of sales breathing down your neck, what are you to do?

In this short ebook, we offer three solutions. First, we present The Social Virtual Bench. This concept was introduced in a blog post titled “Backfill Your Top Sales Reps in Less Than Two Weeks”, which was read over 10,000 times in 2012. It reveals how to develop a stable of “A” players ready to accept a position with your company the minute you have an opening. Second, we offer The Sales Clout Analyzer. This tool was revealed in a post titled “How HR Gets a Seat at the CEO’s Table Through Sales”, which helped our firm get named to the Top 50 blog list for 2012. It discusses how HR executive can earn credibility with sales leadership. Third, we submit The Talent Management Program. This methodology was unveiled in an article titled “Talent Management: Are You Missing the New Product Quota?”, which garnered 378 social shares. The methodology addresses how to use scenario based competency inter-views to hire only the best.

Your sales leader needs help in staffing open sales territories. If the territories get filled early in the year, the company will make its numbers and you will earn your bonus. Our firm, Sales Benchmark Index, is a consultancy that sits at the intersection of Human Resources and Sales Leadership. If we can be of assistance, please contact Christina Dieckmeyer at christina.dieckmeyer@salesbenchmarkindex.com or 317-750-7443.

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If your top sales rep resigned today, how long would it take you to recover?

Imagine this scenario: Your sales vice president calls you up “Bob, are you sitting down?” This is not a good start. “Drew (the top sales rep in the company) just resigned. What do you want to do?”

Has this ever happened to you? It happened to me when I was a Sales VP for a Fortune 250 company. Here is what flashed in front of my eyes:

• Should we save him? • But do I have enough in the pipe to make my number? Can I do it without him? • Can we save him? • How did we get in this position? Why did this happen? • Do we have enough sales training? • What kind of Social Virtual Bench do I have to fill this role if we can’t save him? • Have we been ‘nurturing’ these Social Virtual Bench Candidates so we can hire one now?

Here’s where it hit me: I had not been nurturing these candidates. And when I speak to Sales VP’s all over the world, a common theme comes out: They have not either. I wish I’d had this tool: The Social Virtual Candidate Nurturing Tool. To get a copy of this tool register here to speak with the creator.

Proper nurturing of your top candidates ensures success. This is a core fundamental of a great Talent Management Program. Through extensive research (over 1500 discussions with your ‘A’ players last year alone), we found most of these ‘A’ players were hired through a referral and ‘dated’ the company for over 6 months before they were hired. ‘A’ players quit because of their boss. Why not recruit the people you want and start the relationship off correctly?

But what does it mean to create a Social Virtual Bench? In the book our CEO, (Greg Alexander) wrote, “Topgrading for Sales” , he defines a social virtual bench as: “Your talent prospect list is your Social Virtual Bench - virtual because you haven’t hired anyone on the list. Social because you are connected to them on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. You will need a constant flow of talented sales people coming your way, since there will always be turnover…”

Creating a Social Virtual Bench takes time. It is hard work. But it will save the day if you have open ter-ritories that need to be filled fast. No more being held hostage by recruiters; less reliance over worked and under paid internal recruiters; more stability and piece of mind to hit the number. So, If you don’t have one, get started today by:

• Getting everyone of your ‘A’ players this week to list 5 top reps they know • Have your ‘A’ Sales Managers give you their top 5 sales managers they know • Ask your top 5 customers who are the best sales people selling to them • Talent Hubs says here to use the dozens of freelancers (because of the high unemployment as contract employees). Test them out first while building the Social Virtual Bench • Place all the names into your CRM • Create a Social Virtual Bench Nurturing Tool. • Begin the nurturing process

BACKFILL YOUR TOP SALES REP IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS

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Attracting these top candidates is tough. Getting them interested in you, your company and the actual position takes work. Treat this like a buying process. Start with the outline below:

Ever wonder why some of your personal recruits drop out of the interviewing process? The main reason is you haven’t identified where they are in their ‘buying’ or selection process. Note that each Social Virtual Candidate enters into their ‘Buying’ Process at different stages. Identifying where they are and then how to nurture them along with appropriate content is critical so they don’t drop out. Be sure to have appro-priate dialogue and send the correct content as well. Think used car salesman: Remember when you walk on the car lot and the sales guy gives you a cheesy line like “What’s it going to take to put you in a car today?” Your response: “Just looking…” Your real thought: “Back off man. I am not ready to speak with you yet.” Your Social Virtual Candidates are thinking the same thing.

Every Sales VP has received the dreaded ‘My best guy just quit’ phone call. Confusion, disorientation and panic all attack the senses when this type of news is delivered. Be the HR hero who comes to the rescue. Use the below roadmap:

• Create a Social Virtual Bench – this one act alone increases your chances of hitting the number over 5X.

• Identify where each Candidate is at in their ‘Buying’ Process-nurturing them with the appropriate dialogue and content is critical to help them along the selection process.

• Use your Marketing Automation Tool (ask the VP of Marketing about it) – it nurtures your prospects, why can’t it nurture your candidates?

• Map out some specific nurture paths – this will allow you to work the Social Virtual Candidate ‘Buying’ Process

VIRTUAL CANDIDATE ‘BUYING’ PROCESS

Awareness Consideration Engagement

Candidates are becoming aware of your company. Educational pieces work well during the early awareness stages. With these pieces, you are simply educating them, sharing best practices and engaging them in dialogue

Industry-speci�c pieces work well just as Candi-dates start considering what a switch to your company might be like. Examples can be industry overviews, analyst reports, buyer’s guides, etc. No discussions yet with your sales people. It’s too soon.

Solution-oriented, sales training guides, product focused materials includ-ing Customer examples are appropriate for Candidates in this stage. Discussions with your ‘A’ players are appropriate. They are ready to enter into the interviewing process.

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HR Executives want to get the elusive “HR seat at the table”, meaning a seat at the CEO’s table where he or she is regarded as a strategic peer.

This has been an ongoing topic in HR circles with the net answer to “how” apparently being: deliver high impact returns aligned with the business strategy and efficiently control costs. One of the fastest ways to accomplish this is for the HR director to partner with the SVP of Sales in solving Sales problems – which leads to improved revenue results. Helping the Sales Exec show improved results will certainly catch the eye of the CEO.

One of the first obstacles for the HR leader in doing so is that he or she may have no clout with sales executives. The Sales Clout Analyzer tool can help you assess your score with Sales and provide insight into what to improve. If interested in this tool, register here to speak with its creator. In addition to checking your sales knowledge, it will identify any of your capability gaps in helping the SVP of Sales with his or her challenges. From recent research that SBI has done with sales executives, the top challenges they face are:

1. Finding/keeping sales talent 2. Making the sales number 3. Developing sales leaders 4. Field execution of sales strategies

HOW HR GETS A SEAT AT THE CEO’S TABLE THROUGH SALES

So how can the HR leader help resolve these Sales challenges?

1. For finding/keeping sales talent, here is what the HR leader can do:Read the book “Topgrading for Sales” and plan how to get the approach started in The Sales organization.

Lead an initiative to implement Sales Competencies and Accountabilities that will assist not only in hiring efforts, but also in maintaining an “A” player-heavy sales force.

Work with the Sales leaders to develop healthy Social Virtual Benches of future sales talent. As part of this, be proactive in recruiting for the bench. Vacant sales positions are a significant cause of not being able to make sales quota.

Understand and adopt the can do mentality that Sales leaders have - the need to move fast. “Quick Wins” must be your mantra.

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2. To help the CSO make the sales quota:Work with Sales to uncover & correct Competency (sales skills) problems in Sales Reps that may be preventing them from reaching their full revenue potential.Provide a forum for Sales Reps to voice feedback regarding underlying issues that may be the cause of poor quota performance.Dig into the sales compensation plans and see if there are any behaviors being driven that undermine full quota attainment.Get involved with Sales Effectiveness improvement – start with an assessment (like the Sales Productivity Benchmark) and then be an active stakeholder in the projects that ensue.Read the book “Making the Number” - on how to use benchmarking to improve sales results.

3. Developing sales leaders can be done with these steps:Institute a sales-specific mentoring plan. Suggest various levels of mentors such as veteran Rep to new hire, A player to B player, director to manager, etc.Help sales promotion by creating an enticing career progression framework that provides options for the different types of sales reps (e.g. hunters, farmers, challengers, lone wolves, relationship builders, etc.) and sales managers.Implement a leadership program that assesses and provides skills learning and application in a two-way fashion: sales leaders learn more about other business functions and other business leaders learn more about sales.Create an advanced sales mastery certification program along the collegiate system of 100, 200, 300, and 400-level classes.

4. HR leaders can help the field sales personnel execute the sales strategy by:Understanding the sales strategy through review and questioning of sales leaders.Assisting with goal setting by providing SMART goal examples.Ensuring that field sales reps have a scorecard and dashboard that helps them know what is expected of them tactically to fulfill the sales strategy.Aiding Sales Support with the planning and execution of change management.

Lastly, there are some overall tasks that the HR Exec must undertake:Immerse yourself in the Sales world. It’s not just about reading blogs and books on Sales best practices, but actually performing activities that bring you closer to Sales - like riding in the field with Sales Reps.Proactively strive to understand the specific challenges that your SVP of Sales is facing. Write out a plan on how you can help overcome those challenges – a plan that you share all at once or in measured doses depending on the character of the SVP of Sales. Consider even providing a sales plan template for the Sales leader to use.Bring insights during every encounter – even encounters that you invite yourself to. Through careful study of patterns you see and metrics you watch, glean insights from the data and share the impact and possible solutions with the Sales leader.Share value in the form of useful sales effectiveness information or sources

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TALENT MANAGEMENT: ARE YOU MISSING YOUR NEW PRODUCT SALES QUOTA?

If you’re like most HR Execs, the company has released some new products and the company is missing the first year quota. The question you’re asking is “do I have the right people”?

A Talent Management article in the McKinsey Quarterly cited this statistic: 54% of senior managers interviewed agreed they didn’t spend enough time on talent man-agement.

The July-August issue of the Harvard Business Review indicates that the competencies of the top 20% of the sales force have adapted to changes in buyer behavior. The “A” Player Sales Rep Competencies list will help determine which competencies are most important to your sales team. If you’d like to get a copy of this tool, register here to speak with the author.

Success in the sales force is 50% the result of talent and 50% the result of performance conditions. If you’re not addressing changing sales talent requirements, you’re missing half the opportunity to improve.

I recently interviewed a VP of HR at a Fortune 300 company; let’s call him Dave. Dave has demonstrated success year-over-year in a legacy environment even when his peers were struggling. Dave said when he first took over the group he assessed the sales team utilizing a sales competency approach. Dave based his assessments on the requirements (or competencies) required to sell the new products coming to market. What he found was 65% of the sales force didn’t have the skills to make the change.

Dave made the following decisions to support his Talent Management Program:

1. Defined the competencies required to meet the changing market demands

2. Utilized scenario based interviewing techniques to evaluate his sales team

3. Determined the type of talent he had on the team

4. Invested in a training program that would allow him to save some of the “B” players

5. Replaced all of his “C” players

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

‘A’ Players ‘B’ Players ‘C’ Players

11%

53%

37%

TOTAL SCORE

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For Dave, the company missing quota on a new product launch would result in no bonus. He would need to explain the current status of every deal in detail. It would also mean a future promotion to SVP of Sales would go to one of his peers.

On the other hand, the ability to exceed new product quota would positively impact Dave’s success. Doors would open up. Dave also knew being micromanaged by his boss every week would be a waste of valuable time (“I’d rather have root canal every week” was the quote).

Let’s face it; dealing with talent related issues is difficult for every sales manager. In many cases these are the sales reps that got you where you are. Unfortunately you get paid to make the tough decisions and this is one of them. By starting with the revised set of competencies you’re determining the gap between your team’s current skills and the ones they need to develop. The next steps are developing a Social Virtual Bench of talent, upgrading the team, and training those that have the ability to make the transition.

Dave made those tough decisions and is reaping the rewards.

Key takeaways:

1. Get ahead of your talent management program issues 2. Evolve your talent at a pace ahead of your clients 3. Don’t wait to evaluate and upgrade your sales talent, it only results in missing new product quota

If you’re the VP of HR, like Dave, don’t wait until you miss the first year new product quota before assessing your sales team. The process of developing a solid Talent Management Program is continu-ous one, especially in companies that release new products on a frequent basis. If you’re not sure where to start, review the list of sales rep top competencies and select those required to be successful in your organization.

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CONCLUSION:

I hope these articles were useful. Here is what you should do next. Contact Christina Dieckmeyer at christina.dieckmeyer@salesbenchmarkindex.com or 317-750-7443. She will set you up with one of our experts who will discuss how we help HR executives:

• Train and develop sales resources

• Retain super stars

• Fill open sales territories

• Design sales incentive compensation systems

• Assess sales talent

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