Building a sales team, filled with salespeople who do the work is the goal of all great sales managers.
It really does happen. I've seen many dozens of sales teams run by great sales managers. The majority of their salespeople are producers.
Years ago, I had a conversation with one of the smartest entrepreneurs I've ever met that sticks in my mind.
Tony Renda, Sr owned a group of 13 radio stations. Tony had started out in sales management, as so many great entrepreneurs do.
Every one of his 13 stations was a top billing station in their market.
He told me his secret for building great sales teams in his stations.
He said, "When I visit my stations I always ask the sales manager to show me his bench. Does he have a list of sales applicants he's recently interviewed? Is he proactively looking for new sales talent and does he have a system for building a team? If not, he'd better shape up."
It's sad but true that too many sales managers look at sales hiring with dread. It's the thing you do when you HAVE TO, not as an ongoing strategy for improving.
Tony said, "If there had been a system like yours when I was a sales manager it would have made it so much easier. Your system does all the work. All the sales manager has to do is write a good ad and run it and your Advanced Hiring System does the rest for them.
Today there is no excuse for lack of continuous improvement in sales departments.
Remember the definition of the job of sales manager. "Recruit, train and motivate a sales team."
Recruit comes first. It is the most leverageable of the functions of sales manager.
Training and motivating are important. But if you don't have the right salespeople on your team, you are "Brick Polishing." And in case you don't know, you can polish a brick from now until doomsday, but it will never get shiny. A weak sales hire will never get strong.
The Advanced Hiring System AAPS Profiler Sequence is in use in more than 2000 companies. We've put together a short survey to help you decide the quickest way to improve the quality of your sales team. Take the survey to find the best way to build a great sales team for your company.
