The Ultimate Checklist Before Your First Sales Hire
Otherwise You Will Fail !
“I am the salesman,
And you may know me,
We may have met before…”
from The Salesman by Justin Reamer
Imagine you are the founder, owner, or CEO of a young, ambitious company. You have initially developed and later refined a great new product. You have taken it to some potential clients and received positive responses. And some of those clients were so impressed by the product that they purchased from you.
You are now ready to go to market.
The decision at hand is how to scale and repeat the initial sale hundreds and thousands of times over.
There is, at that point, the obvious need to build a sales team: to hire salespeople and a sales leader. Many founders decide to wear this latter hat themselves, in addition to all the other hats they are already wearing.
In my 20+ years of sales and sales leadership experience, I’ve made every mistake in the book. I’ve spent years learning, honing my skills, and eventually training and inspiring hundreds of sales associates and leaders in how to create effective, lucrative, and fulfilling sales relationships and strategies.
So, the following is a checklist on how to go about this.
Follow this checklist! Start at the beginning, check each step off before moving to the next, and do not jump to the end. Because hiring is indeed the last step of a process.
Based on your initial sales, clearly describe the need(s) you are addressing with your product (and test your positioning with potential clients).
Define your target market(s) and target persona(s). Homogeneous markets with the least level of granularity.
Create your messaging. One clear message is better than a smorgasbord of buying reasons.
Create your pricing. Be very specific, tie it to the value of your product, provide the justification, and avoid any ambiguity.
Create your collateral, the tools you and your hires will use to bring the messaging and pricing to your potential customers.
Define your sales process. 5-7 steps that everyone follows every time.
Establish the system infrastructure you want to use in your sales process. CRM+.
Sales Leads: identify your lead source(s), definition, and lead qualification process.
Determine your sales team composition and hiring sequence. Inside, Field, Account, SDR, Key Account, Customer Success, full time, fractional, interim… there are many ways to skin the cat.
Write a compelling job description(s).
Hire, onboard, train, and continually coach
Do you need more context and details? Well, you are not alone. These steps can be confusing.
Contact us to find out how we might be able to help.
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Photo by Anne Gosewehr