When the work is pouring in and all hands are on deck, it’s no surprise that great salespeople can be hard to come by. Even if they are urgently in need, there simply won’t be enough time or efficiencies in place to land an outstanding candidate.
That’s why you need an industry-leading sales headhunter ready to learn about your business and put all its might behind optimizing your team. Of course, all agencies aren’t created equal. You’ll often hear lofty promises without a track record to show for it. The calibre of service may also leave you feeling like what could have been a fruitful partnership is nothing more than a business transaction. But it does not have to be so.
With a little due diligence, you can revitalize your company with fresh new faces armed with the skills to succeed. You just need a recruiter prepared to have your back. Here are three traits shared by those who walk it like they talk it.
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Insider Knowledge
The best recruitment agencies have been there before. Their staff knows the ins-and-outs of the negotiation and interview processes and can speak on what it takes to stand out from a crowd. With ideally many decades of experience, they’ll have a keen sense of who can excel under pressure and consistently meet their year-end targets.
Trust a recruiter that recognizes that you don’t have to push to land a big account. It’s more about treating customers like people instead of sources of revenue and genuinely sharing in their concerns. An excellent recruiter should let achievement speak for itself and filter out anyone looking to impress with words alone.
Search Process
Anybody can post a job online and hope someone special finds their way to it. This strategy tends to result in a good volume of candidates but wading through their resumes and cover letters is another story. Without checks and balances in place, you’ll continue to hear from people applying to jobs en masse without measuring themselves against the requirements.
The solution is to hire a headhunter who lives and breathes the art of sales, has access to specialized networks of professional salespeople, and can mine them for data to find overlap between them and what you need. With the right person in charge, a rolodex of industry contacts is akin to buried treasure with a clearly-drawn map marking the way.
Skin in the Game
Beyond dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s, a great recruiter should be willing to step up and share in your risk. This may involve some form of time-based guarantee if the candidate they provide doesn’t work out. Other firms modify their cost structure to reflect candidate performance once hired. If they produce outstanding results, both you and your recruiter stand to benefit. If they peter out, fees are reduced, but the business relationship remains intact.
The general lesson here applies outside the boardroom as well as in: reserve your time and resources for people who share your purpose. If a recruiter is willing to align their interests with yours, you can be confident that they’ll carry themselves with honour regardless of the situation.
Be an open book about what your company stands for and you’re sure to attract those with similar principles in mind.
