Revenade Sales Leaders discuss the best ways to hire new sales talent.Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Sales Experience. A semi-monthly podcast where

we will share insights, lessons learned and best practices from top sales

leaders. Each episode will provide experience based information that can be

immediately applied to help your company grow its top line.----more----

Sarah:                My name is Sarah Lohrmann

and I will be your host and moderator on your journey through the world of

sales. To kick things off today, I’m going to be talking to two of Revenade’s

sales leaders about a topic that’s becoming increasingly more important across

the country, how to hire new sales people. But first, let’s start with a brief

look at this day in business history where we’re gonna highlight a key event

that took place on this day.

                                   

                           On this day

in business history in 1867, the U.S. made a significant business decision and

ratified a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska. This purchase allowed

the U.S. to add over 586,000 square miles of new territory for only two cents

an acre. Today, Alaska helps boost the U.S. economy through their oil, natural

gas and fishing histories. Definitely not a bad purchase.

 

                          Now I’d like

to welcome back Scott Williamson and Tim Phillips from Revenade. Both Scott and

Tim have been featured on previous segments of our podcast and we’re so glad to

have them back with us today. Thank you both so much for joining us.

 

Scott:                 Thanks for being here.

 

Tim:                   Thanks for having us,

Sarah, good to be with you.

 

Sarah:                Alright, so let’s say I’m a

CEO of a new technology company looking to on-board new sales talent. What’s

the first thing I should do and where do I go from there?

 

Scott:                 That’s a great question,

you know, we get that a lot from entrepreneurs who find Revenade either though

this podcast or webinars or just web searches and the interesting thing is that

a lot of times, entrepreneurs are sales people and they have passion around a

particular piece of technology, it could be hardware, could be software, could

be some integration of those line of services. And they think it is whatever

they’re representing is the single most powerful solution in the world and

anybody ought to be able to sell it. In fact, words that we hear a lot are that

it’s as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, that you just need to go out there,

next thing you know, the sales are going to fall from the sky like manna from

heaven and that’s almost always not the truth.

 

In fact, sales is

just not an easy profession to start with, then you add on to the fact that the

company’s brand new, then you add on to the fact of that that it's a technology

oriented firm where by definition, you’re going to be selling a combination of

technology related solutions and not just price based sale, it becomes very,

very difficult. So the first thing to understand is sales is not easy and you

will in fact have to find somebody who’s experienced and knows really how to

sell.

                 

The second thing to

understand, and one of the most common mistakes that startup CEOs make is they

think well I need to go find somebody with a book of business. And so they hire

some crusty individual who comes to them, they find them through their network,

this person says I’ve got a large Rolodex of people or a large contact list in

today’s world, I’ve got lots of connections on LinkedIn and I’m gonna find a

way to get you in the door. Chances are, unless that person came to you, say,

from a VC or through kind of a net worth arrangement, they don’t have that book

of contacts and chances are if they did, they wouldn’t be talking to you

because if they’re that valuable, they can get their money elsewhere.

 

So what you really

want to do is find so