techtalk The Inside Track to Sales HENRY CANADAY
It’s a growth industry. It relies on the latest tech and social-media tools. It’s often combined with other sales efforts. It’s inside sales, and today, in- side sales teams are selling remotely or virtually using smartphones, Web tools, email, or social media. No matter how it’s done, inside sales is exploding, partly due to intense pres- sure to hold sales costs down and new sales tools that make the inside-sales effort more productive.
While inside-sales expert Kevin Gaither agrees that the new tools are first rate, he emphasizes two other keys to success: getting the right people and having a well-defined and structured sales process. He believes smart hiring to be the single most important factor in inside sales. He treats hiring like a sales funnel, taking candidates though steps toward the right combination of characteristics. Gaither develops a benchmark of traits he wants in an inside salesper- son. “I’m not looking for the gift of gab, good looks, or to clone my top rep. I want objective characteristics, like high need for achievement, com- petitiveness, optimism, good organi- zation, and resourcefulness.” He lists the characteristics for each position, then writes questions to test applicants for those characteristics. Then the “funnel process” begins. Each candidate is engaged in a 15-minute phone screen and then a 45-minute phone chat. Those still in the running undergo a 45-minute phone interview, then an online as- sessment test. Only a third of the applicants make
it through the online assessment and then three hours of face-to-face inter- views with Gaither, a top rep, and sev- eral managers. Eighty percent of those brought in for interviews will be hired. Gaither does not mind spending time or money on thorough hiring.
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Unsuccessful hires cost him three to six times their annual base salary. Thoroughly considered hiring is much less expensive than the Darwinian approach of hiring 10 candidates and expecting one to survive. Moreover, Gaither can follow his multistep plan in two weeks and believes candidates are attracted by a rigorous hiring process. Two-thirds of Gaither’s hires meet or exceed goals, and 90 percent are successful within six months. Thorough hiring applies to both inside reps who execute the entire sales process and the sales develop- ment reps who qualify leads and set appointments. “They are not going to be appointment setters for the rest of their lives,” says Gaither. “I want people who want to move up to be closers.”
Next, “you have to have well-un- derstood steps in the sales process,” Gaither stresses. This process need not be extraordinarily complex; there may be only four steps in a highly
transactional sale. “Whatever [steps] customers go
through in the buying process should be the sales process,” Gaither urges. The sales process need not be perfect – it never will be – but it must be writ- ten down.
Reps’ observance of this process should be monitored and coached. Gaither points to knowledge shared by CSO Insights, which found that high-performing sales organizations have well-defined sales processes, but low performers mostly do not. Gaither defines his process by looking at what successful reps do. Often, top reps cannot explain their process, but “they have a series of if- then steps at each stage, and it’s the sales leader’s job to understand these steps, write them down, and teach them,” he explains.
Paying close attention to best (and changing) practices of top reps keeps the sales process dynamic. CSO Insights found that, in the best firms,
VIDEO: CREATING SALES CONTESTS THAT REALLY WORK, WITH ADAM HOLLANDER
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