I mentioned at the end that I would advise all of my readers to be sure to go through part 1 again before continuing on to the newest edition.

I’ll save you the trouble so you can refresh your memory by clicking this link here 👇🏼

How I’d Build a Sales Team from Scratch, If I Had to Start Over (Part 1)

Now that you are all caught up and surely have taken my advice to map out and validate your sales process, we can move onto one of the most important yet biggest areas of opportunity that I see leaders and companies make, recruiting talent…

Phase 3 - Source and Hire Top Talent

Hiring too soon, hiring too late, hiring the wrong people, etc… 

These are all reasons you could be losing top talent to the competition, or burning through your profit because of operating costs.

There are obviously other reasons, but this is the number one problem that I see when working with clients. 

So… I want you to become a master at recruiting top talent. 

Think about hiring like Talent Acquisition. 

It’s like making a sale, but instead of one deal this is something that will either make you a fortune in time or currency. 

The inverse is true as well. A bad hire can cost you six figures in lost time, money, and momentum. 

A great hire, on the other hand, can accelerate your company’s growth exponentially.

So again, it’s worth doing right. 

Most don’t though. 

Most businesses I see struggle with hiring because they rely on gut feelings, rush the process, or hire out of desperation in which you end up with a team who underperforms, kills company culture, and ultimately leads to high turnover.

Also this is probably one of the first things I see some business owners delegate and it really should be one of the last things. 

At the start of 2015, Google had about 53,600 full time employees around the world.

This means that the company hired about 6,000 new people in just one year.

And guess what? Larry Page signed off on every single one of them.

6,000 new hires in just one year alone.

You’re building a championship team.

Take it seriously.

This guide is designed to help you avoid those pitfalls and hire elite talent consistently.

So let's talk about what to look for.

An ideal candidate is the perfect combination of Hungry, Humble, and Smart. (Shoutout to Patrick Lencioni).

This constitutes a CANDIDATE. Now - depending on the role you're going to look for role specific skillsets.

This is way I think about it…

You might not need all three, but it depends on the role. However Culture Fit is the non negotiable

Leadership: Managers / Executives

Account Executive (closers) / Account Managers

Entry Level

How do you determine if they’re a Culture Fit?

To determine if someone is a culture fit, it really comes down to alignment in the MVV (mission, vision, values) and the triad we talked about earlier (humble, hungry, smart). 

If you don’t have this defined then that’s your first step.

Once you define your MVV, it’s a matter of determining if there’s alignment.

Think of it like a marriage. Are your goals aligned with their goals?

In other words - if you win do they win too? 

You want to make it so you’re both collaborating on the road to success. 

Do you share values? 

An example of misaligned values might be if they value “lifestyle business” when a core value of yours is “leave it all on the field”.

If your culture is to work hard and give everything you do 100%, then a bad hire would be someone who’s favorite book is 4 hour workweek.

Your interview process should reveal these qualities and values.

Ask questions like:

The thing about hiring sales people is… well they're sales people.

They know how to say the right things.

So the goal is to find the OBJECTIVE TRUTH.

Look for what they've done, what they do in the hiring process, not just what they say.

Get clear on who they're becoming and ask yourself if this is someone you want on your team.

Last thing I'll cover on hiring is WHERE to find A players.

In other words, sourcing.

Remember this - top talents know top talent. Always start here.

Just like in sales…

The BEST leads are referrals.

Same principle applies to talent acquisition - referrals are the best candidates by far.

Your team, your network, and even your client list are gold mines of potential referrals.

Now - how you ask is important.

I like to do this in two ways.

Bounties are probably my favorite. Instead of paying a recruiter, just pay your network to find your perfect hire.

An example of this would be to pay $5,000 to someone who refers the one you hire.

The amount just depends on the role. A sales rep could be 1-5k while a director level role might be 10-20k.

Here's an actual example from one of my own…

Usually I find absolute rockstars with this method.

Lastly, you can always just reach out to your network directly with the "who do you know" frame.

Instead of asking, "Do you know someone looking for a sales role?"…

Define the role for them and show your trust in them.

"Hey [Name], I’m looking for the right person for [Position].

You have great judgement in people, so I trust your opinion.

Who do you know who that could potentially be a fit for this?"

This triggers social proof because people don’t want to refer duds.

Last thing we need to cover is onboarding and ramp up.

This is probably one of the most overlooked parts of the process.

In fact, it's one of the foundational pieces I have to work with clients on after we fix the actual sales process.

Why is that?

I think historically, sales teams have had a "sink or swim" type of culture and it's been normalized.

Additionally, even if there is an onboarding process it usually consists of product training and very limited on anything else.

The goal of an onboarding and ramp process is…

1- Get your sales reps to KPI as fast as possible

2- Maximize retention

3- Maximize cultural cohesion

It’s important to keep in mind that proper onboarding is investing into the future retention and performance of your team.

You can look into this yourself but most studies show employee engagement and retention is largely determined by the initial onboarding experience​.

And when this isn't done right, it ends in turnover which also - MOST turnover happens in the first 90 days.

However, approximately 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for 3+ years if they experience a great onboarding process​.

If they're willing to stay longer, you'll get better performance too.

I think it's safe to say, that we all want TOP performance and we want it for a long time.

So again…

Prioritize onboarding and ramp.

My goal for you is to build a repeatable, scalable system that sets every new hire up to win and stay.

Here's my exact ramp plan that gets new hires to KPI in 30-45 days while maximizing retention:

This is broken down into two parts:

Company onboarding

Role onboarding

Company Onboarding

Start with the housekeeping items via email:

But the main touchpoint is walking them through your MVV (Mission, Vision, Values) and your story.

What's the company story? Who and why did they start it? Whats the vision? Strategic plan?

Get their buy in and paint the picture of the road ahead.

What what you sell, to whom, client / customer success stories…

Let them sit in on department meetings, coaching calls, etc.

You want them to understand who you are, where they belong in the company and begin to see themselves being here long term.

One caveat here… 

If the culture sucks, then refrain from letting them sit in on specific meetings. it could defeat the purpose.

You still need to fix that and you probably shouldn't be hiring sales reps unless maybe you lost someone.

I can't stress this enough.

This is such a leveraged system to ensure the right people are getting on the team with the right expectations.

Make it unmistakably clear who you are, why they're here, and what success looks like at this company.

Go through your playbook systematically.

The single most importance piece of this process is having them binge well executed call recordings.

I'm telling you, nothing will beat them studying great calls.

Let it get burned into their subconscious.

Still follow the management cadence here (meetings + reports), but you'll have them sit in on meetings and send an "end of day report" on what they've learned, questions they may have, etc.

Tracking comes later obviously.

Many times, I see companies have the new rep shadow other sales people.

Listening to calls is better in my opinion, however if you're going to do this then let it be the one doing the training.

The reason for this is because too often certain sales people will have an off day, or maybe they do things SLIGHTLY different than "textbook" and it may work.

But you want to avoid confusion.

I prefer having once source of training and information.

I'd recommend 3-5 "ramp calls" (these are essentially 1-1s for role play, feedback, training), do this per week.

They'll be drinking from a firehose this week - that's fine.

However, you should have regular ramp calls throughout this process.

Temp check their buy in and correct early confusion. The key here proactivity on your part. Don't just wait for them to come to you with questions.

If they finish the week disengaged, with zero questions or feedback, that's a red flag.

They should be engaged and eager to take calls.

You're looking for the "put me in coach" energy.

After the first week, you're going to give them calls.

As far AEs go, I'd recommend a half calendar for the first week, unless they're ramping quickly and sound really good on role plays.

Otherwise, a half calendar.

SDRs can be let loose earlier.

AEs should start with 2-4 appointments a day and possibly set their own to supplement.

If you're ever a little on the fence about a closer / AE, you can have them onboard by setting for themselves.

This mitigates a lot of risk but can also slow down the ramp tremendously, but it usually means they ramp much slower.

Just be smart here.

Now - what are you looking for during this phase?…

Really in the first week, I'm not looking for closed won deals, as much as I'm looking for the right behaviors.

They'll almost always be doing technical stuff wrong, such as the language they use during the pitch…

But what I'm looking for here is LEADERSHIP.

So you're still going to continue doing ramp calls and giving feedback.

When conducting ramp calls…

Ideally, they're improving everyday.

So week 3-4, you ramp up volume of leads / calls.

Now - at this point you ARE looking for closes.

And you're looking for precise language, unlike week 2.

If they're qualitatively checking the boxes but still not closing, they might be worried about pitching wrong, closing someone unqualified, burning leads, etc.

Sometimes at this stage it's as simple as giving them permission to lead.

This doesn't mean exhibiting any sort of behavior outside alignment of the company values.

More than anything they just need to relax.

If you're in your head, you're dead.

Let's say they're doing everything right and they're still not closing…

It could just be a back streak, it happens.

Remember - regression to the mean.

[insert image]

If call reviews sound good, increase volume to 3-5 calls/day, even if KPI isn't hit yet.

This is as long as trajectory is solid.

By days 30-45, they should be at 80-100% of target.

It's important to remember not to cut the right rep too early, or keep the wrong one too long.

Compare them to your best reps. Where are they at in relation to your top performers?

You'll almost never find a 10/10 rep right away, it happens but it's rare.

The goal is to find a 6-7 out of 10 and TURN them into a 10 with the right leadership.

When you assess your new hires, ask yourself, "am I turning a 6-7/10 into a 10? Or am I trying to turn a 3-4/10 into a 10?"

Maybe you CAN, but just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Now - as long as you follow this process you should have a system for filtering out the lower quality candidates.

Follow this process.

At this point, you should have…

At this point you have no excuse.

Go and build an all star revenue team.

PS, what questions do you have about building your sales team from scratch?

Hit reply and let me know.

I read every reply myself.

Till next time,