The unanswered question: How do you attract the right talent?

The sales interview processes, in general, is never complete without touching this topic and then the capacity planning in general. So let’s get to the first one.

How do you attract the right talent? Now, there could be three different sales models in any organization. You know, when a company is pretty small, you’re thinking of a founder-led sales model with one or two salespeople. You want to make sure that you’re able to attract the right people.

Now is not the time to go on job boards. So as an organization, then you want to try your network. You want to make sure that you’re reaching out to your connections. You’re talking to your previous employers and seeing what sorts of people are there whom you could offer.

You talk to your investor network, LinkedIn groups, and communities, but don’t go to the job portal yet because, at an early stage, you need people who actually can hustle their way through, not so much a specialist in the initial stages.

When you grow the team slowly, with the sales model, it is just beginning with your two to five people. You need to have some predictability into what’s going to work for you. Rely on references from your employees heavily. That’s very important. They know what works at this organization, and they can help you find relevant people in no time.

Again, your network is the most important, keep on building and nurturing your connections. Business and startup communities are other ones. And if you look at the third one, which is when you have a well-defined sales process in place, then it’s where everything that you can think of comes in place, where all the sources, the job boards, the recruiters, the agencies, the LinkedIn and all of that comes in.

Now, you got to remember for startup founders, and it is imperative that you’ve got to build some thought leadership with time, as well as your company is growing. It’s equally essential to sort of attracting candidates mainly for this specific reason.

If you look at the tip, the top 1% of salespeople in any company are never looking out for jobs. I mean, these are the highest-paid employees. They probably, in some cases, earn more than the CEO. So they’re not looking out for jobs. They’re just doing very well. Their ex-bosses are calling them, and they always have a position available.

So unless there is something that attracts them with some thought leadership of some kind, it’s going to be hard for you to go back and look at what are the parameters to consider when hiring again to the new company.

Parameters of hiring a salesperson

When you start hiring, you can divide it by a variety of parameters, depending on

• What geography are you selling into? Are you selling an India, US, or Apac? Because cultural nuances can make much difference.