How to Hire a Sales Rep

Companies need sales development representatives to grow. It's how they sell.

But, it's a trickier position to fill than it seems at first.

Startups and HR teams can spend a lot of time and money looking for the right candidates and still come up empty.

To make it easier for you to recruit and hire new employees in sales, especially for the SDR role, we at SalesPipe have a solution to help you.

This article will show why you need a salesperson and how to hire a sales development representative.

See for yourself.

Having a highly skilled and effective sales representative or Sales Development Representative (SDR) in your team is undeniably one of the most valuable and essential investments for your company. A competent sales rep possesses many abilities and knowledge, extending far beyond what meets the eye.

They have the capacity to not only generate leads, drive revenue, and close deals but also forge strong relationships with clients, identify new business opportunities, and act as a crucial liaison between your company and its customers.

As your company grows and evolves, the expertise and contributions of a talented sales rep can prove to be pivotal in achieving long-term success and sustained growth.

The more products you sell, the higher your turnover and the higher your profits. This general rule is essential to ensure you don't go bankrupt. Good sales reps can actually be very successful revenue machines when they work in a motivated sales team with clear goals and a strategy.

To achieve these goals, an SDR works to attract new customers to the company and its products or services. SDRs have a very important function and can ensure that the competition does not overtake you.

One of the main tasks of an SDR is generating leads and building relationships by nurturing warm prospects and finding new potential clients. A sales rep uses sales channels such as cold calling, cold emailing, social selling on LinkedIn, or video messaging to reach out to prospects or leads. SDRs are responsible for filling up their pipeline through various channels with potential customers and educating them about your products to eliminate their pain points.

As you can see, the SDR role is highly important for a company's success. So make sure to choose your SDRs wisely.

If you need more information about the tasks of SDRs, make sure to read our blog about what is an outbound SDR.

SDRs also offer two additional points of support for your company that are key to its growth and success beyond sales:

Even before the customer success team can pass on customer feedback internally, an SDR has already received a lot of unique feedback about its products from potential customers.

Through conversations with prospects, a good sales rep learns what they do not like about the offered product or service, and therefore what could be improved. This feedback is then passed on internally by the SDR, which means that the product can be adapted to the customer's problems as quickly as possible.

A customer success team has the opportunity to receive valuable feedback much later. This is not to say that such a team is unnecessary, but when it comes to quick and unique feedback, an SDR can be a great help here.

The second point is that SDRs also learn how to deal with people, money, and products through daily work. They have a good sense of understanding what people need and how they can help with the right products. They are excellent at communication and building relationships.

As a result, SDRs develop entrepreneurial skills, and after a while, they can potentially move up into management positions, like from SDR to AE.

You have this talent pool of SDRs that you can use to turn into sales executives, product managers, or any other position you choose. So besides the fact that SDRs help get more customers, they're a fantastic source of talent for your business.

All these points show why SDR can help an entire company, not just the sales team.

But how to look for the right qualities when you're hiring?

An SDR is always the first point of contact your company has with a prospect or lead. Whether through inbound or outbound strategies, they are responsible for creating relationships from that very first interaction.

And this is what makes this role so important.

A good sales rep understands what worries their leads and is, first and foremost, there to advise and educate them on how to solve their pain points. Specifically, how your company's product or service helps them solve their pain points. They are there to understand their prospects and guide them through how what you offer will help them.

In the end, people buy where they feel best understood and advised. SDRs are the first point of contact and can make a difference with proper communication.

A good SDR is passionate about the company they work for and its products.

In so doing, they inspire others to also believe and be passionate about those products.

If an SDR is not 100% convinced, this is automatically reflected in the communication, and the counterpart will probably react with rejection.

Being convinced of their offer requires knowledge. That means an SDR must know everything about their company, the products or services, and the industry.

But here is one trap that professional SDRs won't step into: "The Knowledge Penalty."

If an SDR is well informed about the aspects from above, makes good first results, and gains more and more confidence, one problem can occur: through too much confidence, the SDR can over-educate prospects. This usually overwhelms prospects after a ten-minute call or long email.

A good sales rep is aware of this problem.

They focus on long-term success when it comes to scheduling appointments and offer new information about the product or service as necessary as they continue learning more about each prospect.

Amongst several other reasons, this is why every sales rep should have a great understanding of their own products. They can offer new information accordingly as they engage further with prospects.

This point differentiates an average SDR from a great one.

Rejection is part of this job; a good sales rep knows how to deal with it.

Sometimes there are days, weeks, or even months in which SDRs mainly get rejection.

A top SDR is up to this task and can break through it in the long run. Rejection makes a good SDR even stronger because they know their strategy is not yet optimal and needs improvement.

To become capable of rejection, consistency is needed in all areas:

• Consistency to evolve

• Consistency in staying with a customer and follow-up

• Consistency to believe in yourself and your strategy

There are other areas where consistency is needed. But the most important thing is to know that consistency always brings you one step closer to the next "yes" and guarantees success in the long run.

This is the belief that a good SDR has internalized and acted upon.

In difficult times, being consistent and confident with your strategy is important. Easier said than done.

But this attitude is a prerequisite for success in the job for good SDRs. When there is a lot of rejection, it is important to motivate oneself not to fail due to self-doubt.

This is particularly important for SDRs.

If things don't go so well, a good sales rep knows how to motivate himself with music, videos, or thinking of successes in the past.

Good SDRs can climb out of a hole quickly and keep going.

A sales rep with the right mindset about lifelong learning is incredibly valuable. The industry is constantly changing, and SDRs must adapt to these new circumstances.

In addition, good SDRs can be constantly and consistently coached during their career.

Do you want to learn more about the skills that good sales reps should have?

One of the biggest challenges is finding the right SDR with suitable requirements. It is a job that people change often, and that can break people down.

However, if you have decided to hire one or more SDRs, consider the path to achieving this. Here are the usual methods:

External recruiters: It is not uncommon for many companies to rely on external recruiters to search for qualified personnel.

Internal HR: If possible, companies also search for SDRs through internal HR teams. That such an approach requires resources is probably self-explanatory. Both options come with inherent problems.

As a rule, external recruiters and internal HR teams offer jobs on platforms such as Indeed or LinkedIn for which everyone can apply. Using a proactive approach to find new SDRs and convince them to attend the first interview is a popular method.

It can lead to success but requires a lot of time and money.

Let's take a closer look at what makes the hiring process time-consuming:

Everything starts with a first job offer published on LinkedIn or a different job portal. After one or two weeks, or when the number of applicants is fulfilled, the job posting is closed.

Now the candidates will be analyzed by their application and will be selected to continue or not. Sometimes a preliminary test for those who will continue is an intermediate step until the actual interview session starts.

Conducting interviews with several rounds is one of the most time-consuming parts of the hiring process. The job will be offered to one or more selected candidates at the end of a long interview session.

Hiring is time-consuming but essential to get new employees to support your company.

Can this process be simplified by getting the same or even better SDRs?

We say yes!

Let us introduce you to SalesPipe!

The answer to all your sales hiring needs is SalesPip.

With us, you can look for the right SDRs matching your company's requirements and job role on one place.

You can select according to your needs and start immediately hiring sales reps. You have your own dashboard that is regularly updated with new potential hires as you indicate your needs.

With the platform, you can access expertise from many countries, making it easier to expand internationally to other markets.

You have saved several steps from a normal hiring process through our platform.

You don't have to publish a job ad, nor do you have to try to keep track of and select between many applicants. The average interview process is about twenty-three days in the US - without the job posting work!

Our SDRs have already passed the first interview step and have been evaluated and vetted by SalesPipe.

Additionally, we can recommend which SDR(s) fit you and your company best.

Through SalesPipe, your recruitment team can focus on other positions, such as development or management in your company and waste less time finding the right SDRs.

Once you have found a suitable SDR, you can contact them and find out quickly whether they fit.

Hiring from this point on is then simply up to you.

Finding the right employees has always been a difficult challenge. Especially when you consider the time involved.

To facilitate your access to qualified and valuable SDRs, SalesPipe can play a crucial role.

Immediately available SDRs that fit your exact requirements will be at your fingertips. The remaining work of the hiring process becomes comparatively small.

Curious?

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