Teams of Individual Contributors - Your Most Important Asset

As your most important customer facing asset, why is their recruitment relegated to outdated and  inefficient methods that are not geared to attracting the "A" players and represent neither exclusivity nor commitment? 

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SalesSearchMax™

The greatest cost of hiring individual contributors is neither the recruiting cost nor the training cost, but the opportunity cost of leaving critical territories understaffed and open to competition either through open territories or nonperformance.

The best candidates are the most difficult to recruit and following the tech bubble burst and the meltdown in the financial markets, they are much more cautious about entertaining any type of job change. 

For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a top individual contributor of your competitor with a solid track record and money on the table.  Would you respond to overtures from someone in whose best interest it is to shop your background until they got lucky and found a hit?

That's exactly what you are asking when you employ contingency methods of sales team recruiting.

Now ask whether your Sales VP, who is under pressure to fill slots and meet goals, wants to be in competition for each "A" player uncovered as a result of the  process. And, is it acceptable to be at the mercy of a firm that may or may not be actively working on your behalf because they have no obligation or commitment and the going may have gotten tough?

Again, that's the exact position you are in when using contingency methods.

The time to recruit, coupled with training time in excess of three months and extended sales cycles of over six months, eats into our clients' forecasts and can spell disaster. Without a dedicated recruitment process for these search requirements the recruiting time line is not fixed thus forcing the hiring managers to accept whatever talent is presented as deadlines approach. So you are back to understaffed territories again in the next cycle, not a desirable position for the VP Sales.

The solution is to Recruit Using "C" Level Methodology.  Apply the exact same process to recruiting teams of individual contributors that you would apply to recruiting a CEO, including

• Commitment to completion
• Exclusivity of candidates, only you see them not your competition
• Completeness of the vetting process
• Unique, proprietary and dedicated candidate research and stimulation

This is SalesSearchMax

With the economies of scale that come with recruiting a team, normally around 5 individuals to start, SWBi is able to provide the same commitment and unique double teaming process at a very competitive per hire cost.  While the fixed costs are too great to apply this dedicated process on a one off basis, for multiple requirements the process excels.

You will see many fewer candidates under SalesSearchMax, but they will be much more thoroughly qualified.  You see only the best. After all, your role is not to screen possible candidates but to select from the best few.  Would you rather see three great candidates of fifteen OK candidates?

SalesSearchMax™ guarantees your required headcounts of the best sales professionals are recruited and incorporated into your team in a timely manner. We provide a dedicated process and a commitment to lead a continuous search program to recruit the required sales contributors. This ensures that the best are always being attracted to your team at the lowest effective cost per hire.

 

A Very Real Problem

"Of all the decisions I have to make, far and away the most important is the make up of the sales team. If I don't do a good job here; no matter how good the product is, no matter how strong the market is we won't fully succeed. But if I get the right team, not only do we succeed in strong markets with solid products, we can overcome many of the challenges created by forces I can't control."

 VP Sales - Americas and Asia Pacific

Major Independent Software Vendor