Hunter Gathering: Hiring & Managing an Aggressive Sales Team

David Steel, one of the nation’s leading experts in sales motivation, offers his insights on successfully recruiting and developing a sales team filled with aggressive deal-closers.

 

For any business with a hyper focus on growth, few things are more critical than building an aggressive sales team and managing it effectively. But forming a sales team that thrives in an organization that’s ramping up requires not only targeted hiring but highly effective management skills and a compensation structure that properly incentivizes the right milestones, as well.

Author, speaker, and sales coach David Steel is widely recognized for his ability to help companies put these pieces into place. In this Q&A (adapted from a previously recorded Labcast), Steel shares practical advice for not only identifying and hiring sales hunters, but establishing the right compensation plans, goals, and strategies for inspiring and managing them effectively.

Salespeople are very, very smart. They’ll go where the money is.

OpenView: How do you generally describe aggressive sales teams? What sets them apart?

David: An aggressive sales team is made up of individuals who are geared towards business development. They’re primarily looking for compensation geared towards attracting, bringing on board, and developing new customers, but not necessarily keeping that relationship long-term.

OpenView: When companies go after “hunters” what are some of the key characteristics they should be looking for?

David: Compensation can reveal a lot. For example, an aggressive salesperson will not shy away from a compensation model that has what we call a graduation built into it, whereas a non-aggressive salesperson, or more of a farmer salesperson, will look for a compensation model that has long-term annuity and a high base versus a high commission structure.

But it also really starts with the personality of the salesperson. For anybody who’s starting out and building a sales team, I recommend doing some sort of personality profile assessment prior to the interview process so you have a good understanding of exactly what motivates that individual.

That personality profile assessment will give you some key indications as to whether the person has the ability to be an aggressive salesperson. It’s not necessarily the end-all that says they’re going to succeed, but it does give you indications of what their motivators are and how driven they are for success.

OpenView: Do you have any specific recommendations when it comes to hiring assessments?

David: I use a standard DISC assessment. There are a few different companies that have them available. The reason why I use a DISC assessment is because we’re looking for a very particular behavior. Some of the other assessments really go into how the individual will fit in with the culture and how they’re viewed outside of work and that’s not where our focus is. We’re looking for what we call a D, that driver instinct.

OpenView: Even aggressive sales teams can fall victim to complacency. How can companies preemptively avoid that and keep their sales teams motivated?

David: One way to combat complacency requires slowly decreasing compensation for the business that salespeople currently have. But you want to keep it balanced so it’s moving slowly. You don’t want to do anything too quickly or too drastically because that individual will likely either leave or feel very, very demoted and basically stop production altogether.

Salespeople are very, very smart. They’ll go where the money is. You’re aiming for a smooth transition to a model that compensates reps more aggressively for new business coming in.

Ultimately, they’ll look at the way they’re being paid and compensated and will find a way to maximize their revenue. As they maximize their revenue, it’s just like exercise — the more they see their new behaviors yielding results, the more willing they’ll be to ramp up and do it more often.

If your problem is the individuals you’re working with aren’t cold-calling or bringing on new customers and your pipeline is flat, you want to make sure that you’re clearly showing each salesperson what the results of their efforts are going to be, and make it clear which accomplishments are going to benefit them the most.

OpenView: Are there other compensation tips you can recommend for not only building an aggressive sales team, but sustaining it over time?

David: It’s all about compensation. I hate to say that it all comes down to money, but most salespeople come into sales to make more money, and true salespeople — aggressive salespeople who really work on developing their craft — really are typically money-motivated.

Of course, there are also work environment issues. Let’s assume the work environment is good, and let’s assume that morale is good. Compensation comes in two ways. There’s monetary compensation and there’s reward compensation. In general, salespeople love to be recognized within the company and amongst their peers.

So compensation might come in a pure dollar amount, but it might also come in the form of rewards, trophies, benefits, trips, sales contests, or even boards on the wall that show the ranking of each individual. When combined together, all of these can form a full compensation that really motivates those drivers we’re looking to develop within a highly aggressive sales team.

You’ve heard from David, now we want to hear from you.

Are you a sales hunter or a manager who has led an aggressive sales team? What tips and tactics can you share to ensure productive success?