4 Tips For Recruiting Business Development Representatives
May 24, 2013
Creating an inside sales team of outbound prospectors, also commonly titled, “business development representatives,” can be invaluable to driving sales leads and vetting prospects. If you are in your early stages of building or just considering adding an outbound lead generation function, please check out our eBook, Get More Customers: How to Build an Outbound B2B Lead Generation Team that Drives Sales, for more comprehensive info. In this post, I’d like to focus on recruiting.
Although training, management, process and goals are all necessary items of a successful lead gen team, remember — you can’t start any of this without the right person in place!
A business development rep can sometimes be a difficult role to recruit for, in that typically there is not a very long list of requirements. Many candidates may meet the hard qualifications, but it’s truly the soft skills that will make or break their candidacy.
Here are a few things to look for when screening prospective business development representatives:
1) Have they done their homework?
During my initial screen with candidates, right off the bat I always like to ask what they have learned so far about the company. This will immediately let me know how much (if any!) time they have taken to review the company. Usually this garners one of three responses:
- They give a brief synopsis of what they have learned (great!)
- They explain they have been swamped and haven’t had much time to research (not great!)
- They wing it and give a bizarre, made-up explanation of the company (worse!)
2) Do they have any questions?
As much as I like to think I am an excellent recruiter, there is usually no way I have completely answered every question a candidate may have. At the end of a call, when I probe to ask if a candidate has additional questions, and they do not — that’s a red flag.
3) How strong are their written communications?
Since a lot of my job is conducted via email and written communications, I am a huge stickler when it comes to proper and professional emails. If I am receiving misspelled, unaddressed, or one-word-answer emails from a candidate, I most likely will not consider them. Your inbound team will be emailing prospects, so you need to make sure they are representing your company in a proper and professional manner.
4) When it comes to their employment history, are they “jumpy”?
If salespeople are doing very well in their jobs, they are most likely earning high commissions to reflect their productivity. If you find that a candidate has been jumping from job to job every year, you might assume they are not doing very well.
There are always exceptions to this, but typically a new sales position requires ramp-up time, delaying commissions until business starts closing. So why would someone be leaving a comfortable commission unless they have not been doing all that well and want to start fresh elsewhere?
On the other hand, if you find a candidate has been with a company for several years not only can you perceive them as loyal, but most likely they are doing a great job, too.