We are a startup company established for 3 years, mainly engaged in smart home hardware. We have been busy developing technology and products for the past two years. The two or three cities that were originally tested for sales have expanded to five or six provinces. We have encountered many problems in the recruitment of sales personnel. New recruits cannot come in, and the turnover rate of those who come in is also high. How to recruit people?
For example, I recently encountered a specific problem: new markets need people, but I have to look at the list of personnel over and over again, but I can’t find someone who can do the job. In the end, I can only retreat and use it reluctantly; the sales manager who is sent out puts pressure on It’s easy to leave the job if it’s a big one, and you won’t even be able to find the hand-over person for a while; local recruitment is more troublesome, people can’t be clear, and there’s not much time for close inspection...
[Answer]
Chen Ning (Sales and Support Expert Group) (Members, many well-known companies and startup company consultants)
Startup companies and mature companies are very different in terms of talent recruitment: mature companies have talent reserves, start-up companies are struggling to employ people; mature companies have time to recruit, train, and phase out slowly , And start-up companies have tight schedules and small budgets, and require high individual combat capabilities.
So, today I’m going to talk about the process of recruiting and employing people, how can I judge that a person is really suitable for sales? What are the qualities of a good salesperson?
If you want to nail a nail on the wall, the hammer and wrench are placed in front of you. You will definitely choose a hammer, not a wrench. This is the strength of using a hammer. For us, it is about employing talents. It is difficult for us to expect a person to do things that are not in line with his personality and abilities well and easily.
In the context of not relying on the system and relying on the individual, an excellent salesperson can maintain a good condition for a long time, almost all have the following three key characteristics in common.
Doing things: disassembling the sense of direction of the target
Goal-oriented, these four words are often put on the lips, but some are true goal-oriented, some are false goal-oriented, we must learn to distinguish. How do you tell? For example, you interviewed three people A, B, and C and asked the same question: "If you want to lose weight and your plan is to reduce the current 180 kg to 150 kg, how would you make a plan?"
A said: "I treat myself The requirements are relatively high. I ask myself to lose 10 kilograms a month, and I will be able to meet the standard in 3 months. "You feel good about it.
B said: "I work hard first, then easy. My goal is to lose 15 catties in the first month, 10 catties in the second month, and 5 catties in the third month. In the fourth month, I will set the consolidation period. I will definitely achieve the plan. !" This sounds like you think it's a lot more serious than A.
C said: "For me to lose 30 pounds, I need to make changes in the three aspects of diet, exercise amount, and schedule. I plan to make the following changes in my daily diet, exercise, and schedule, etc. from tomorrow. This is expected How many catties can be lost every week, how many catties can be lost every month, just meet the target in 3 months. I will adjust the rhythm appropriately according to the changes of the week, and strive to achieve the target a week in advance."
Well, hearing this, you think that among the three , Who is really goal-oriented? Of course it is C.
Target-oriented people have two characteristics: one is to stare at the target and not to deviate; the other is to find a way by disassembling the target.
The biggest problem with A and B is that there are numerical goals but no action goals; there is time for dismantling, but no action dismantling. A truly goal-oriented person can do three things: use digital goals as a basis, action paths as a guide, and stage milestones as a guarantee, so as to get as close to the goal as possible.
Hearing this, I believe you must have some feelings. It turns out that there are many false goal-oriented people around us! We are looking for people who not only have goals in their mouths, but also have goals in their actions.
Man: pressure resistant confined sense
we recall, you take the team with a subordinate process is not often encounter such a thing: assigning tasks, allocating indicators have not wanted to take things how to do, he is full I want to retreat from the fear of my face, and I even want to talk to you about leaving.
When a sales manager has good market conditions, good channel foundation, and good customer cooperation, he will do just as well. But when the market was declining, channel conflicts, and customer cooperation had conflicts, his state immediately fell away, not actively looking for countermeasures, but breaking the jar.
For another example, at a regular sales meeting, a sales executive’s work plan was challenged by his boss or colleagues several times, and he felt that he was not understood or recognized, and he began to make emotions and lead a mixed life.
Such people and things are not uncommon. We know that sales are indeed a kind of special forces, especially in start-up companies, who lack resources and experience. They need to run through the business at the fastest speed, obtain income, and establish a positive cycle of their own blood production. He must bear the digital indicators and face directly. Competitors, trial and error methods, use limited corporate resources and unlimited personal innovation capabilities to leverage seemingly impossible indicators. Therefore, pressure resistance and wear resistance have become the common desire of many startup companies for their employees.
You may ask how can I judge whether a person is pressure-resistant and wear-resistant? One is to look at the industry he once worked in. In highly competitive industries, such as finance, the Internet, consumer goods, home appliances, and communications, it is relatively easy to adapt to a high-intensity, high-tempo environment. The second is to look at his personal business experience. It depends on his specific experience. For example, he has more than 3 years of experience in trans-provincial business trips; he has the experience of independently managing regions or undertaking projects; he has many experience dealing with problematic markets and problematic customers; if he is a college student, you can also ask him about his adulthood In the future, I did things that persisted for more than two years, and encountered the most stressful things; and so on. In this way, we can judge whether a person has the characteristics of pressure and wear resistance in a concrete and event-based way.
Doing market: rapid market response sensitivity
we know, in start-up companies, the sales staff did not experience too many teams in the past, strategies, proven methods can refer to, many times, individuals need independent judgment and act quickly. The basis for judgment and action can of course come from the guidance of the boss, from the company's existing data and information, but the most common and most important thing is from one's own market sensitivity. Market sensitivity is the ability of sales staff to judge business opportunities by integrating external information.
Let's look at it in turn, what a person without market sensitivity is like. There is a sales executive who joins a start-up company and often needs to travel in different places, but you see that the business travel reports he writes are always running accounts, that is, who to meet when and where, and rarely mention the actions and channels of local competitors. Dynamics, terminal feedback, hidden dangers of cooperation, etc. It's not that there is no such situation, but that he went but did not dig it out, so naturally he couldn't help the company make more decisions.
There are also some sales staff who are indifferent in the face of competing product activities, terminal feedback, market hotspots, and major events in the channel. To apply the current buzzword, he is "Buddha sales" and everything is waiting for the company to arrange Or do things mechanically as usual.
If there are more of these people in the team, it will definitely hinder the start-up company's business testing or expansion. Sales staff have no market sensitivity, just like blind people walking at night, with high risk and low efficiency. When encountering business opportunities, he did not have the awareness of taking the initiative, nor the ability to act quickly. Start-up companies will fall into a situation where the product is blamed for poor sales and the product is blamed for poor sales.
Today, I shared with you the three characteristics of an excellent salesperson: doing things—a sense of direction in dismantling the target; being a person—a sense of pressure and wear resistance; and being a market—a market sensitivity that reacts quickly. To help us identify who is most suitable for sales. Of course, there are many evaluation standards for sales talents on the market, such as professionalism, values, execution, loyalty, etc., but these three are the most indispensable keys for startups! I hope today’s answer will be of some help and enlightenment to you.
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