Your sales force is an important part of your company, and unfortunately, it’s also going to be the department that has the highest turn-over rates. However, many companies make the mistake of focusing on entry level sales people to fill open positions. While you may not need to pay them as much as an experienced sales person, you’ll also find that many of them simply aren’t good fits for your company and they may not be able to produce on the same level as your more experienced employees.

While hiring an experienced sales person does require more of an investment on your part, it’s a solid investment that will have measurable returns. Let’s look at a few reasons why it’s best to hire experience, rather than going with new recruits who may not be up to meeting your expectations.

1. Faster onboarding

When you’ve got an experienced sales employee, you don’t need to worry about an extensive sales training process. New recruits will need to be shown everything, where a more experienced employee will simply need to be trained on your systems and given their expectations. They’ll be ready to go within a few days, rather than a few weeks. This saves you not only the time spent in training, but also saves your resources and helps you streamline the hiring process.

2. Confidence counts

Part of being a successful sales person is having the necessary confidence in place to sell literally anything to anyone. A new recruit is simply not going to have that level of confidence – only experience and years of working in sales will give an employee the full confidence they need to effectively market your product or service. While some people do catch on quickly, it still takes time to get a new recruit to the same level as an experienced sales person. Do you have that kind of time to invest or could it be better spent on another facet of your company?

3. Higher success rates

Tired of turnover rates that result in downtime and a lack of sales for your company? If you want to reduce your turnover ratio and keep people selling, it only makes sense to have a fully qualified sales team working for you. You won’t have to worry about close rates with your sales team either. New recruits typically have a dismal ratio at first and every person that says no to them may never come back to your company to give you a second chance.

The recipe for success is actually quite simple. Experience counts, particularly in sales. Why risk your business with employees who may not be ready for sales when you could hire an experienced sales person and be ready to start meeting or exceeding your company sales goals?