When you have a successful sales team, you can take on any challenge that comes your way, knowing you have the resources and talent to get the job done. A successful sales team is unified, efficient, and nimble, and it can be trusted to handle difficult situations and powerful prospects. Building such a sales team takes focus, however, and that’s why many firms opt for leaving recruiting to agencies. Recruiting agencies have contacts, networks, and hiring expertise, which are very helpful in finding just the right people, but they’re expensive and may not understand your firm. Is it possible to build a truly successful sales team without the help of a recruiting agency? 

Yes.

While building a successful sales team might be out of your comfort zone and skill set, you can learn the skills necessary to recruit just the right people for your team. With these skills under your belt, you’ll always be able to fill holes in your sales team and keep your team staffed with high-powered, motivated sales reps. 

The following skills and strategies will help you to build a truly successful sales team without the help of a recruiting agency:

Social Media Recruiting

If you really want to save money in your recruiting process, master the art of social media recruiting. Young sales reps often look to social media when they’re hunting for jobs, and if you’ve taken the time to build your brand online, including maximizing your messaging, blog posts, and LinkedIn and Twitter postings, you’ll attract these tech-savvy young sales reps who judge a company’s credibility by its online presence.

A Narrowed Scope

It’s tempting to post a job listing and then decide what you’re looking for in a new sales rep based on the applications you receive, but you’ll build a more successful sales team when you are more proactive. In truth, when it comes to hiring, you get what you look for, so spend some time considering what you’re really looking for before you ever post your job listing.

In addition to education, skills, and credentials, think about the characteristics you need on your team. Do you need someone who is self-motivated, curious, or empathetic? What characteristics will add to your team and make the entire team more successful?

Tandem Interviewing

When you interview candidates one-on-one, you spend much of your time leading the dialogue and focusing on the flow of the interview, and you don’t get a chance to sit back and observe the candidate carefully. You can resolve this problem by interviewing in tandem. When two of you interview a candidate, you both get the benefit of observing the candidate in a more relaxed way, which gives you better insights into your potential hires.

Reference Checks

Recruiting agencies are good at checking references, but this is something you can learn as well. In addition to checking with previous employers, it’s a great idea to check references with actual customers. If a sales reps’ customers are happy with their experience, you’ll know that the candidate will add value to your successful sales team.

Essential Tools

Once you’ve hired your sales reps, keep them organized with explicit daily communication, apps or software to track team analytics, methods for sharing files and information, and regularly scheduled sales meetings. These tools build unity and teamwork, and they help you to keep on top of the activities and challenges of your sales team.

Yes, you can build a successful sales team without a recruiting agency. In fact, as you take advantage of these strategies and ideas, you’ll find that they become second nature to you, and your success compounds. As you notice problems in your sales team, you can quickly solve the problems and bring in the help necessary to get your team back on track. Your successful sales team will be a pleasure to work with and a great benefit to your firm.