I recently read a post about how the gig economy is affecting business, productivity and profits.  If you are experiencing employees who seem unmotivated and not as fresh or on top of their game as previous times, they may be moonlighting well into the night.  This can be especially damaging if it’s impacting your sales team because they’re not continuously working to fill their pipelines and find potential deals.

The post gave an example of a salesman who went from earning $200,000 annually in his base + commission position, to just over $50,000. His sales leader discovered that he traded the long-term success that required planning, persistence and effort for the short-term gain that he could bring in small dollar doses from Uber after each ride.

I was curious, is this an anomaly or something more widespread? I speak to sales candidates on a regular basis. I shared this story with them and many were quick to jump in with their own stories of someone on their team who was doing the same – essentially, some sales execs are treating their jobs now as gigs with benefits.

What should you do to prevent your sales team from getting caught up in this phenomenon?

Keys to keeping your sales team engaged:

• It starts with communication. Make regular communication with the team, individuals, keeping your door open and being aware of changes in their communication patterns a priority.
• Set sales goals at the beginning of the year, making sure your team understands how they were set, have given their buy-in and are rallied to do their part to meet them.
• Set metrics to measure the right things and review them individually and with the team regularly.
• Provide tools and training to keep your sales execs sharp, focused and successful.
• Experience makes me a fan of sales comp that includes a fair base, an individually-based commission, team-based commission component plus a year-end bonus potential for extra achievement.
• If someone on the team seems checked out, check in with them. They may have something going on in their personal life that would benefit from your support. If they’ve lost their motivation and drive, don’t let them pull the team down. Move them out or reassign them, if they no longer fit your sales team’s culture and winning attitude.
• If you do find yourself in a position to expand your team or replace someone, invest well in hiring. If your hiring track record could be higher or you don’t have the experience, time or resources to hire well, consider working with an expert.
• Finally, go the extra step of using an assessment that measures competencies to ensure and validate that the candidate’s background and skill set match your candidate profile and job requirements, before finalizing your hiring decision.

Invest in your team to keep the best and help the rest to move on to the gig that fits for them!

Signs of coming Fall are around us. For me, that means sharp pencils and the start of the new school year. It also means looking forward to the first football game of the season. All of which combined with cooler days and colorful leaves make Fall my favorite season. After many years in the
search business, I’ve realized that the
hiring cycle has seasons as well.

Fall is the time of year when the eye is sharper on the year’s end-goal. Sales teams are getting clearer on their performance to meeting quota. Activity should be high to ensure that there’s a healthy pipeline to support coming in over goal at year’s end and have a strong start to the coming year. If your team’s projections aren’t where you think they should be, one of the problems could be that you don’t have the right sales reps on your team.

If hiring is in your future, think through how long this will take. Remember, the more narrowly you define your candidate profile, the more time and expertise it will take to access qualified candidates. The candidates the JESSI Search team reaches out to consistently report getting bombarded by calls from those looking to hire them. It takes expertise, skill and timing to be the one who gets a response.

Seasonality also affects how long it will take to gain a conversation with candidates. For instance, getting response from sales candidates can be very difficult in the months of June and December. These are months when they are especially focused on their quarterly goals and finishing the year strong.

If your hiring efforts aren’t getting you the results you would like, consider bringing in experts in talent acquisition. The JESSI Search team is recognized as specialists in acquiring top sales talent and other customer-facing positions, including executive-level roles.

Do you have a favorite season? What does it represent to you? Share your stories. We love hearing from you!

To grow your team, you will gain better results by clarifying the attributes of the candidates that are ideal for both the position and your company culture. Just as candidates are not all the same, neither are recruiting firms. Ease of working with a recruiting firm differs widely as does results.

On one end is the transactional firm where numbers are the game. This is measured by the number of resumes they can push in front of you. On the other end is a recruiting firm that takes a partnership approach. This type of firm will take the time to understand your business and culture and helps you to define the most important candidate attributes and competencies for each position.

Understanding these differences in approach and deciding which one best serves your purposes and time constraints is important. If you have the time to go through many resumes yourself, whether they’re a close fit to your exact needs or not, you can go with a recruiter who is sending a volume of resumes. If you’re ready to get the right person hired as quickly as possible, you’ll save time by partnering with a recruiter who takes the upfront time to get to know your business and truly understand the candidate profile that will serve you best and has the expertise to deliver on that!

Take the time to ensure you can get what you expect and need when choosing your approach and partner in the hiring process.

In a 1947 version of the comic book character, Superwoman, she experiences a spell compelling her to believe she has super powers.  What could you accomplish with the belief that you have super powers?

While walking through the Costco parking lot after battling my way through the aisles to cover my list, a lady bent down and picked something up. It was a LEGO® version of Superwoman and she handed it to me and said, “You look like a Superwoman.” I was so struck by her words, that I kept it and that small figure has stood on my desk for the past few months.

I believe our super powers come from our mindset and self-discipline. I look at her when I have an especially busy day with a lot to accomplish. She spurs me on when I need to pick up the phone and make a call or move outside of my comfort zone. I’m energized by the results I achieve after this little boost of inspiration. Shifting my mindset facilitates self-motivation and builds energy that results in small successes growing into bigger wins.

We are experts in finding, assessing and placing the best sales talent for our clients’ teams. We recognize and further assess for self-motivation and the discipline it takes to consistently follow through on the steps in one’s sales process – these are critical competencies for quota achievement and sales success.

What’s your super power? How do you practice that super power to motivate yourself and others? We always enjoy hearing your experiences!