Picking up marketing and sales talent can be more challenging than you expect. Not only are specific skill sets required for these disciplines hard to pinpoint, but both fields are constantly changing and evolving, rendering many candidates’ past accomplishments moot. Gaudy Language understands the challenges you may face hiring talent for your sales and marketing goals, and we offer this guide to help you out.
Beware of the pitfalls of sales and marketing hiring
Before you start hiring, be aware of the common pitfalls of hiring salespeople and marketers. The first is potential high turnovers: Sales hires have a massive turnover of 35 percent (almost 3x the norm), and marketing stands at 17 percent. That means, unless you’re on point with your hire, the chances of you wasting money and time are high.
Next, many businesses fail to adequately support salespeople or marketers. They hire a worker or two and expect them to magically generate revenues. In reality, you need to add a marketer or salesperson into an existing process. They may be able to improve it with time, but they need a foundation to work from.
Last, experience counts in sales and marketing – and you may not be able to afford the most experienced talent. Be prepared to compromise.
Don’t mix up marketing and sales
To get started with hiring, determine whether you need a marketer or salesperson – or both. It’s important to not mix up the two, advises the Small Business Coach. Marketing and sales are two related by distinct professions. To sum it up, marketers are responsible for generating interest in your product or service, while salespeople attempt to assist, engage, and close a sale with people who are already interested.
Define your marketing and sales goals
Hiring your people by your unique business goals may be a good idea. It will not only clarify whether you need a salesperson or marketer, but it will prevent you from redundant hiring. Here are some examples of typical business goals met by salespeople and marketers:
Lead generation
Advertising
Enhancing and reworking sales and marketing processes
Market research
Branding and brand visibility
Revenue generation and increase in retention rate
Consider the qualities you need from workers to meet your goals
Depending on your goals, you will need your workers to have some qualities. Typically, salespeople are required to be charismatic, have great communication skills, know how to hustle, and can handle rejection. Marketers, on the other hand, need the ability to analyze data, use marketing software, and have an eye for detail.
Choose between full-timers or freelancers
You have the option of hiring full-timers and freelancers. There are pros and cons to either approach, as Trakstar can elaborate. Full-timers are more accountable, easier to train, dedicated, and more likely to be available long-term. Freelancers are flexible, available on a per-project basis, and usually cheaper – but they tend to be less accountable, trainable, and dependable (long-term). A third approach is hiring an agency, which allows you to work with multiple experts at a time.
Pro tip: Save money with off-the-shelf services
Many businesses have a hard time hiring the help they need because of the costs involved. You may be able to increase your hiring budget by making savvy use of off-the-shelf services. Such services allow you to outsource or automate small business tasks, saving time and money. These tasks can be marketing or sales–related or general business-related. Some examples are using customer engagement software, outsourcing an email campaign, or getting a basic branding kit from a freelancer. You can also use free logo design apps and online tools to easily put together a logo using template and pre-made artwork.
Don’t forget to protect your personal assets when you’re using such services (or doing business in general). Apart from purchasing insurance, you can register your business as an LLC. This separates your business assets from your personal ones and offers other benefits like tax advantages, less paperwork, and more flexibility. You can file the LLC paperwork yourself, use a lawyer, or pick a formation service (usually cheapest). Every state has its own regulations around LLCs, so check rules before you proceed.
Hire the talent you need
Last, it’s time to find the talent you need. You can find the people you need online as well as offline. Some tried-and-tested methods to find good people are networking, referrals, advertising on job boards, using social media, and joining online groups and forums in your specific niche. Make sure you vet candidates thoroughly, onboard them, and then train with an eye for the future.
Conclusion
It takes time to get a good sales or marketing process going, not to mention find good workers and train them. Don’t be afraid to budget, experiment, and make mistakes – you’ll need to learn what works and what doesn’t if you’re to succeed. Persevere and you will eventually assemble a top-notch sales team and marketing campaign that can help carry your business forward.
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