When and how to grow your sales team

The modern world of sales is about being agile and responsive to the industry, so if you’ve got all the potential but you don’t seem to be hitting targets or developing in certain markets it might be time to hire. 

Hiring more staff at the optimum time can not only diversify your sales team, but reinvigorate your sales efforts.

Grow your team at the right time, with the right staff and watch your company soar. Our useful guide has plenty of useful tips to help you grow your bottom-line boosting team. 

•    When to hire:
Timing is everything when it comes to taking on a new employee. Whether you’re looking to make a big impact and influence rapid growth, or need more staff to maintain a steady upward trajectory, knowing when to recruit can seriously affect your success rates.   

Here’s how to know when you need to reassess the size – and expertise - of your sales team: 

1)    Your KPIs are suffering.
Your forecasts were all looking good, but now you’re seeing the numbers plateau. With successful processes throughout your business, there may be a bottleneck in your sales department.

It’s likely all the effort is going in, but you’re simply not seeing it reflected on your bottom line. Whether that’s because you need more experienced team members, or there just aren’t enough people on the ground, it might be time to begin growing your team. 

From bringing direction to your younger recruits with a new manager to lead, teach and inspire, to injecting fresh new enthusiasm and passion into your team with a keen-to-impress graduate, bringing in more staff can really impact your KPIs. 

2)    You’re poised for strategic growth and development
Preparation is key to any major business move. So if you’re looking to expand into new markets, tackle a big growth KPI or launch a rival operation to overtake the competition, then upscaling your sales team in advance can be a good strategic move to fuel your next steps. 

Before you embark on your next business endeavour, take a look at your sales team and assess whether they have the capacity to achieve what you want and are tasked with delivering. You can have the most skilled sales team in the business, but without enough people on the phones or reps in the field, you’re still going to limit your potential growth.

•    Who and how to hire: 
So, you’ve established you need to grow your sales team but now you need to consider how to drive this action plan forward. Your first step will be to assess and audit your team dynamic to discover where there might be any skillset gaps that can be plugged by hiring more staff. 

Addressing this issue and ascertaining areas for improvement is a complex exercise. You need to weigh up your recruitment options while comparing them to what your team needs. 

For example: although experienced salesperson is an excellent choice for a managerial role, you may find there isn’t the budget for another senior role –  fresh-faced graduates with bags of potential might be the better option in many instances and will be a fraction of the price, potentially delivering stronger ROI. 

If you need specialist expertise carrying out an accurate skills audit and defining a targeted recruitment plan, you could benefit from bringing in the professionals, such as Pareto. Using more than 20 years of experience in building highly effective sales teams, the experts at Pareto can fully assess areas in which your team may need additional support, such as training or new positions, along with recommended candidates to fill them.