Hire a team, not individuals

Good morning!When you have an opening in sales, do you hire a sales person or a member of a sales team? Are you still hiring to a specific sales “type,” each one a clone of the other? Is your sales organization just a collection of sales free agents each pursuing their individual goals?Or, do you have a sales “team?”As a manager you have to look at the challenge of building a sales team like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Before you hire, you need to carefully think about the composition of your sales team. Instead of every rep matching a certain profile in a personality assessment, think strategically about how you sell and who you sell to.A successful sales team is greater than the sum of its parts. It's a collection of individuals who possess complementary skill sets and who view themselves, first and foremost, as members of a team. In this environment, new team members learn to successfully sell your product or service by watching others on the sales team and patterning their actions after the successful sales reps. They seek out mentoring by more experienced members of the team.This mentoring and collaboration won’t happen if everyone on your sales team is pre-occupied with looking out for #1.Before you make that next sales hire, take a step back and create a hiring plan that factors in where your markets are headed and what that will mean about the type of customers that you will sell to and the types of skills and experience you’ll need on your sales team in order to sell to them. Be sure to also factor in your requirements for team players who will willingly share best practices and mentor others on your sales team. Then, instead of hiring an individual, hire a member of the team.-Andy