Unlike many other sales-related positions, sales-development reps don’t exactly have to meet monetary quotas. Does this mean companies can hire candidates for these roles haphazardly? Absolutely not. A sales development rep is essential to tracking down, researching and prospecting leads for your enterprise. They may be doing the work nobody else wants to do – cold calling, reaching out over LinkedIn, and following up with potential clients that have yet to get back to the company. It isn’t exactly glamorous work, but it’s necessary for keeping a steady influx of business partners rolling in.
They’re the ones that decide whether a lead is qualified and viable before passing information off to a seller. To do this they need to have developed a strong intuition, good listening skills – particularly when it comes to determining subtext over the phone or through e-correspondence, emotional maturity and stamina. These qualities are part of a candidate’s personality; they can rarely be learned on the job unlike other more sales-specific skills. Hiring managers looking to fill open sales development positions must therefore ensure the applicants they interview have these traits and skills in abundance, else risk wasting time and company resources.
Implementing a sales personality test at the start of the hiring process will ensure both your new hire’s long-term success, and that your future business prospects remain strong ones. This tool is available through providers like SalesTestOnline, designed to make a job applicant’s soft skills more transparent. First the provider will create a benchmark profile for your position after doing a comprehensive analysis of your company’s needs. You may even customize it by asking your top employees working similar positions to do a mock test and use their results as the target.
Once you complete sales assessment testing your company’s representatives can then reach out to the candidates that score well – inviting them to submit a resume or do an interview only if they embody the compatible traits. This saves enterprises money, alleviates hiring mistakes, and makes the whole process more accurate. No longer do companies have to suffer the loss of a candidate they previously put their hopes in, only to see they weren’t willing to put as much work into the job as they promised. These evaluations are also helpful for pinpointing a current employee’s weak spots, so the company can push them in the best direction for improvement.
Sales development reps create the foundations of a company – without them, people closing deals would have a lot more work on their hands. By looking at a sales enterprise as a system, managers will start to understand that a faulty base won’t lead to success at the final selling stage. It’s therefore vitally important that employers only invite candidates to join their team if they’re suited not only for the practical demands of the job but the emotional ones as well. Herders are just as important as hunters in the sales sector – don’t allow your company to lose sight of their value when hiring for an open position.
