How to build a sales team

[Bitfold]

Hi, name's Mike.

I've recently started up a computer game outsourcing company. Our company consists of 3 Ukranian game development studios who have various game development expertise & have helped several clients build excellent 2D & 3D games with their services.

We're getting ready to launch a large sales effort in North America & Europe to help sell our services to big clients in our target niches - but we need to build a small sales team who can help us develop and execute a good sales effort.

To date, we've found finding good sales talent to be quite the challenge. We've been casting a wide net via posting our vancies and related discussions at game industry sites, partnerup.com, and entrepreneurial sites like this one - and no luck finding good candidates as of yet.

So my questions are this - feel free to answer any question you'd like.
1. Does anyone who has built a sales team before have specific suggestions for how we can get in direct contact with good sales candidates?
2. If you've built a sales team before, how did you get your candidates?
3. Would anyone here with sales experience like to help us build our sales team? We're launching a large business development effor here and offering excellent compensation for anyone who can help us make it successful.

[Fire_Tiger]

I've recently started up a computer game outsourcing company. Our company consists of 3 Ukranian game development studios who have various game development expertise & have helped several clients build excellent 2D & 3D games with their services.

Okay, you're a behind-the-scene support unit. Piece meal work.

Just curious, but why don't you come out with your own game(s)? That's where the major profits are. Not being someone else's serf.

We're getting ready to launch a large sales effort in North America & Europe to help sell our services to big clients in our target niches - but we need to build a small sales team who can help us develop and execute a good sales effort.

I guess the first question I'd ask is how much of a budget do you have for this? You literally get what you pay for when it comes to marketers since, being marketers, they know what they're worth. I wonder if your real problem is you're offering too little.

To date, we've found finding good sales talent to be quite the challenge.

That's because good talent is rare and it knows it. You must pay top dollar if you want to get it. And that means you have a big enough budget that tells them you will last more than a year, if not two. Not only that, but they must want to work for you. When you're a hot commodity, why work for a jerk? Or a penny-pincher? Or someone who thinks their shit doesn't stink? Get the idea?

It isn't just salary but everything that will attract or repel good marketing talent. Top of those is your bonus system. Marketers live for bonuses. Then there's perks. Many sales reps travel a lot so what flight class they'll be flying on airlines can be a deciding factor. So can which hotels they can stay at and so forth.

But, as far as sales talent goes, I have found the biggest deciding factor is who will be their boss.

We've been casting a wide net via posting our vancies and related discussions at game industry sites, partnerup.com, and entrepreneurial sites like this one - and no luck finding good candidates as of yet.

You're looking in the wrong places. Where you advertise for sales people is publications that marketers read. But, the reality of it is, how you get most of your good sales talent is through networking done by your sales director.

1. Does anyone who has built a sales team before have specific suggestions for how we can get in direct contact with good sales candidates?

First, I think you don't understand that you need more than just sales. Sales is the end product. To get sales, you need to do marketing ... which sales is part of.

Marketing is an umbrella concept that consists of several components that when properly handled creates an ever-improving loop. The basic marketing loop is marketing strategy -> public relations -> advertising -> sales -> market research -> marketing strategy -> and the loop loops.

MARKETING STRATEGY
In this day and age of political-correctness, the marketing director will say that everyone in a marketing department makes its marketing strategy. In reality, that's PC bullshit. Only one person makes marketing strategy and that is the company's head marketer (a.k.a. Chief Marketing Officer [CMO], VP of Marketing, etc.). For a marketing strategy to work, it must have a single solid coherent vision and that is only possible when ONE person makes it. A marketing strategy made by more than one person or, worse, a committee is doomed. It is like the old joke. An elephant is a horse designed by committee. [In fact, due to marketing being an umbrella concept, there is really only one marketer in each company and that’s the head marketer. Everyone else in the marketing department is a specialist of one sub-set or other of marketing.] Out of the marketing strategy comes the marketing plan. The marketing plan is how the head marketer plans to execute his marketing strategy. The marketing strategy is the grand vision whereas the marketing plan is the blueprints to building that vision. Out of the marketing plan first comes...

PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public relations should come first because it gives the marketer the most bang for his marketing buck and should be the first tool used for a new product or service. A one-inch positive paragraph in an article in the Wall Street Journal about your product/service/company is worth FAR more than a full-page two-page-spread ad in WSJ. The reason is because that mention of your product/service/company in that news article is being said by a supposedly objective third party (a.k.a. the reporter) whereas your two-page-spread is said by you. In other words, people will believe what the reporter says about you and, at best, will be wary of what you have to say about yourself. Another great thing about PR is its cost-effectiveness. To get that mention in WSJ could be achieved with one phone call to or from a reporter. Getting that phone call is the challenge but, again, on a cost basis, it is insanely cheap. However, there is a major problem with PR and that it is almost only effective IF you have something new and exciting to tell. Your company discovers the cure for aging and your company will be on the front page of every newspaper, the cover of every news magazine, and the lead story on every TV and radio newscast in the world. Your company comes out with the new scent of "lemon-orange" for the bar soap you make and not even bloggers will mention it. Without something newsworthy, PR isn't possible and when that's the boat you're in, it means you have to use marketing's old workhorse.

ADVERTISING
Ever try to tell your loved one how much you love them in at least 1,000 words without using examples. Go ahead. Think of how you would do it. Try it. Sit down right now and try to think of 1,000 words on how much you love your loved one without repeating yourself or giving examples. If you think it isn't that hard, but then really do try to do it. You will find after a mere 200 words, your progress will slow down. After 500 words, you will be reaching into the back of your brain for something original to say. After 750, you will start to scream. When you hit 1,000, you will yell "Made it!", not add one more word, and collapse from mental exhaustion. Welcome to the world of advertising. As an advertising executive, you have to sell the same old shoe again and again. Each time, you need to make it seem new and exciting ... while knowing it is anything but. But that's your job. How can you get eyeballs to read one more shoe magazine ad? Or watch one more TV commercial for shoes? Or to look over your direct-mail brochure instead of immediately trashing it once it is identified as junk mail? The truth of the matter is that advertisers are the most creative people on the face of the Earth. They're not trying to create something new. They are trying to make people believe something old is new. Not only that but they have the added demands of saying it in numerous ways (an ad can only be repeated so many times before it becomes ineffective) and, most hard of all, of getting people to then buy, use, or donate to it! Unlike most famous artists, advertising executives have to immediately make a sale and get the public to value their stuff before they die.

SALES
Some people don't think sales is part of marketing, but those are usually people who know little about marketing or are marketing professors. In reality, sales is a crucial part of marketing. It is the "end" result. [You will understand why I put quote marks around one of the words in that last sentence in a moment.] For the marketer, the sole purpose of public relations and advertising is to generate sales. The purchasing of one's product or service, the donating of money to one's cause, the voting for one's candidate, or whatever. Sales is action. Action by customers that generates what your company (or non-profit) is trying to get from the public. It can be direct sales where the person gets a direct-mail brochure and calls a toll-free telephone number to order a box of your lemon-orange-scented soap bars. Or it can be a signed contract after a sales pitch by your sales rep. And when your sales people make their sales pitch, the reality is what they say is based on what was said in your PR and advertising campaigns. The sales literature that your sales people hand to customers isn't produced by sales people but your advertising people. And your advertising people commonly "steal" ideas from your PR people ... which eventually ends up in your sales literature. And sales is in a very real way the unit of measure of the success or failure of your public relations and advertising efforts. However, it isn't the measuring stick. That is...

[continued in next post]

[Fire_Tiger]

MARKET RESEARCH
Properly done market research is crucial for a business' success. Unfortunately, most market research is improperly done. What's the difference between the two? That's simple. Who directs market research? Answer that and you will know the answer. If market research directs itself, it is worse than useless. It can damage a company. This is how the Ford Edsel and New Coke came into existence. If the head marketer directs market research, it will be cost-effective and actually help the company succeed. Good market research tracks EVERYTHING the marketing department does, makes educated guesses why something worked (or didn't), and then passes along this information and guesswork to the head marketer (a.k.a. marketing strategist). A good head marketer NEVER takes market research's guesswork as gospel. If market research predicts that the sun will rise tomorrow, a good head marketer will have a college intern stay up all night to verify that. The tracking information that market research gives the head marketer can be trusted but not its guesswork. The tracking information will tell the head marketer how successful (or not) was his marketing plan. Tracking information is the past. The head marketer's job is then to evolve his marketing plan based on this information. This is where market research's guesswork comes into play. Market research guesses the "why" behind successes and failures. The job of the head marketer is to then test those guesses with the next evolution of his marketing plan. If market research thinks that a green background instead of the current yellow background will improve the effectiveness of the company's direct-mail postcard ads, the head marketer will send off half of the next batch of direct-mail postcards with a green background and the other half with a yellow. Market research then tracks the success rate of the two and tells the head marketer of the results, makes further guesses on what shades of the winning color might get better results (saying there’s a clear winner), and the head marketer then tests that. If market research's guesses are always off the mark, the head marketer will soon be appointing a new head of market research.

THE NEVER-ENDING EVER-IMPROVING LOOP
With Market Research, a never-ending loop comes into existence. If the company has a good head marketer, the loop will be an ever-improving cycle that will be always increasing the success of the company. Now the above just covers the basic five components of marketing. There are other components. There is location and in-store staff image for retail stores, restaurants, stripclubs, and other places of business to which the buying public comes. There is government relations (a sub-set of PR) if the company sells to and/or has to heavily deal with government. And there are still others. But the above five is the core of any marketing plan.

You do not need to have the best product on the market to have a successful company. What you do need is the public to know you exist and you need the ability to sell to them to have a successful company. That is why marketing is crucial to all businesses. Hell, it is crucial to all organizations. If a charity cannot raise donations, it dies. If a political candidate cannot get votes, he loses. If a church cannot attract a congregation, it will fade away. Even governments need to do marketing. If people do not know a law exists, it will not be observed. If a law becomes unpopular, it will be ignored and violated.

Now what all the above means (and to answer your question) is that you need to first bring on board a great head marketer. Someone that really understands what marketing is all about. He will then spend six months ... yes, I said six months ... getting a good sales director. That and an good PR man, a good ad man, and a good market researcher. In fact, if your head marketer knows what he's doing, he will get them in this order: market researcher, PR man, ad man, and sales director. You see your head marketer will use the first three to sell the last one to join his team. And then your sales director will use that team to recruit his sales reps. "Look at the support you'll have!" You see sales reps hate ... let me repeat that ... sales reps HATE cold call sales. What sales reps love are leads. Leads are potential customers asking a sales rep to come and pitch them. No having to try to force their foot through the front door ... and getting it routinely slammed on. Leads get the front door opened and the sales rep warmly welcomed to come in and make his pitch.

2. If you've built a sales team before, how did you get your candidates?

I sold them on a dream. No, I'm serious. Without a dream, you're just asking them to run on a treadmill. With a dream, they have a cool goal to strive for and a reason to want to join your team. This I see as being a problem for you.

After the dream, I sell them on how cool it will be working for the company. Nope, still not talking about money yet. I tell them how they'll be treated. What job perks they'll get. What comfort level their business travel will be. Will they be required to punch a clock or not. How many days of vacation they get off a year. A big winning point these days is a reduced workweek of Monday through Thursday so they have a three-day weekend. Truth be told, sales sucks on Friday anyway so dropping that day isn't a loss.

Finally, I talk about money but I don't focus on salary. I focus our talk about performance bonuses. Good sales talent believe in their ability to sell and want to be rewarded when they perform. You first have a discussion about what basic performance they must accomplish. In other words, what earns them their base salary. If the salesman is any good, he'll try to drive this down as much as possible. The lower the base, the easier to make the first goals and first bonuses. We then discuss performance bonuses, their likelihood, deadline expectations, and so forth.

By the way, I would expect you will need to do a LOT of pressing of the flesh to build your business. Putting up an exhibit stand at every industry conference and convention. Sales reps regularly taking potential and current clients out on the town. Flying key decision-makers for a weekend of skiing in Vale, to see the next Olympics, and so forth.

3. Would anyone here with sales experience like to help us build our sales team? We're launching a large business development effort here and offering excellent compensation for anyone who can help us make it successful.

If the offer is to work as your sales director, I'll pass. If you want a head marketer that will do the above, fire me a PM and we can chat.

[terryxu]

sharp advice

[Aletheides]

Fire Tiger I think you're misunderstanding the OP. He's looking for salespeople (not marketers - 2 completely different things) to do proposals to game development companies (but don't big clients already have game development covered???).

Building a good sales team is difficult and you'll find a couple topics about it here, as well as plenty of users trying to look for qualified salespeople. The fact is that stellar salespeople make 100k+ per year easily, and if you can't provide them the same opportunity you might have difficulty getting great sales people on your team.

[Fire_Tiger]

Fire Tiger I think you're misunderstanding the OP.

No, you apparently didn't fully read my reply.

[mightyventures]

Perhaps you guys will consider my blog here about "Harvesting a Great Team". Also a helpful resource about building a team. finding Part 2 soon to come.

[SeaSquirrel]

Fire, this is very good quality advice. Thanks I learned a ton!

[thc2009]

Great advise, I like it.

[frdsmth9]

Many sales teams fail to meet their leader's expectations simply because they never knew what was expected of them in the first place. Don't make the same mistake! Your sales team should have a clear understanding about what you expect from them. They should also feel free to voice their concerns and seek assistance should problems or unexpected setbacks arise. Team meetings, group e-mails, and status reports are essential, but it never hurts to meet with team members individually, too, particularly if a team member is falling short of the goals you have established.

[DeonKrey]

First of all, check REFERENCES. This is one of the best ways because you can evaluate how this team could work for your business when you evaluate their historical experiences and how they've helped other companies in the past. Secondly, their SKILLS. Skills is crucial because we're targeting quality service and not merely on the volume of the team members that'll take place. No one has its similar skill with the others that's why every successful team works the more they've got multiple skill sets implemented.