In managing sales professionals, a company must maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of its sales staff. Using knowledge about human behavior, attitudes of success, and techniques required for successful relationships will produce positive short- and long-term results. Management can systematically draw from many sources of knowledge and experience to create a process that generates successful outcomes for building a sales organization that sells. By applying a systematic process in recruiting and hiring sales candidates, companies can develop winners and produce a sales force that is a powerful selling machine. You can have excellent management skills and be able to mentor and coach, but it's meaningless if you don't have the people you need to do the sales job that your company requires. Clearly one of the most critical duties of management is to hire the right sales professionals. Think of the time and expense involved in picking the right person for the job. Remember the costs in training and managing. Hiring can be critical to your company's success.

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An article by the Saratoga Institute, often seen as the ultimate source of HR thinking, describes "cost per hire" as the sum of all administrative costs and expenses. They consider the following elements of cost per hire:

The administrative cost per hire is typically deeply understated.

The cost of a hire is the money lost because the hire wasn't made. Well recognized in MBA programs and broadly understood throughout many organizations, this simple concept is known as "opportunity costs".

Here's an easy way to get your arms around the real cost per hire in your organization:

Take the annual sales of your company (or division) and divide it by the number of employees. This is the annual revenue per employee.

Divide that number by 250 to get the daily revenue per employee.

Multiply daily revenue per employee by the number of days it takes to hire an employee.

If you want, add the dollars spent by the Recruiting Department (it's a small fraction).

This is the real cost per hire. Generally it's 5 to 10 times the administrative costs.

Company culture impacts every aspect of our work lives. When we walk into a company, what we see, what we hear, and how we relate to it all reflect company culture. Company culture affects everything within the organization -- the way people act, dress, think, and respond to internal and external questioning. Some aspects of culture are tangible; others are not. Very few companies have written company policies to effect culture. Many times culture is spread from the top down, but in practice anybody in the company can affect its culture. Culture is embedded into the fabric of an organization. Companies can be differentiated by their culture.

A company's culture is a combination of its mission, attitudes, official policies, and unofficial atmosphere. It evolves out of the day-to-day experiences of the people who work for that company. The culture of a company sets the goals of the company. The goals of the company tell you the vision and value of the company. All of these things tell you where the company is going, how fast it can get there, and what its central focus is.

Too often a company's hiring process looks like the following: we have an opening we need to fill, we may hire someone, but we have to "force fit" that person into place.

Smart hiring is all about finding the BEST-FIT candidate for the job opening. To do this, you must screen recruits carefully. Never spend time interviewing a candidate who has not been pre-qualified for the specific job functions related to the opening you have. Job functions are specific activities that must occur if the necessary tasks of the job are to be accomplished. When you search for someone to fill a specific job opening in your company, you need to start with a clear understanding of what the functions of the job are. That way you can direct your search to screen in recruits who might fit, and screen out those who definitely do not.

Step 1: Structure a process for hiring the candidate who best fits the job requirements in the context of honoring the company culture and building an organization that sells.

Step 2: Provide a conceptual framework for viewing the company culture as the context of recruiting.

Step 3: Provide a comprehensive framework and strategy to identify indicators of appropriateness among potential recruits as a means of screening candidates for interview.

Building a sales organization that really sells sounds much easier than it really is. You must know your hiring requirements, the recruiting process, a method to incorporate your company's culture, and a detailed description of expectations. The cost to hire is probably higher than anticipated, but the cost not to hire is even higher. If you find the right people and develop a strong team, the company will achieve success. Proper planning with an intense recruiting process will save your company money and position you for the future.

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About Sales Focus Inc. Sales Focus Inc. is a consulting, training and outsourcing company that focuses strictly on sales. We help our clients during these difficult times to take business away from the competition. In down economic times, focused companies will not only survive, but also thrive! We offer cost containment and profit enhancement solutions. Profit enhancement is a different mindset than cost cutting. Cost cutting means doing less of something; profit enhancement implies doing more of something that will boost the bottom line. We represent the concept of focused profit enhancement solutions.

Sales Focus is driven towards a single goal: "Generating Immediate Revenue for our Clients! " Whether it's implementing our S.O.L.D. Methodology, Developing Specialized Training Programs or Launching an Outsourced Sales Force, we remain focused on the goal of TACTICALLY GENERATING RAPID REVENUE.

For more Information or to see if we are a good fit with your company, contact us directly at 866.840.8305 or 410.442.5600, or send us an email at info@SalesFocusInc.com or visit our web site: www.SalesFocusInc.com. Learn about a few of our numerous sales success case studies, some of the many clients we help, and request a free white paper while calling us or visiting our website.

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