Human resource management is not, entirely, an easy operation to maintain. Filling a vacant post on any level of the organisational hierarchy – despite the recession and the consequent argument that more people are willing to put in greater effort regardless of compensation details – is nothing less than a challenge to HR professionals.
Even more so, when, what an organisation requires is a dependable and competent salesperson. Truth of the matter is, top-notch salespeople do not come by as often. They are a rare breed that, typically, belongs to highly competitive and enlightened businesses that have a firm grasp of the utter necessity of efficient sales development.
In a survey conducted by Manpower—an established recruitment agency- some telling results have surfaced. After polling 32,000 employers and HR professionals from 23 different countries, results have shown that the most demanding headhunting requirement, does not involve specialised expertise, like those belonging to such industries like accountancy or engineering.
Headhunting has, consistently, proven most arduous, when sales representatives are the ones being hunted. Moreover, in the ever-evolving industry of sales development, and with its inherently high degree of competition, the hurdles and obstacles for organisations and HR professionals, in relation to attracting sales protégées, are not about to disappear.
Sales development should then, coincide with an equal and sustained development of an organisation’s pool of salespeople. Aside from their entry-level competencies and the sales or management training courses that these individuals have attended, they will have to play a major role in a business’ profit generation strategy and need to be equipped with ongoing opportunities for further professional development.
Unfortunately, most organisations seem to see no merit or value in investing on their sales agents’ training, arguing that such investment will only go to waste, once the sales agents, in question, eventually opt to quit. This kind of mentality is what stalls an organisation’s sales development, since the ROI could be seen sooner than expected.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to keep in mind that employers should not solely take on the responsibility of ensuring their salespeople’s growth and sales development, in general. This responsibility is, also, that of the sales agents. After all, the most successful and in-demand salespeople are those, who have assigned ample importance to their self-imposed and self-motivated professional progress and development.
They achieve that, by equipping themselves with the necessary tools and competencies, to rise up to the challenges in their profession, through participation in sales development trainings. As a result an elite group of salespeople are continually claiming a big chunk of the industry’s profit pie. Meanwhile, those, who tend to complain about perceived insufficiencies of remuneration from their employers, instead of levelling up their game, are inadvertently stalled in their sales development or progress.
In the end, the most fitting gauge of the efficiency or practicality of sales development methods and strategies, is not determined by the amount of investment put into the project, but the actual results achieved by exact sales people, who have been privileged enough to be trained and developed.
Furthermore, employers with good leadership skills should not wait for business operations to be met by dismal outputs before deciding to prioritise sales development. The best time to facilitate sales training is, when operations are running smoothly, for such a scenario to allow openness and positivism toward novel sales insights, principles, and practices.