Sales Tip 820: Are we in a seller's market?

“Make sure you’re asking the hard questions about how many people in an organization are actually achieving and exceeding quotas.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 820

Are we in a seller’s market?

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Here in Austin, if you’re a homeowner it’s a seller’s market. There was an ad in the local community paper that I got last week from a real estate firm and in this ad, it shows 12 different homes, all of which sold for between 101K and 300K over the asking price. I’m going to include a picture of this thing at DailySales.Tips/820 if you want to take a look. Clearly, we’re in a seller’s market, and I’m seeing similar signs, though maybe not such ridiculous and obvious signs that we’re in a seller’s market in sales right now. In my entire sales career, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many companies trying to hire sales professionals before. The amount of money being raised by startups, the new records that public companies and public markets keep setting, all mean that there’s pressure on all of these organizations to keep growing and the fuel for that growth is us. Sales professionals.

I reached out to Amy Volas to talk about this and she’s agreed to come on my All Things Sales Success webinar series on The Sales Experts Channel to talk it through with me on May 10th. You’ll also find a link to register for that at DailySales.Tips/820, but I’m not going to make you wait weeks for my thoughts on this. Here’s what I think it means both for sellers and for sales leaders and sales organizations. First, if you’re a quota-carrying sales professional and you’re just not in the right place. Look around. There’s literally never been a better time to find a great new opportunity. Find something that you absolutely believe in. That you can be passionate about. That’s one of the key ingredients to ultra-high performance. Just be sure to really consider who you’ll be working for. Find a great leader who can help you get to the next level in your career, whatever that might be for you. Also, be careful about just chasing the dollars. I have a feeling we’re about to see compensation go up, but look before you leap. Just making a change because of the dollars is a dangerous path and often a trap. Make sure you’re asking the hard questions about how many people in an organization are actually achieving and exceeding quotas. Just do your due diligence. You’ve got a great opportunity right now to control and drive that process.

Now for the sales leaders and sales orgs, I think this means you need to look really hard at how you’re treating your sellers. The first thing to consider is retention. Are you taking care of your people? Are you helping them to be successful, are you giving them the tools, the training, and the coaching that they so desperately want so that they can perform better? That’s good for them and it’s good for you. And the reality is, if you’re not providing those things. They’re going to go somewhere else where they can get those things. Now is probably the right time to get proactive about this situation as well. Are your comp plans competitive? Should you consider giving at least the top half of your sellers a base salary bump to show that you appreciate them and that you’re invested in them? That’s usually a small price to pay compared to the cost of having to replace somebody who leaves. Treating your existing team well no only helps prevent churn, but it will also improve your word of mouth which is going to make your hiring a lot easier. Any decent rep is going to do their due diligence and talk to your sellers about what their experience is really like. That’s going to make or break your opportunities to hire the best performers who are going to have lots of options. Plus one of the best sources for new talent is the referrals from within your team, but those referrals only come when they’re happy and they’d actually recommend that their top-performing friend who they worked within a previous role should come and join them.

The last thing that I’m going to selfishly suggest for both groups is that you get involved in the Sales Success Summit this October. I so rarely talk about that on this show, but this two-day event is where we bring together a bunch of the #1 top 1% performing individual contributors who’ve appeared on my Sales Success Stories podcast to network and learn from each other. It’s a super intimate event with a max of just under 200 attendees. For the seller’s this event was purpose-built for you. The Summit was built for individual contributors by individual contributors. And for the leaders. I can’t think of a better way to reward your own top performers, then with an opportunity to connect with and learn from the best of the best to inspire them to achieve a whole new level. Is that what we all want? It’s what I want. Check out the Sales Success Summit. Check out my coming session with Amy Volas on May 10th and again we’ll have links to everything at DailySales.Tips/820

Once you’ve done that, and gotten yourself registered for one or both of those things, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!