Growing Your Advisory Firm (Business Owner Roundtable]

The Biz Growth Doctors show is for heart-centered entrepreneurs who are on a mission to make an impact through their businesses.



Our episodes tackle the three biggest challenges of running a business:


▶ Attracting Your Dream Clients – [Marketing]
▶ Building Your Dream Team –  [Hiring/Training/Leadership
▶ Creating Your Dream Business – [Strategic Planning]

Content is geared for service-based business owners from startup entrepreneurs to 1M-10M founders


Growing Your Advisory Firm [Business Owner Roundtable Discussion]

QUESTION: 😮WHAT WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE LESSON YOU LEARNED IN YOUR BUSINESS?

 

It’s far cheaper to learn from the mistakes of other entrepreneurs than to make those mistakes yourself. Do you agree? …

Then you gotta watch this awesome roundtable discussion I facilitated with three owners of successful advisory firms

I loved the raw conversation. 💚 💙

I got them to “spill the beans” on some of the most expensive mistakes they made in their entrepreneurial journey. They were so gracious to share the good and the bad, so we can help more people avoid common costly mistakes in their own entrepreneurial journey.

 

Take the time to delve into this robust discussion with:

1- Brian Carney, CFP®, AIF®, ChFC®, CDFA® Co-Founder of RiverEdge (Financial) Advisors
2- Scott Hensley, Founder of IPIVX Growth Solutions ~ Outsourced CRO / VP of Sales
3- Matthew Burr, Owner of Burr (HR) Consulting

 

We talk about:

⭐️What was the hardest part of growing your advisory business?
⭐️What were the biggest hiring mistakes you had to learn the hard way?
⭐️How are you landing your biggest clients this year? What’s working now?

Love to get your thoughts too…

 

QUESTION: WHAT WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE LESSON YOU LEARNED IN YOUR BUSINESS?

 

Please share your comments and join the discussion

#mindset #entrepreneurship #GrowYourAdvisoryBusiness #roundtablesforEntrepreneurs #PeerAdvisoryGroups #MastermindGroups

 

⭐️ ARE YOU A BUSINESS OWNER? … INTERESTED IN JOINING A PEER ADVISORY MASTERMIND GROUP?

⭐️Learn More Here: https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com/MMG

 

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Managing Shiny Objects Anxiety +7-Figure Growth Challenges [Entrepreneur Roundtable]

Do you struggle with anxiety or  SHINY OBJECT SYNDROME?

Growing a business is not easy… it might look that way when you see others winning the Inc 5000 Awards, the Ernst and Young awards like Agency owner, Rich Kahn.

But he spilled the beans on how much he struggled in his business as an extreme introvert.

It takes a lot of strength to admit your weaknesses…. But I believe, that when I am weak, then I am strong. 

I am in awe of these three seasoned entrepreneurs: Rich Kahn, Steve Cunningham, and Samantha Bennett. 

Not just because of the impressive milestones they’ve achieved … like building 7-figure businesses, winning multiple prestigious awards, achieving celebrity status, and more…

I admire their humility and raw transparency as we discuss the real struggles they had had to overcome and continue to manage.

Can you relate to any of these challenges as an entrepreneur?


1- Shiny object syndrome

2- Anxiety

3- Depression

 

Check out our Entrepreneur round table. I invite you to share your comments and join the discussion 

PS: Do you have a specific challenge you’d like to receive peer feedback on at our next entrepreneur round table discussion?

Reply to this blog and let me know what your question(s) is with a little context around the challenge you’re facing in your business.

Secrets to Successful Marketing Strategy Execution for Small Business Owners

 

Small business owners often struggle to find the best marketing strategy that fits their budget. Here is a look at some of the greatest tips for getting the most bang from your marketing budgeting.

 

Whether you’re a B2B, B2C or expert firm, you’ll walk away with enough secrets to successful marketing to add new leads and find loyal customers.

 

How Do You Successfully Market a Small Business?

 

Small and medium enterprises in the United States spend marketing dollars directly based on a business owner’s decisions. Smaller businesses might find it wiser to focus on local clients first. According to Statista, companies spend around $173.3 million per year on local advertising. They split the rest between TV, radio, digital, and events.

Successful marketing strategy execution often starts with an overarching goal. Small business owners find a top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) strategy works well to build brand awareness and develop a loyal customer base. Over time, you’ll gain referrals from your current clients.

What are some of the top secrets to successful marketing campaigns? Here are our top suggestions for small business owners.

 

 

1. Learn From Your Customers

 

Get to know your audience and what their needs are. The better you understand your buyers, the easier it will be to meet their needs. You can survey them, pay attention to buying trends and ask what you can do to improve their experience.

 

With your TOMA marketing strategy, you’ll want to take actions such as:

  • Call those who buy from you repeatedly and ask why they chose your brand in the first place. 
  • Inquire about how you can help them refer more friends and family. For example, can you offer any materials that would be of help? Reward them when they do refer new customers.
  • Survey your customers after a successful campaign. Find out why they chose to buy and if they have other needs. When you understand their pain points, developing the relationship you need to keep your brand at the top of their thoughts becomes much easier.

Pay close attention to any negative comments or complaints. How can you fix the issue for that customer and prevent it on future orders?

 

 

2. Use New Technology to Manage Clients

 

You don’t have to track every little detail of your client’s needs. Instead, invest in technology that handles customer relationship management. Regular emails from you can keep you at the forefront of their thoughts.

  • Try to automate functions such as sending out emails when new products arrive they might be interested in.
  • Send a birthday greeting to let them know you enjoy their business.
  • Offer discounts when sales slow down to clear out old merchandise and make way for new.

The happier your clients are, the more you can use their reviews and testimonials in your marketing campaigns.

 

 

3. Promote Yourself

 

Put yourself in the shoes of the average person visiting your site for the first time. If you’re a newer business, they’ve likely not heard of you and don’t know if they should buy. However, they’ll feel more comfortable trying out your product if you stand behind your work.

People often have to hear of you several times before remembering the brand name and messaging. How can you promote yourself consistently and frequently for your TOMA approach?

  • Create a social media persona matching your brand personality.
  • Post frequently and predictably at the same time of day and on the same weekdays.
  • Enlist the help of others to get your name out there. Ask customers to share your social media posts or forward your newsletter.
  • Pay for ads to get in front of the same people repeatedly.

Feature glowing feedback from customers and highlight how much you believe in what you offer. Do you feel your product or service is the best in the industry? Thinking about your unique value proposition and using it in your marketing can help gain new clients’ trust.

 

 

4. Send Welcome Emails

 

You likely already know email marketing can be highly effective at attracting and keeping customers. However, did you know that welcome emails have a 91.43% open rate and offer an opportunity to highlight your brand personality?

How can you enhance your brand awareness via emails?

  • Stick with brand guidelines, using your logo and brand color palette for instant recognition.
  • Make calls to action (CTAs) look the same as the ones on your website so people know to look for a particular pop of color.
  • Create great subject lines that tell users exactly what they’ll get when they open the email.

You can also track how well an email performs by seeing how many opens you get and who clicks through to your offer.

 

 

5. Use SMS 

 

Short message service (SMS) is an excellent way to add personal touches to messages you send. You might use it for customer service issues and to problem solve. There are also many ways to connect with your clients through small positive messages.

  • Circulate an offer, discount code, or just share news. 
  • Add links to orders or short surveys.
  • Send a happy thought just to let customers know you are thinking of them and care about more than just making a sale. 
  • Thank them for an order or update them on the status of one. 

Many businesses have found great success with this marketing strategy. 98% of people will open your message, which is why thousands have used texting to drive customer retention.

 

 

6. Set Clear Employee Expectations

 

As your company’s leader, you must train your employees in the customer service model you want to exude. Make sure everyone understands your expectations and their role in the buyer’s journey.

  • Write out what your company policies and philosophies are.
  • Encourage employees to tell others why it’s a great place to work.
  • Feature your top staff members. Put a face on the workers for better brand awareness.

At the same time, you don’t want to create an atmosphere where people say, “That’s not in my job description.” Set the example by jumping in and helping when someone feels overwhelmed or has a tight deadline. If your employees see you taking the lead and helping others, they’ll be more likely to embrace the same spirit with their work.

 

 

7. Watch Trends

 

Pay attention to what kids are into and how other businesses in your industry market to their customer bases.

When apps like TikTok first arrived on the scene, mainly preteens used it to repeat dances and popular songs. Today, companies worldwide use them to reach new customers via fun marketing videos. 

 

Stay on top of what your competitors are doing.

  • Study their social media presence. What kinds of posts do they schedule? How often do they post? Do they use paid ads?
  • Why do people know their names? Do they do a lot of radio interviews? Perhaps they sponsor local groups and have a strong presence in your community.
  • Study their name versus yours. Is their business moniker more memorable or more applicable to the industry? 

 

Take a step back and rethink your brand image. Don’t be afraid to rebrand if necessary or to tweak colors and messaging until you hit what keeps your brand at the forefront.

 

 

Why Should You Change Up Your Marketing?

 

Embracing new trends and paying attention to what works for the competition are the secrets to successful marketing. You may not have time to woo people one-on-one, but you can automate relationship management and invest in social media marketing.

If you fail to step up and try new things, you risk growing stale and your customers getting bored with your brand. You only have time and effort to spend. If something doesn’t work, replace it with a new idea.

If you choose to focus on a top-of-mind awareness strategy as outlined above, run everything through the filter of how it will impact brand recognition and keep your audience engaged.

 

Which one of these list items would you like to implement today to find your successful marketing strategy?

 

Eleanor Hecks

 

 

 

Eleanor Hecks is the founder and managing editor of Designerly Magazine. She’s also a web design consultant with a focus on customer experience and user interface. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dogs, Bear and Lucy. Connect with her about marketing, design, and/or tea on LinkedIn!

Advice on How Small Businesses Can Recruit Top Talent

In today’s world, many small businesses are struggling to compete against large companies because most people would love to work for those organizations. The most typical scenario is that small businesses get what’s left from the applicants of big companies.

Your employees will help you make your business bigger. So it’s always best to look for top candidates as they’ll contribute to your organization more.

 

Hiring top talentsbusiness in a company is one of the keys to its success. If you’re running a small business, one of the challenges your company faces is recruiting excellent employees.

This article will give tips on how small businesses can hire top talents and improve their company’s performance in the industry. 

 

5 Recruitment Strategies For Small Businesses

It may sound easy to create your hiring system, but it is challenging, especially for small businesses. There are plenty of ways you can secure the best candidates. 

 

Offer Flexible Schedules

Small businesses can attract excellent talents by offering flexitime. Most people are looking for a flexible job, especially regarding schedules. Employees use the time to search for other ways to earn money, such as freelancing, while others use it for personal growth.

Most employers think employees might not do their tasks if they don’t keep an eye on them. On the contrary, giving them flexible time allows them to increase productivity in your organization.

For instance, they have to finish 40 hours a week. Instead of making them complete it in five days, they can finish the 40 hours in four days with a 10-hour shift. They would have more free time for themselves to be used for personal growth or family.

Another example is they did 12 hours today; they can come in late the next day. Not only will it give your team more rest, but they can also make critical decisions for the company’s betterment.

Offer Competitive Compensation

Let’s be practical. We all need money to live and enjoy our lives, so job seekers consider salary before applying for the opening. If they have the skills but think they wouldn’t get the salary they deserve, they’d most likely turn away and look for another company.

Their skills are investments. They have spent countless hours studying to earn from them.

However, when it comes to compensation, salary isn’t the only thing involved. You can also add insurance, incentives, bonuses, and other perks that employees can get. Doing this will also improve your employee retention rating.

If your business is in sales, you can offer incentives if they reach their weekly or monthly target. This will make them try to sell more, increasing your sales.

Providing competitive compensation can also increase productivity in your organization. The employees will become more motivated to do their job, improving your business situation.

State Clear & Appealing Job Descriptions

Job seekers dislike unclear job descriptions. Before they consider the position available in your organization, they will read the description. If they find it very confusing, they’re more likely to give up on the job before applying.

Nobody wants to read texts that are full of jargon. So, it’s best to create straightforward job descriptions. You should include all the essential details, especially about the compensation, qualifications, and responsibilities.

Serious applicants and job seekers always want to be clear on what they are getting into. They don’t want to waste their time going through a hiring process that doesn’t give them clarity about the job description and requirements.

Job descriptions are your first move to attract top talents, so make sure that you write concise and appealing words to reach your target people. 

Create a Referral Program

Small companies have more limited funds than larger ones. They would try to save costs as much as possible, including the recruitment process. You can lessen the cost of your recruitment by using referrals.

Referral programs are affordable. You don’t need to allocate a large budget to run the program because your employees will do it for you.

It’s one of the best ways to find new talents for your company and, at the same time, promote a stronger employer brand as your current employees would recommend your company as one of the best places to work.

Your current employees will help you look for the talent you need. For it to become more effective, you can offer the referrers monetary incentives for every successful referral. Giving them gift coupons or shopping vouchers will encourage them to invite the people they know to apply for the job.

Remember to keep the referral program simple and keep the referrers updated even if their referral didn’t qualify. This will boost the employer-employee relationship.

Share Equity or Ownership

Sharing equity/stocks or ownership is not a very common approach when looking for talents. However, it is very effective and can keep the key people in the company.

Candidates are not just looking for jobs; they want to ensure their future and create opportunities for themselves.

Offering them a certain amount of your company’s equity can motivate them. The percentage isn’t necessarily large. A small amount is a good start, but when the company becomes bigger, its share value also increases.

You’re also teaching them how stocks work and probably become great entrepreneurs in the future.

Build a Strong Employer Brand

Think about large companies, such as Google and Amazon. They have built their brands that many people could easily recognize as one of the biggest companies in the world.

To build your company brand, you will create a strong connection with your clients or customers as a company. Creating beautifully designed logos, attractive websites, and effective marketing strategies are some ways to establish your brand.

Creating a strong employer brand is similar to your company brand. As an employer, building relationships with current employees is beneficial in successfully recruiting the best people. 

Talents want a stable job where they can work for a long time and see improvement. Aside from offering competitive compensation, invest in upskilling and professional development. You can provide them with free training and seminars. This will help you acquire high performing teams to help your business improve and become bigger.

Serious job seekers will surely love to work for your organization because they can also improve themselves and become better at what they do. 

Start Succession Planning

Employees usually ask themselves what they would get if they stayed longer in a small company.

Larger companies offer various opportunities to their current employees. A small business might not be able to compete with all of those, but when you offer promotions, such as leadership, to your current employees, they would feel valuable.

Recruiting external candidates isn’t the only option for small businesses. You have your current employees to become the next key person you need. You don’t need to look elsewhere to find the right person because your employees are your excellent people source.

Always use data to back up your succession planning. It’s important to know who the right candidate is among your workforce. Using a metric performance system is the best way to identify the person.

You can check which person has been doing well and deserves a promotion. 

Use Combinations of Recruiting Techniques

Small businesses shouldn’t just focus on their recruitment process; they should also consider the ways to secure top talents for their companies. Posting a job and waiting for a candidate isn’t a strategy to help your business grow.

Follow the tips above to attract more top talents. You’ll have more candidates to choose from and will be able to hire the best ones to improve your company.

How SMB Owners Are Attracting Top Sales Talent in 2022

SECRETS TO ATTRACTING TOP SALES TALENT FOR SMB OWNERS

There is a growing crisis in sales talent. According to Forbes, companies are “struggling to keep the sales reps they have, and having an even harder time finding and developing sales reps to replace them.” 

Recruiting and retaining top sales talent has always been challenging. But, if you are trying to grow a small or mid-size company, it’s an added struggle to compete with the bigger salaries Enterprise companies can offer.

To help you attract top sales talent and navigate this era of the Great Resignation, I’ve rounded up six SMB owners to share their advice how they overcame specific constraints to recruiting sales talent.

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #1. Hiring Salespeople Who Can Produce Quickly

How ClickGuard Overcame This Challenge:

 

Hiring is tough and in 2022 hiring the right sale people who can produce and ad value quickly is even tougher. 

Sales is a competitive sport, and like any good general manager, you should recruit and evaluate candidates based on their track record.

Hire candidates that are already active within your industry with a strong social network of relevant contact which you can benefit from. 

Ralph Perrier, CEO of ClickGuard
Protect Your Google Ads from Bot Clicks,
Click Farms and Competitors and Prevent Waste.

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #2. Limited Budget and Limited Local Talent Pool

How Function Fox Overcame That Challenge:

When we hired our first sales team – we are looking for people physically in our geography, so it was a limited market and we didn’t have big budgets.

We hired a former chef who had never really worked in an office before. He became one of our top performers and stayed with us close to 10 years and even got a FunctionFox Tattoo! 

We always try to “Stay Creative” with any challenge that comes our way.

Corina Ludwig, President/ Partner – FunctionFox.com
Timesheet and Project Management Software

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #3. Finding Salespeople Who Were Willing to Hold Themselves Accountable

How Green Rope Overcame That Challenge:

The biggest challenge we faced was finding salespeople who were willing to hold themselves accountable (fortunately, we have a great team now). 

We have focused our energy primarily on inbound marketing, which is conducive to having a team of farmers. 

Farmers are generally better with accountability and providing the data needed for closing the loop on the customer journey. Hunters tend to be more outgoing, extroverted, and harder to keep track of. We have found this role has been the hardest to fill and keep and are still in search of a good one.

Lars Helgeson Founder / CEO, GreenRope
All-In-One CRM with Marketing Automation

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #4. Managing Budget & Expectations of the Sales Team.


How WeStrive Overcame This Challenge:

As a first-time tech founder, the biggest challenge has been managing the budget and expectations of the sales team. 

To overcome this, I’ve taken the time to meet with people who have been in my shoes before.

Cory McKane, CEO at Westrive.com
The All-In-One App for Personal Trainers

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #5. Making the Pivot to Enterprise Sales Teams

How Read Cube Overcame That Challenge:

ReadCube is part of Digital Science, which is part of the broader Holtzbrinck Publishing conglomerate. People who work in the Science Technical and Medical (STM) sectors know that Digital Science is a hot commodity.

So, I leveraged three core ways to be able to attract top sales talent.

 

  • I engaged my network looking for potential sales candidates who already had a rolodex.
  • The sellers I recruited worked for me in a past professional life, so we had/have mutual respect for each other.
  • I also worked with a headhunter. 

From those tactics I was able to source 15-20 top qualified candidates to interview.

Miles McNamee

Senior Vice President – Enterprise Sales, ReadCube

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #6. Not Getting Enough Candidates

How DSP Helps Companies Overcome This Challenge: 

In our 15 years in business we have been through many challenging times such as a recession and Covid 19.  2022 has been just as challenging, the challenge this time is finding quality talent.  

Only 4-5 years ago if we contacted 20 potential candidates we would get 10 quality resumes. Today, if we contact 50 we are lucky if we get 1 strong candidate.  What we have done to combat this situation is think out of the box and consult with our clients to do the same.  

 Although the clientele might be different the core processes and sales cycles are the same.”

Jim McKenna, President at Definitive Search Partners
We Partner with You to Bring You the Highest Quality Candidates!

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE # 7. Candidates Who Change Their Minds

LinkedIn recently published the top challenges facing recruiters. A staggering 75% of recruiters report they’ve dealt with candidates who went through the entire interview process, only to then change their minds last minute. (Ugh!) Unfortunately, this is growing problem that’s been happening at an increasing rate in the post pandemic world we are living in today.

top sales

How Yoon Cannon Helps SMB Owners Overcome This Challenge:

While it is unrealistic to completely eliminate this problem you can expect to greatly reduce candidates changing their minds by focusing on the big rocks I call the 3 R’s:

  • Remote Options: The latest studies are finding that 56% of candidates turn down jobs because of lack of flexibility to work remote. They want flexibility more than they want pay and security. Where we have been able to help SMB owners is by designing systems to help you effectively manage a remote or partially remote team while boosting their sales performance.

  • Retention through Relationships: Working remote certainly gives your sales team greater work-life balance, but it can also lead to your sales team feeling too isolated and disconnected. Pandemic or not, never forget human nature has proven throughout history that people will often stay with a company longer, not necessarily, because they love the actual work they do, but because they love the people they get to work with.

    • Introduce candidates throughout their interview process to multiple managers and peers in your organization.
    • Show the vibe of your people and the camaraderie they enjoy through your company videos.
    • Create and showcase several videos of you, the founder as well as your leadership team. Don’t make it “corporate”. Be your genuine selves. Candidates will want to work for you if you give them ways to feel like they got to know, like and trust you.
  • Recruiting Funnel: There is no one reason why a candidate changes their mind last minute. There are multiple reasons.
  • Skills fit
  • Personality fit
  • Financial fit
  • Timing fit
  • Lifestyle fit
  • Future fit and 
  • People fit / Culture fit

So, by the time you are reviewing your top candidates you can be confident each of those candidates have determined for themselves the role they are applying for is truly the right fit for them.

 

Yoon Cannon, Business Growth Coach,
Founder, ParamountBusinessCoach.com
Helping entrepreneurs scale your business growth!

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #8. Generating Enough Sales as a Startup to Hire Sales Talent Without Any VC Funding

How Peeva Overcame This Challenge:

FIrst off, to make sense of this here is an analogy. Startups are like rock bands. Whereas, rock bands will send out demo tapes to whatever label will throw money at them. StartUps send out pitch decks to whatever VC will invest in them.

Either way, most of them never make it out of the garage. To get a record deal in your favor, getting out of the garage and touring is the best way to do this.

Investors want to see traction and there is no better way to show this than to have paying customers. It doesn’t matter who you know. People with money have it for a reason, they don’t spend it foolishly. Ironically, the far majority of VC funded companies also fail.

My best advice to any Entrepreneur is to get as many paying customers as possible and as quickly as possible. This also comes at great cost if you are irresponsible. 

Peeva’s approach is a top to bottom approach. 

Rather than hire a ground swell of boots on the ground (outside sales professionals) to make cold calls and hand off marketing literature and then pay them to chase and bother busy prospects, it was much more productive for us to establish a beta relationship with a large corporate chain of vet hospitals. 

From the C-level down, we were then able to scale at a much quicker rate with veterinary professionals and hospitals without ever meeting them let alone speaking with them. Our veterinary professionals essentially do sales for us, by selling Peeva to pet owners. 

 

 I did all of this myself, before requiring any sales professionals. It was not until after I established these types of accounts before brining on a veterinary relations director that overseas 3 other sales professionals that follow the traditional meet face to face sales model. No VC needed, and the only VC’s I ever speak with at this point are those that reach out to us.

I hope this helps many entrepreneurs that will go broke or focus on an exit strategy before getting started. 

 

Michael Hamilton, CEO / Founder of Peeva

Universal pet identification and central database

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #9. Sales People Who Are Transactional

How Qnum Analytics Overcame This Challenge:

The biggest challenge in hiring my first sales team was the transition from their past selling “norms” into trusted advisors that would solve the customers problems as opposed to selling our products and solutions.

I hired sales talent who had the desire and hunger and weren’t too worried about their sales track record as that was in the past and CVs are exactly that past achievement. I was more interested in how I can transform the potential that existed to meet what our customers needed. So, I trained them to be consultative and not transactional.

Bheki Nkomo, Founder, Tech Entrepreneur Qnum Analytics 

Digitize end to end inventory data capture

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #10. Attracting Highly Motivated Sales Talent

How Fin vs Fin Overcame This Challenge:

 
 

The key is well-structured, performance-driven incentives. Why not offer unlimited upside to grow your business?

Of course OTE  must be achievable so that your team can accurately forecast income and plan their lives. But incentivizing sales talent to treat your business like it’s their own has been the single most important thing. How can you make them feel more like an owner, rather than a rep?

Alex Goldberg, Founder Fin vs Fin

Discover the best wellness products

 

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #11. Making Our First Sales Hire

How Conmitto Overcame This Challenge:

It’s easy at first to try to go too big, too fast especially while building a solution or consulting business. While growing an early sales team, it usually works well to start with one great sales professional to help you begin bringing your product or service to market. 

Early on, it’s about learning quickly and allowing the sales, marketing and product development cycles to evolve together. It’s more difficult to do this with a large team in place, and I’ve seen firsthand how painful it can be to change or adapt once you’ve made a few great but potentially mistimed hires. 

 

 

That will help you define and grow your offerings to fit the needs they’ve seen solving this problem first hand. 

Based on the approach that works, it may make sense to hire more sales professionals with a similar background, or it may make sense to partner with a larger firm that is in the industry that can be trained to cross-sell or up-sell for you.

There’s no one-size fits all method, and you may find that direct sales hires, outside SDRs that focus on meeting generation, or a partner channel oriented approach work for you, or a healthy mix of the three may be the best approach. It’ll all depend on your industry and the state of your business, so the first step is to start trying and learning! 

 

Akash Agarwal, CEO, Conmitto

Configurable cloud software for supply chain management

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #12. Creating a Large Team of Sales Advocates as a Startup Company

How Aqai Overcame This Challenge:

Having been an entrepreneur for over 20 years, growing and scaling multiple teams and companies, sales is the lifeblood for growth. The challenges in hiring great salespeople and teams have evolved over the years. In my latest start-up at AQai we have focused on two key aspects to grow our company through a specific sales and go to market strategy.

Firstly, having a compelling mission, one that deeply resonates and connects with our audience of coaches and HR leaders. This driver to inspire & empower every human with the skills to adapt and thrive. Ensuring no-one is left behind in the fastest period of change in history, has been the corner stone to attracting truly great talent.

The second and important strategy has been to empower a global network of distributed agents to act as our sales advocates. With this strategy we have managed to rapidly train, certify, and enable over 200 coaches and consultants to win more business, and do more interesting work. With their sales and success, driving exponential growth on our adaptability assessment and training platform. This strategy has removed the traditional thinking for hiring, and the barriers of initial funding the growth of a direct sales team.

Using this strategic approach has enabled us to land significant projects with companies like Microsoft, IBM, The Federal Reserve Bank and Havi, among many other pioneering, people focussed organizations.

To find out more about our work, the community we are building focussed on the mental health and wellbeing in the future of work, please check out www.aqai.io

Ross Thornley, CEO & Co-Founder AQai 

Change, retain and prepare your people for change

SALES HIRING CHALLENGE #13. Making Sure We’re Hiring the Right Kind of People to Fill the Role.

How Sched Overcame This Challenge:

sched.com

The biggest challenge we’ve faced in hiring sales talent is making sure we’re hiring the right kind of people to fill the role. Sched helps individuals and teams create great events with our event scheduling software.

We invest significant resources in training our sales team to be able to offer solutions for our customers’ challenges when trying to plan great events.

We want to make sure our salespeople can uncover problems, explain our solutions and build trust along the way. 

Instead of just hiring a Sales rep, we are trying to hire people who over time can expand their roles.
 
Our company is remote, distributed and filled with self-motivated, accountable people. We look for bright, hard working, results-oriented individuals with high levels of integrity because they are the most likely to succeed within our team. 
 
Finding these people makes our typical hiring process look more like an audition than the typical “application and interview” process.
 
Hiring good people is tough. Hiring good sales people is even tougher. Our hiring process helps reduce some of that risk and increase the probability of a successful sales hire.

ceo

Marvin McTaw, CEO of Sched.com 

Event Scheduling Software & Event Mobile Apps

 

 

So, there you have it. Thirteen founders sharing their personal advice on how they overcame specific Sales Talent Hiring challenges. 

▶ QUESTION: What specific hiring challenge would you like to see covered in this article? Please share your comments below.

▶ Not Sure What The Best Way is to Solve Your Sales Hiring Challenges? 

Book a complimentary business strategy call with Yoon Cannon here:

https://www.paramountbusinesscoach.com/coaching/coaching-call-sign-up/ 

Hiring for the first time?  

 

Download the free printable Hiring Checklist here:

How to Effectively Manage a Remote Team as a Small Business Owner

Working from home is a great benefit for both employees and business owners. It opens up larger talent pools for companies to source individuals from and allows people the opportunity to stay in one place rather than relocate to another. But despite its various benefits, remote work can still have its own set of problems.

While working from home, it can be hard to get everyone on the same page. As a business owner it’s vital to stay on top of your remote team and the responsibilities associated with it. Here are a variety of ways you can streamline your remote team’s process, so you can manage your team effectively.

1. Create Communication Channels

Going hours without speaking or messaging someone on your team is not a good sign, especially when you have team members working from home. If you’re not actively communicating with one another, you will have no clue where a project may be in production.

That’s why constant communication is one of the most important aspects of managing a remote team. When people worked in a traditional office setting it was easy to turn around or walk over to their workspace to talk about a problem or discuss a change. Now that your team is located in different places or even time zones, you need to have multiple platforms for communication.

While it seems like a given for remote work to have an instant messaging and video conference channel, select one that’s right for you and your work situation. If there is a free tool that will do everything you need, you can save some money for your business. Slack, Zoom, and Google Chat are common platforms for daily communication between remote employees.

Aside from conversation tools, also consider project management ones that team members can share materials on or mark the progress on a task. Software like Hive, Asana, and Trello allows your team to check off completed work or share materials with one another. Whichever tool you decide to use, make sure everyone understands how to operate it.

2. Set Daily Expectations

Goals are necessary for a variety of business operations, one of which is daily expectations. If your team doesn’t have a goal for the day, how is anything supposed to be completed? Now, each department is different when it comes to the everyday task to finish. For instance, an HR team will have a different focus than a writing team. It’s up to you, the manager, to work with your employees to establish what needs to be done by the end of each business day.

Start small when making a task list for your team. Maybe, in the beginning, it’s just logging their timecard. Once you’ve developed that steady rhythm, work with each individual and their working style to create larger daily expectations.

Every individual is unique in what they can accomplish in a day. While one employee can churn out multiple tasks and juggle different projects, another may want to focus on one thing for the week. That’s why you need to meet and learn about your individual team members, so you can play to people’s strengths and get things done.

3. Remember That We’re Humans

Unfortunately, the entire workforce has not become robots, yet. What that means for you is that burnout still occurs with your teams, especially when they are remote. Working from home can still often involve traveling to clients. These factors, amongst others, can lead to burnout and other negative health effects. For you as a leader, set the parameters and example for your team by shutting off from work at the end of the day. However, this doesn’t mean you log off every day at the same time, just differentiate circumstances such as a critical deadline.

It’s not just work deadlines you need to consider in your team’s daily lives. People have kids, hobbies, partners, emergencies, pets, personal lives, and other outside-of-work things that can pop up unexpectedly. If you haven’t already, create a leaving work for emergencies policy book or guidelines for your team. That way employees know the proper protocol for how to report their emergency and what qualifies as one. Situations like these pop out of nowhere, and can be frustrating, but remember your people come first, not the job.

4. Build Fun Opportunities

All work and no play are not conducive to keeping a remote team motivated. Take a break every few weeks or perhaps after a project is done to celebrate and relax a little. Virtual happy hours and other team bonding experiences became popular when the COVID-19 pandemic first made many businesses go remote. But now it’s time to bring back these virtual games to break up the workload and build bonds between teams.

Scavenger hunting, cooking, show and tell, or virtual home tours are all ways to get to know each other and not talk shop for a little bit. Ask your team if there’s an activity they want to do or if someone wants to lead a session. You’ll be surprised at what hobbies or skills people have outside of work. Kicking back to relax and just chatting is okay to do as well. Just mark time on your calendar every few weeks for fun activities like this to help your team unwind.

Closing Notes

Managing a remote team can seem daunting some days, but it doesn’t have to be the case. Using the right communication tools, setting daily expectations, remembering that everyone is human, and scheduling time for fun are all ways to make a team unit run efficiently. At the end of the day, your business’s success depends on your employees, and working together with them will help your end goals.

READ NEXT: CREATING HIGH PERFORMING SALES TEAMS

Guest Blogger Brian Thomas is a contributor to Enlightened Digital. He enjoys reading and researching tech and business. When he’s not looking into the latest trends, you can find him out cycling.