Sales Recruiting & Training Best Practices with Priya Sachdev, #203

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As we have embarked on the Great Resignation with droves of people leaving or switching jobs and careers, how to find qualified salespeople and getting them to stay has become a hot topic.

Since it can take upwards of a year for a new sales rep to truly be competent enough to close deals on their own, the time, energy, and money invested in training is not something most sales organizations take lightly.

But, the question becomes: What are the best sales recruitment and training practices that top sales organizations are using to retain their top talent? That’s the question we answer in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast, with my guest, Priya Sachdev. 

Priya Sachdev is the Chief Customer Officer, here at Vengreso. She is responsible for Vengreso’s Customer Success and Support team as well as all implementation, training, coaching, and delivery of the entire LaaS (Learning as a Service) and SaaS technology suite to the 1,100+ companies that Vengreso has served.

Priya has been in the sales training industry for over 20 years and has overseen sales enablement for a leading global provider of digital transformation services as well as serving for 13 years at Miller Heiman Group, where she was the Enterprise Sales Transformation Leader, responsible for consulting with clients globally in sales transformation.

In addition, she served as the Vice President of APAC where she was instrumental in overseeing, accelerating, and delivering sales training, methodology, and consulting to the APAC region.

If that wasn’t enough, Priya has been named as one of the top 25 Most Influential Women in India by CEO Magazine and recognized as one of the 10 Successful Women to Watch by Insights Success.

Be sure to download my full conversation with Priya to learn what sales leaders can do to attract the right talent and get them to stay.

What Are The Major Challenges With Hiring Sales Staff?

I think most sales leaders of sales organizations would agree – it has become increasingly difficult to find sales reps that will stand the test of time. As the CEO of Vengreso, I’ve experienced a high churn rate among new sales reps – with some of our new BDRs staying for under 9 months, before being recruited by larger sales organizations.

To properly train a BDR requires a minimum of six months for them to be at a place where they can start to independently prospect in a way that actually benefits the company. And, the same is true for an SDR. That’s why we easily pour over $50,000 in sales training and coaching in each of our sales reps within their first year. And, we do this because we believe in them having the right tools, the right systems, and the right strategies to perform – and to perform well.

However, you can imagine the toll this takes, when that talent you trained leaves your organization shortly after that year of training.

I wanted to get Priya’s insight on the topic and see what she thought could be done to help slow (or ideally stop) the sales ‘brain drain’ that’s happening.

She shares, “The challenge is there are more people looking to hire salespeople than there are people looking for sales jobs. So, many sales organizations are being forced into a place where they will hire whoever they can find with the hopes that they will train them to be an ‘okay’ salesperson. The problem with this is that you have people in high-paying roles that were never groomed (or qualified) to be there. And, in some cases, companies aren’t figuring this out until months have passed and thousands in training have been invested.”

If you’re finding it difficult to find qualified salespeople, make sure to listen to our conversation and hear what Priya shares should be done to better vet applicants.

How Does The Sales Hiring Process Need To Change?

I’ve been in sales for 25+ years and I’ve had my fair share of star employees leave, even after I invested in their professional development. This isn’t to say you aren’t ‘allowed’ to transition to other companies or new roles. But, the struggle for sales leaders today is in how to properly assess if an applicant is a right fit for your open sales position(s).

At Vengreso, we have a very extensive and thorough hiring process. We take all new applicants, regardless of their previous sales experience, and require them to go through our multi-step hiring protocol. Not only does this weed out those who are not fully committed, but it helps us to also see how well they can learn and implement parts of our prospecting model.

Since Priya has seen firsthand what goes into grooming an excellent SDR, during her time as a sales enablement leader for one of the largest sales organizations in the world, and now with Vengreso – I wanted to hear her thoughts on what the sales hiring process should include.

Priya’s insights were spot on, “We have a very different generation of workers. Many times people come into a role with an exit strategy already in mind if things don’t work out. We really need to be hiring for people that are willing to invest as much time and effort in developing their career as we are in training them to be successful.”

Tune into this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast to learn what red flags you should be looking out for, before you hire your next BDR or SDR.

What Are The Characteristics Of A Great Sales Rep?

I always champion the saying that “selling is the art of helping”. If we’re not helping our customers solve a problem, then they’re not going to buy. We train our sales reps to get to know their prospect as much as they can before they even attempt a single sales message.

Whether that’s looking at their LinkedIn profile, reading their posts, researching their company or their specific role within the organization – we train them to find a human touchpoint to use. That way when they do reach out, they can do so with a highly personalized message.

And, as we know, personalized messaging in prospecting is a must. We teach this in our proven PVC methodology.

I ask Priya what her take was on what makes an exceptional sales rep. 

She shares, “We’ve become so immersed in sales technologies and automation to make the sales reps job easier. But, these tools are only effective when sales reps know how to use them to improve their prospecting. It’s not enough to send an automated message. We need personalization, we need sales reps that know how to engage with a prospect. And, we need sales reps that will do the work to make each outreach successful.”

Be sure to download this episode to hear the major shift that Priya believes must happen if sales organizations are going to find and train top talent to stay.