The most important skills for a new seller

1. Do they need to have experience in my industry? It depends. If your sale requires deep knowledge of the industry, how that industry works, how the different parts of the supply chain fit together, the extent to which your sellers are likely to be asked questions that relate to the industry rather than the product,… There’s a reasonable chance you need industry experience. If you have an established team – say 8+ sellers – then it is unlikely everyone needs to have the same level of background. As long as you have a few, you will be able to ramp up others. But if this is one of your first sellers, especially if they will be reporting to the founder, then you may want people with expertise. That said, 75% of the time I believe that a smart, experienced seller can quickly ramp into a new product area, and more often than not you should not over index on industry experience. In fact, it can be a red herring – you get excited about what they know about the industry or who they claim to know (existing contacts are NEVER what their owners claim they are), and you end up with someone who is actually not that great at selling.

2. Do they need to have been selling with a similar sales process? For example, your sale might be a $5-10K annual fee that you expect to close with a couple of calls, and you need your sellers to be doing 100 of these per year. Alternatively, you may be selling $1+m projects that take 12-18 months to sign and require negotiation with 20+ people at your prospect. In the middle, you might be selling $30-60k annual fees that require fairly detailed engagement with 2-3 people, a pilot and 10-15 sales per year. Each of these is a very different skill set. No matter what other background a candidate has, I strongly recommend you hire someone with the right experience in this respect – or at least close to it. Otherwise, you will be teaching a whole new skill set.

3. Do they need to have sold SaaS solutions in the past? If you are not selling SaaS, feel free to replace SaaS with the appropriate alternative. The point is SaaS is not the same as professional services which is not the same as advertising which is not the same as hardware or licenced software (the last becoming increasingly rare). Sales skills can be reasonably transferable, but attitudes and approaches can be quite different. When you are thinking about discounting strategies or incentives to your prospects, SaaS requirements are not the same as hardware. The opportunity to sell more to the same customers is quite different with these different environments. I recommend you find someone who has at least adjacent experience, even if it’s not exactly the type of product you are used to selling.