The number one question I heard at HIMSS?
“Shihadeh, where can I find great sales and sales leadership talent?”
Attracting the right talent is top of mind for companies trying to grow their businesses in healthcare, and for good reason. Even if your product is hot, your client satisfaction high, and your pricing spot on, a great sales team will always be the differentiator needed to meet growth expectations.
Too often CEOs look to compensation-only to attract great talent. In our experience, money is a key factor in recruiting, but so is the mission of your company and the impact of your offerings.
Sales people – especially the best ones – need to believe in the solution they are selling. Sellers want to help change healthcare in a positive and disruptive manner. To attract great sales talent, you need to be able to proactively answer the “why do my employees love working here” and “what is the impact of our company” questions.
Here are the 4 key things a company must have to attract great sales talent.
- A vision and mission for your company that your sellers can embrace. Everyone within your organization – including salespeople – needs to buy into your company’s vision and mission.
- A company culture where sales is viewed as an important discipline and key to growth. Consider Epic; even though they have a small sales team, their opinions hold significant influence within company.
- A thoughtful approach to sales territories, quotas and tools to help your sellers be successful. Any great sales person wants to exceed the goals assigned to them and building an environment where they best can excel is key to attraction and retention.
- Compensation dials need to be set correctly. Make sure you have the right blend of salary and commission/bonus. Get data to ensure you have competitive OTE (On Target Earnings) and achievable above-goal earnings potential.
In my own experience, the best sales job I ever had also happened to be the one with the highest expectations for growth. What makes it stand out is that even though I never worked harder, I sold a compelling product which had a sales plan that made me a lot of money when I performed.
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At Get-to-Market Health, we work with clients everyday about how to improve their market impact. If you have feedback, questions or best practices you would like to share; we would love to hear from you. Share your experience in the comments below, or contact us to learn more.
