What’s a sales consultant? When do you hire them? How do you find the right one? What’s a sales consultant?

A sales consultant is someone you hire to help develop the people, process and infrastructure of your sales team and parallel departments. They assess where you are today and create a plan for the future. Then they roll up their sleeves and dig in with your sales team to provide training, guidance, processes, and help upper management with forecasting, pipeline generation, and sales tactics. There is so much more here and we’ll talk about it next week.

When do you hire one?

Imagine you’re an early stage start-up. You’ve built the company with a few friends, you’ve got a little funding and need to start generating consistent revenue. Now what? Your team doesn’t have any trained sales folks, so maybe you hire a few people with parallel skills to sales and want them to build the sales side of the company. If you’re lucky it boosts things for a while, but then everything stalls or it feels like a slog and you’re wondering what’s happening. Is your company going to make it? Before you hire a bunch of sales folks without a plan for them to be successful for your company, it’s time to get a sales consultant.

The biggest waste of resources for an early stage start-up is hiring people only to have them spin their wheels or stall out because they don’t have a road to go down. Money and time are lost while you’re trying to meet goals for investors. There is an ever present feeling of, “holy crap, are we going to make it?”. I talk to founds everyday seeking answers to questions like: 1. We’ve reached the capacity of our current team’s experience, what do I do? 2. We’re getting ready to scale and want to hire a sales team, so where do we start? 3. We’re not sure what our next steps are to start building a sales process – what do you suggest?

More often than not, the answer is…It’s time to hire a consultant.

HOW DO I FIND THE RIGHT ONE?

Alright, you decided to go for it and start looking. You see hundreds of people on LinkedIn who have listed themselves as sales leaders, plenty who are founders, and a few who run their own consulting businesses. You name it, they’ve listed it. How the hell do you know which one has actual experience that will benefit your team versus someone posturing? There’s a lot of smoke out there and only a few actual fires. Be intentional about finding the fires, after all this is about the future of your company. Here’s how to avoid the smoke…

1. Check their “resume”, website, LinkedIn, etc…

Make sure they have actually been an individual sales contributor who has been successful. Make sure they have actually built and scaled a sales team from scratch successfully [more than once for bonus points]. Damn it looks like a forest fire out here with all this smoke. You know the phrase…say it with me, “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Or rather only you can find the actual fires. Many “experts” did something successful once for a short amount of time and are now moonlighting as industry leaders. Be careful, it’s easy on social media for them to seem like something they’re not. We all know that, but still fall prey to it. If they don’t have their previous experiences listed on LinkedIn and you can’t verify where they gained all their valuable experience from, stop, drop, and roll right the hell outta there.

2. Reach out to the orgs or folks they worked with where they were sales leaders

You’ll learn about the character of the person you’re thinking about hiring. If they list references of folks you can speak with, reach out to them. Just ask. You’ll find out who they were before becoming a consultant and see if that resonates with someone you’d like to see in your organization. It’s a good idea to learn someone’s backstory and learn how they became the leader they are today. Talking to folks they worked with in the past will give you a sense of their work ethic, leadership skills, and integrity. At the very least, read the recommendations on LinkedIn and see what people think of them.

3. Pay attention to their content

If it doesn’t feel authentic, it’s probably not. Are people engaging with them on their social media platforms? What are people commenting or engaging with? Are they bringing anything new and fresh to the table or just spitting out recycled advice from others? Is there a book you can read that they published? Do you agree with their opinions on different situations they’re posting about? Reading or listening to what they’re putting out will give you a pretty clear picture of who they are. You’ll get to “know” them before meeting them. Dig into a bunch of different consultants’ content and narrow down your list by finding the folks who you think will align with you and your organization. Pick the one you vibe with if all else is equal.

4. Does their experience align with where your business is today?

If they work primarily with large, established businesses they’re probably not for you as an early stage start-up. Don’t jump for levels above where you are. As I said last week, skipping steps will keep you from getting to the next step. Focusing on excelling in your current step and the next one will show itself when it’s time to take it. If you pick a consultant who looks through a lens from up the road, they won’t be able to see the nuances of where you’re at today. This can lead to misaligned goals and processes that are too far behind or ahead of where your company is working towards.

5. Reach out to the previous companies they’d consulted for

How did they like working with them? What did they implement and did it help? Ask what working with them was like: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is a two way street as well, keep in mind that the organization might not have actually put in place what was suggested by their consultant. Be objective, and read in between the lines. Talk to more than one to get a more well rounded perspective.

6. Be honest with them

It’s a relationship, it goes both ways. Be sure they understand and align with your product and purpose. Both parties need to feel the partnership will be beneficial or it ends up being a waste of time for everyone, but only one of you is paying the bill. Just like looking around for therapists, the more initial conversations you can have with prospective sales consultants the better you’ll know who’s the best fit for your organization. Set clear expectations and have goals in mind that you agree are manageable to attain. After a few weeks of searching you’ve narrowed it down and hired someone.

Now how do you make the most out of your time together? Stay tuned next week for part two…and also stay warm out there. This polar vortex can get off my lawn.