Recruitment Employing staff is today one of the major investments done by the organizations and for many organizations

people are more expensive than capital equipments. Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job. there are different types of recruitment in organization in different area which are as follows 1. Marketing 2. Sales 3. Operations 4. Finance 5. Human resources In this paper we are discussing about sales and process of recruitment of sales force Sales recruitment is particularly stressful than other recruitments because the person you recruit represents your company in front of your customers the success of your organization depends on honesty and energy of your sales force. Following is the process of recruitment of a sales person. First and the most important is to define the role which your organization is looking for it may be (a) Will it be an internal sales position? (That is office based ) (b) Predominately new business or existing account? (c) Are qualifications mandatory? (d) Is experience of a particular industry necessary? (e) Is the market aggressively competitive? The main objective of defining the role is to arrive at a profile of ideal candidate for the job After defining the role and deciding the profile the organization should start the search: (1) Phone a friend (2) Recruitment companies (3) Do it yourself (4) Recruitment from within (5) Advertising (a) local publications

(b) national publications (c) trade journals (d) the internet. These are the ways through which organizations can search for the ideal candidate according to their required profile and role . Advertising is one of the best ways to carry search for candidate .And the other way mention is recruitment companies through which companies managers request the specified criteria which they are looking for but it involves lots of cost to the company

Next step is the interview: Interview is the way to know more about the candidate sitting in front of you as mentioned before the sales recruitment interviews are very stress full majorly organizations are looking for following characteristic (1) work rate (2) self-discipline (3) qualifications (4) experience (5) track record There are stages of interviews First stage: (1) Start with introduction and pleasantries (2) Interviewer states position in company and a short profile of the business (3) Reason for the vacancy is given and its position in the organisation (4) Discussion of main points of cv and covering letter (5) More probing discussion relevant to vacancy (6) General question from both side (7) Wrap up During this stage interviewer should look for following attributes Candidate should be capable of describing his results in c.v , initiative taken by the candidate, Strength and weakness is candidate wishing to work on betterment of his weakness, confidence of an employee, testing of his experience and his qualifications, oral and written communication Second stage:

This stage is where the selection of an candidate get serious in the first stage while interviewing many candidates you short list best 2 or 3 candidates in second list you have to short list one candidate that will be doing the required profile or the role defined by the organization In the second interview where the company have selected 2 or 3 best person now have to select one of the best this is done by giving them to present on different kind of situation may be a presentation on a given situation and identify the attributes which the organization is looking for. Third stage: Now at this stage where the organization has given an thumps up on all counts . its time to provide candidate with an offer Overall there is always vice a versa the opposite of hiring is firing while hiring is an expression of hope and expectations firing is all about failure the true colours of the new hire can be only seen after some time of work related to his attitude towards his work and dedication towards the organizations there are person who lie in the interview also this where the proper process should be followed and hiring should be tackled Selling is a complex and high-pressure carrer. Success and failure are easy to measure in sales even the best man in team can go down.

Making the team Now when you recruited an employee now its turn to decide in which team he or she should be in we will look into what kind of elements are required to decide the what kind of role is to be played by the team and the candidates in the team (1) Knowledge about the business (2) Creating your team (3) Working out what they have to achieve (4) How to do it in practice The first thing that a team and each member of the team should be aware of is the product knowledge of their organization and after that each of them should know what kind of customer they have to approach in which customer database comes into picture. Following questions should be taken care of to maintain your customer base (1) Which customers or group of customers give profitable business with reasonable efforts? (2) Who are the problem customers? Using swot analysis is one of the best idea its an old one but still effective way to guide your planning There are three broad categories of the customer your likely to have

(1) Those with complex product or buying need .complexity can be risk, emotional support, technical, legal and so on. They demand personal attention which can be done by field sales persons (2) Customers who need support and attention. But are not comfortable with personal attention serving these customer can vary from telesales in a call centre environment to skilled desk based sales people (3) Well defined and often price sensitive products can be sold via the internet, mail order, retialor basic telesales that essentially take orders without selling

The next thing is to create your team according to your customer base that your business requires It also depends on level of your organization for example is it an mnc or sme bigger the level bigger is the team required by the organization lets look at what kind of sales role do candidates play (1) Global account manager (2) National sales account manager (3) Sales account manager (4) Business development manager (5) Sales representatives (6) Internal sales person (7) Telesales (8) Sales assistants (9) Electronic or direct selling All of these types of sales force are useful in creating a team each of them require different attributes It is very important for organization to have a proper mix in a team so that there is no confusion

The next step is to set target for the teams this is the tough one to do .you want a sales team big enough to capture your market but not waste money and also the targets should stretch the teams not demoralise them and not to easy also that will make them lazy and not use their skills also. Getting targets right is both an art and science the target should be effective and achievable target should help the business to deliver their planning each of the sales team should know their part in that planning Before setting up a target it is necessary to divide your team each organization do it in their own way such as some go geographically , product wise ,market

wise etc it is like creating boundaries for them which they have to follow so that further there are no issues

Getting organised The next part which is organising your sales team sales team members are one type of employees which are rarely seen in the organization as if they have to be out on calls meeting with clients so they are not in front of your eyes so how to maintain a discipline that your team should work in an organised manner is an important issues otherwise it can cost an organization on its revenue and its growth getting organised help the organization to deliver their business plans accurately

So we have divided it in six parts which are important from organising point of view: (1) Setting the ground rules (2) The sales agreements (3) Forecasting (4) Reporting (5) The sales meeting These are the six areas in which organizations have to concentrate to maintain discipline One of the most important things that organizations should understand before setting up ground rules is that a sales team is measured by their results not by their day to day actions they do There are five main methods to setup ground rules that is the above five from 2 to 5 you cannot judge your sales team performance and effectiveness without knowing the target you have set for them and what where your expectations from them . Here comes into picture is the role of sales agreement which is divided into four main sections (a) To define overall scope of the job (b) To add essential measure of the job (c) To give additional objectives and its importance to your business (d) The forth sets out commissions and or bonuses The next thing is forecasting managers and business owners need to plan matters such as cash flows and production so they ask sales people for a forecast of orders expected over a future period of a time ,a week, month, quarter this may be question asked by the owners to sales person for which there is never an ready answer for a sales person Following is the selling cycle used to make forecast of expected business (1) Identify interest (2) Influence outcome (3) Qualify opportunity (4) Asses the competition and submit proposal (5) Discuss the proposal (6) Close the deal From the above cycle an sales person can give forecasting report to the organizations

Your sales force plays the role of eyes and ears of the company they pick up the opinion of the customers on your product, aware about the competition to the product in the market, so your sale teams is your main source to collect this type of vital information it need to be captured as quickly as possible through process of reporting

Sales person mainly need to report about two major aspects that are: (1) Customer detail (2) Market information The customer details is the most vital data that need to be stored by the organizations properly because later on it can be used for customer surveys and cross checks Different business records different types of information of their customers such as following: (1) current project or projects (2) last person seen (3) date (4) project discussed and outstanding action (5) next planned visit (6) contact ,or action taken by person The second part of reporting is market information: Kind of market information organizations are looking for mostly (1) Orders won and why (2) Orders lost why and to whom (3) Major competition (4) Common objectives (5) Where we need to do better (6) What we do right Although this information type may vary from one company to another company and one of the problems that needed to be addressed over here is that the information you are getting from your sales team is genuine because not all sales people would give proper and accurate information so company has to be caution

Sales meeting are conducted by the organization to inform ,share and encourage their sales team and keep them motivated the points discussed in the sales meeting are sales figure, reports , new strategies, plan ,inform ,reward etc these are the standard thing which are being discussed in the meeting it differ from one to another

How to manage the team Running a sales department is too complex. So to manage a sales team properly you need to properly combine leadership, management, process and operations when all the above given attributes are moulded properly your team will work with effectiveness and efficiently Every employer wants his staff to be motivated it makes management so much easier, customers sense the enthusiasm and having staff wanted to go extra mile helps growth and productivity of organization in sales related department motivation is an vital tool lack of motivation can affect the growth of an organization and also other important issues that is employee retention ratio Generating motivation is not a quick fix but it is something to be built into the ethos of the organization. It will not happen overnight needs to be built up step by step it also depends upon all the small and large decision and action Two things which mainly motivate employees firstly when they in what they do and who they work for, secondly when they believe that the organization believes in them and values tem as individuals Managing your buying cycle Following are the steps of your buying cycles: (1) Be aware of need (2) Qualify need (3) Investigate the market (4) Ask for bid (5) Compare bids (6) Select the preferred supplier During the process each step is important it can differ from one company to another it is not necessary that everybody follow the same Selling cycle of the organization:

As discussed before in forecasting part about the cycles we will brief more about it The first step in it is identify interest: identifying the new opportunities and projects gives the better chance of winning the deal for an sales person it also helps the organization to plan an proper strategy for it pro actively taking initiative is always an advantage for the organization the sales manager always want to see a steady pipeline of projects The second step in it is influence the outcome: in this step the organization check the outcome as if they check is the opportunity relevant should the company go for it and put forward it to its clients is it checked and all kind of researched done on it you have to check on each of the outcome from the opportunity negative or positive not every time sales person is able to tackle the opportunity alone sometimes he needs support The third step is qualify the opportunity: once the outcome of opportunity is being tested the next step is to qualify it is the opportunity worth then take action on it as soon as possible before it is explored to other competitor

Commissions and bonuses There are three reasons to pay commission and bonuses to sales people rather than normal salary: (1) It is common and expected in your industry (2) You want the sales people to move out of their comfort zone (3) You think your sales team will work harder The organization may want to break free the culture of their industry but that is also an risk taken by them if you want people to move out of their comfort zone and do what organizations expect them to do money is best way to motivate them the key point in selling is that nothing happens on it own until a sales man want it to happen something so to make that something to happen money is best way to motivate them the carrot of money is more powerful than having a stick in your hand Commission has been one of the best tools till today to make worker work more harder if a sales person is successful more the basic salary + commission if he does not then will be given only minimum of his basic salary