Improve Your Sales Team’s Performance in the Restoration Industry

Building up a solid foundation in sales within your business can mean the difference between sinking and swimming in the restoration industry. Supporting and encouraging the growth of your sales team can instantly take your business to the next level.

This foundation starts right from the moment you hire a new sales representative. Providing them with the necessary tools, training, and support can turn any new hire into an expert salesperson that will truly start bringing in those leads, and in turn, cash.

In a recent KnowHow webinar, the team and our expert panelist unpacked what it takes to build up a successful sales team, from the hiring and restoration sales training to the step-by-step processes it takes to conduct a sales meeting.

Our expert panelist for this event was Jeff Carrier, Co-Founder of Restoration ERP, Marketing Director at Restoration Digital Marketing, and Co-Host of NFL Talking Heads Podcast. Jeff’s extensive experience and knowledge in sales and marketing made him one of our most hard hitting guest speakers yet. Here’s what he had to say on how to improve sales team performance:

Hiring a New Restoration Sales Representative

A lot goes into hiring a new employee in any department. There are many steps and processes required to ensure that you’re hiring the most qualified individual possible, while ensuring they will be a good fit within your company culture.

That process is even more important when hiring a new sales representative. After all, your sales staff are some of the most important people within your organization. No sales equals no jobs! When considering new sales hires, it’s critical to ensure that they have the awareness to be comfortable with rejection, the willingness to be outgoing, and the drive to work after hours. Rejection is a huge part of sales, and it’s going to happen a lot. You don’t want sales representatives who give up after a few rejections, you need your staff to keep pushing and pushing even after they receive a no. As Jeff Carrier asks, “Are they comfortable with rejection and do they continue to go back? That’s needed for all salespeople”.

Interview Questions to Ask Restoration Sales Candidates

Oftentimes as a business owner, it can be tough to know who the best candidates are from a simple 30-minute chat.

Being aware of how to get the most information out of a candidate in as little time as possible is vital to making the correct decision on a new hire. To do that, you need to be aware of the most effective interview questions to determine who the best sales candidates really are.

Here are some great examples of sales interview questions:

• How did you handle losing a customer in a previous job? What things did you do to try and retain them and that relationship?
• What tactics did you use to win over a customer who originally said no?
• Tell me specifically, with examples, how you’ve sold products in the past?

Mixing these questions with your standard interview style questions will give you a better idea on if they are a good fit in a sales specific role.

As our own KnowHow team member Zac Johnson rightly puts it, “The best indication of future behavior is past behavior”. Putting emphasis on specific examples of their past sales will help you get inside the candidates mind to better determine if they’re a good fit.

What are the Steps to Take After a Candidate Has Been Hired?

Officially hiring a candidate is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many things you, as a business owner or manager, can do to properly train them and set them up for success.

Here are a few things you can do to prepare your new hire:

• Build a written process that you’re following. Consistency is key in sales, and having a process built and developed that your new hire can follow each and everyday will help them adapt to your company strategy quicker and easier.
  
• Do ride alongs with your sales staff. As business owners it’s important to understand what a standard day for your sales team looks like. You will find out a lot about your sales staff and it will help you determine what you need to provide them to succeed or what you need to give them further training on.
  
• Determine a way to evaluate your sales staff. A great way to do this is by using a quality touch score. This measures how many “touches” ie. phone calls, meetings, lunches, emails, your sales representatives are making. At the end of the month you assign point values to these and see how well your sales team did that month, how many “touches” they are able to make to potential clients. Jeff Carrier explains, “What we found is more calls equals meetings, and meetings equals sales. If we’re not having enough of the beginning part, quality touches, then we’re not going to get enough sales. There was a strong correlation there of us hitting our benchmark on quality touches that end up resulting in sales”.

Having concrete steps in place for a new hire to follow will help your new sales representative feel less frustrated, and more supported. It will also ease your mind knowing they have the resources necessary to do their new job how you expect it to be completed.

KnowHow: The Restoration Process Hub

If you’re looking for other resources, KnowHow has step-by-step processes and templates already built to help guide you through sales processes, onboarding, and countless other tasks relating to sales. Simple to use and set up, KnowHow is the tool you need to ensure your remote team is productive and effective. With KnowHow, team members work confidently, productively and in compliance - available on desktop and mobile.

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