Why Sales Reps Reject Your Job Offers

Many companies hunt for sales reps with experience in their niche industry. Typically, the supply of these candidates is limited giving sales reps an advantage when negotiating offers. If you are searching for that “needle in a haystack” sales candidate, comprehensive sourcing to drive a quality candidate pool is the first hurdle to overcome. Yet, let’s assume you have invested wisely in a good recruiting process that has produced a sales candidate that you would like to hire. What hurdles must your successfully scale next?
Be prepared to overcome these three challenges in your efforts to recruit sales candidates.

1. Compensation:
For lateral moves, the average bump in base pay is 10-20% to have a solid player move over to your side of the court. If the position is a promotion with more responsibility and higher expectations, that percentage may rise to 20-30%. Are you prepared to offer your sales candidate a big raise?

2. Happy & Successful:
Let’s assume you have successfully scaled the compensation hurdle. Now, let’s consider if more money is a big enough motivator for the candidate to leave the devil they know for the devil they don’t know. This is a risk/reward decision for sales candidates. Best to have something to offer in addition to money to attract that superstar sales rep. Does your company have a reputation of innovation? Would your employees say the company is managed by great leadership?

3. Career Growth:
A superstar sales rep needs to see a future that is golden. If your company does not offer the next step in their career growth, why should they make the move? For sales professionals, career growth could be a bigger territory, having innovative products or services to sell, or the opportunity to advance into sales management. Be assured that the status quo is not an option for superstars. They need new challenges where they get their achievement needs met.

Pete Caputa, author of 10 Surprising Criteria Salespeople Look for When Choosing a New Company, offers additional insights on this subject.

Recruiting “needle in the haystack” sales reps is very challenging. Yet once a superstar is found, be prepared to show your best hand if you want them to accept your offer.

If you want to learn how to source, attract, and successfully hire superstar sales reps, give us a call at 317-578-1310.