VP of Sales, most important hire

Consistency and excellence go hand in hand, particularly when we look at retail and business leaders. So why are so many companies settling for churn and turn style hiring for their most important roles? Did you know the average time in position for a VP is just 18 months? What leadership does this provide in an industry that thrives with consistency and word of mouth? The decision to hire a key employee who will last, lead and grow your company is a high stakes and high reward decision. When looking for a VP, here are the key criteria I use to find your perfect fit.

Recruiting Skill

Your VP may not be selling products for you, but they are in charge of getting your staff bought-in. This means they are constantly recruiting positions into your company. Recruiting is so much more than posting the ad, your VP must be able to connect and find candidates with the right qualities to grow and produce in your business.

Backfilling and Assisting Sales

The VP may not be running the floor, but it still requires a strong, confident person who can help to close a sale and support the staff patiently and effectively. This can be trained into the right person, but the right person must have the demeanor and willingness to refine these skills and be humble enough to support and motivate.

Tactics

Sales is a unique industry with quotas, comps, training, onboarding, pitches, reporting and significantly more important yet is the competent use and implementation of CRMs. These tactics are crucial to turning your department into a well-oiled machine and a strong VP is the conductor.

Strategies

When you are looking at growth and expansion of selling, there has to be a creative, fresh strategy to work for. Without one big, collective scary goal you will have 10 dedicated staff working in 30 different directions. It is up to the VP to create a line-drive goal that everyone contributes towards and then hold each team member accountable for their productivity.

Your VP of Sales is an interesting position to fill that can create a world of change in your organization, for better or worse. This makes it so crucial to recruit a professional who is both confident enough to lead, humble enough to help and talented enough to get results and work proficiently and proactively. When hiring someone of this caliber to make a difference in your company, you want to use an experienced, talented recruiter who knows what to look for and how to find it.