There are over 22 million sales professionals currently working in North America, but only a third of all sales people have been with their company for less than 12 months. Sales teams have a yearly turnover rate of 40%, and many employers struggle to find and retain good sales talent. Sales recruitment companies can find candidates for you, but how can you make sure they pan out?

Stop Hiring Predators

Too many sales recruiters look for sales “sharks,” employees so focused on their own ambitions that they don’t care who they burn in the process. Predatory employees like this will only bring your company down. They may hide major opportunities in the hopes of advancing their own career and fail without the support of a team, or talk themselves up so much that fellow team members make decisions based on promised sales that won’t actually go through.

Hiring sales people is a difficult process, but it’s important for hiring managers and sales recruitment companies to take responsibility for the people they choose to give sales jobs to. That’s the only way to hire smarter in the future.

Provide Good Training

Uninformative or disorganized training procedures will only produce poor workers. Even the best sales people will emerge from bad training sessions frustrated, confused, and often incapable of doing their jobs. Some sales recruitment companies offer training as part of their services.

You want to make sure your sales people know how to operate equipment, what scripts to use, who to contact with questions and what their goals are. Without this information, it would be next to impossible for even the best sales person to close a single deal. On a similar note…

Open Lines of Communication

Bad habits thrive when employees don’t feel like they can talk to management or their co-workers. Make sure everyone talks to each other and secrecy is minimized. This will allow your sales reps to function better as a team and stay on top of business.