When you get to a point in your water damage restoration company where you are ready to scale, where do you turn? Most smart business owners will begin to build a team of employees focused solely on sales and generating more income through marketing.
Once you’ve made the investment in sales employees, you expect results, right? You expect that the work of finding and hiring individuals who promise company growth will be what propels your business toward success. These expectations are fair and healthy, but are you doing your part to set your sales team up for success? Hiring sales representatives isn’t enough to guarantee growth. Here’s what you need to know about making sure you’re equipping your team to market your business well.
A Repeatable On-Boarding Procedure
Every new sales employee should be given the same chance to succeed. The best way to make sure you are equipping your sales team members from their first day forward is to create an on-boarding procedure that is repeatable and automatic.
Too many business owners assume new employees will pick up on necessary skills and understand the various requirements in their role by watching others. Too many restoration specialists say, “I’ll get to it eventually” when it comes to training their new employees.
Eventually isn’t good enough. Sit down before you add anyone else to your team and outline, in detail, what they need to know about your company and their new job. Turn this outline into a system that can be repeated by creating a check-off list for orientation. Require each new employee to take ownership of this list to make it past their 90 day probation. Hand it off on their first day, making sure they understand that it is their job to get each item checked off before the end of their first 90 days.
Long Term Professional Development
Employee growth doesn’t stop at 90 days and your training programs shouldn’t either. In addition to outlining a repeatable on-boarding procedure, create clear expectations for continued employment that include consistent professional development.
If a sales member wants to remain on your team past year one, year two, or year three, what certifications and training do you expect them to complete? If they want to move up within the company, what kind of skills should they seek out? Are there conferences or training programs they can enroll in to bring more value to the team? We suggest creating a professional development check-off list for each employee’s file so you can easily keep tabs on the steps they are taking to become better at their job.
Operational Resources for Every Day
No matter their role in your company, your employees need to be equipped with the operational resources that are essential to getting their job done. Too often, we see businesses that are unorganized and poorly stocked. Sales employees are expected to sell the company they represent but they aren’t provided with up-to-date brochures, they’re waiting for a website to be built, or they’re sent on calls with videos the outline the restoration process for leads.
If you’re expecting a lot from your sales employees, make sure you are doing your part to set them up for success. Give them the resources they need to succeed.
Encourage and Reward High Performance
If you have hired high performers for your team, they will thrive on high expectations. Sales people love to sell. Keep the motivation high by encouraging and rewarding high performance.
Set weekly and month goals to give each team members something to aim for. Celebrate each win together and brainstorm strategies when things are moving slowly for the team or one specific team member.
High performers on your team should be rewarded. The simplest way to make this happen is to hire on sales personnel at a base salary with a commission based on their performance. Commission encourages sales because, the more money your company makes, the more the seller makes as well. Beyond commission, make sure you are going out of your way to reward the team members who stand out above the rest.
We love seeing restoration specialists scale their businesses into thriving, successful organizations. We’re so passionate about growth, we’ve based our entire business model at More Floods on helping business owners succeed. To learn more about the operational resources we offer our network members, click here or call 1-866-667-3356.