They come via phone calls, text message, email, and LinkedIn message. Some are direct, others specific, and others flat out desperate. What are they you ask? Requests for help finding “good” candidates for a premium sales role. And they are coming from everywhere.
The challenge is not new and is only exacerbated by the fact that so many people are filling roles at the same time. The truth is that premium salespeople have long been the hardest to recruit for. It would be great if you could simply take the top ticket seller on the sales board and plug her in- wishful thinking unfortunately. The reality is that premium is a whole different ordeal.
First of all, the candidate pool is small. Most up-and-coming sellers decide they want to manage a sales team or make the jump to corporate sales instead of tacklimng premium. While theories on why vary, I believe it is because premium sales is the hardest job in sports.
How do we make it easier to find premium salespeople? We change our approach to development.
Premium selling is going to stay difficult for a while. We still are not completely sure how the corporate world is going to leverage sports and entertainment in the future. Needless to say, short term, the job of a premium seller is going to be even harder because the universe of potential buyers is reduced as companies internally debate what to do with their “entertainment” funds after halting them for most of 2020 and most likely 2021. Our people are going to need to be better than ever.
The thing is we are going about things the same way we always have- we have questioned the validity of the sports inside sales program before- and I am not using this space as a chance to further the debate. The reality is that, coming out of the pandemic lull, many teams are restaffing their entry-level programs the same way they have for years. While the financials may not be as sound as many sports execs once imagined, the rebirth of these departments should offer a new batch of aspiring sports execs and, yes, that includes your next Suites Sales Managers.
We just need to build them.
To do so, we need to give our entry-level folks real world experience in selling premium. They need:
· To learn how to prospect and why it is valuable
· To grasp, well beyond client entertainment and employee rewards, how companies will create more net revenue from the use of a premium product
· To learn how a businessperson thinks so that they bring suggestions to a discovery meeting instead of a list of questions
· To understand how political decisions impact the industry they are calling on
· To use what they learned on the last meeting to help on the meeting they are currently on
Telling salespeople to read the business journal is not enough. Sending them to a networking event is not going to cut it. Worst of all, telling them to book meetings with businesses is going to be counterproductive- it will scare them away from being a future premium seller (because the result is not going to be very good) and convince them that they have the skills in place to conduct such a meeting.
Instead… Explain the latest business journal articles to them. Go with them to the chamber’s networking lunch and offer insight into why it matters to each person who attends. Join them on the business meeting they booked and guide their engagement with the people on the other side of the table.
Most importantly, for the sales leaders reading, be self-aware. If you are not capable of building this particular piece of the puzzle in your budding sales superstars, find someone who can. It is not your fault, we as an industry have largely struggled to make true premium selling a prerequisite for leading a green team. Lean on others in your organization, or, even better, ask us about the new training platforms we are working on at The Strategic Sports Group. We would love to discuss.
To your sales success!