Tag: SALES RECRUITING

What SaaS Founders Need to Know About Building a World-Class Sales Team

Posted on by Nick Mann

Outside of the product itself, your sales team’s performance is arguably the biggest factor in your SaaS company’s long-term success. As such, it’s essential to look beyond quick wins and see the big picture when deciding who to hire. For this post, I’ll dissect the components that go into building a world-class sales team so you’ll have the right mindset to thrive in the subscription economy.

Success Relies on More Than Just Hard Skills

Don’t get me wrong. Hard skills like product knowledge and pipeline management are extremely important. And you’re probably not going to get far if you hire SaaS salespeople who lack fundamental hard skills.

But I think a common issue among many SaaS founders is that they focus too heavily on hard skills, to the point that they neglect equally critical soft skills. In fact, given how soft skills like communication, active listening, and resilience are to this profession, you could argue that many soft skills are just as important to a rep’s success.

For perspective, I asked Google Gemini to create a table with a side-by-side comparison of core hard and soft skills.

With a glance at this table, it’s easy to see why you shouldn’t skimp on soft skills. Instead, finding salespeople who possess essential soft skills is something you want to bake into your SaaS sales recruiting process. This brings me to my next point.

Objectively Understanding a Rep’s Core Competencies is Vital

As I just said, hard skills are certainly important. But that doesn’t mean soft skills should be overlooked.

But even better than basing your hiring decision on analyzing both hard and soft skills is basing it on understanding a rep’s core competencies — something that’s almost guaranteed to show you the big picture.

Some specific examples of core competencies can include motivation, being able to control emotions, lead-hunting capabilities, and decision-making skills. There are a plethora of other core competencies, but this should give you a basic idea of what I’m referring to.

The question is, how do you objectively assess a salesperson’s core competencies?

Perhaps the most straightforward strategy is to use a SaaS sales recruiting tool like HireDNA. With it, you can create a detailed candidate profile that includes all of the core competencies you need.

This gives you a complete overview of what someone brings to the table, and you can easily compare multiple candidate profiles side-by-side for a bird’s-eye view to choose the optimal candidate.

Choosing the Right Salespeople Depends on What Stage You’re At

Another important aspect of building a world-class sales team that some SaaS founders overlook is their current growth stage. If, for example, you’re a brand-new startup just getting the ball rolling, you’ll likely want to aim for ultra-scrappy go-getters who will scratch and claw their way to build relationships and reach their sales quotas.

However, if your SaaS company is well-established and you have a well-defined sales process, you may want to aim for salespeople who can play by the rules and consistently move leads through the pipeline.

While you’ll always want individuals with a certain amount of hustle, this is a factor to keep in mind and know that who you consider to be “the right salesperson” may evolve over time.

Data is Everything

Like most business areas, using insight-driven data can have a positive impact. But when u building a world-class sales team, data isn’t just a luxury, it’s a necessity — especially when considering the hyper-competitive landscape of the SaaS industry.

According to a sales operations survey by Gartner, Inc., “42% of sales leaders rate their sales analytics ROI as significantly higher than expected.” And a report by Deloitte found that it leads to a 35% boost in salesperson performance.

From identifying weaknesses in your sales pipeline to increasing customer engagement to optimizing customer personalization to predicting future trends based on prior patterns, sales data is your ticket to getting your sales team to operate at its peak potential.

That’s why I believe a strong sales analytics platform should be implemented from the very start, and you should use the data you generate to continually refine your processes, as there’s always room for improvement.

Great Performance Requires Ongoing Development

Speaking of ongoing improvement, the final way SaaS founders can go about building a world-class sales team is to invest in the perpetual development of their reps. Think of it like this.

Hopefully, the initial group of salespeople you hire is professional, capable, and productive. And if you use a quality SaaS sales recruiting tool, it should be.

But like I just said, there’s always room for improvement, and getting your SaaS sales team to operate at their best requires endless iterations. And when you consider how fast the SaaS industry (and tech in general) is moving, you must stay at the forefront.

That’s why it’s important to use an ongoing SaaS sales training program that fine-tunes the skills of your salespeople and helps them stay sharp. This doesn’t need to be anything over the top, and you certainly don’t want to burn your team out from fatigue. But a steady drip of training and development can go a long way.

For an overview of some of the top sales training platforms, check out this list from Salesforce.

Building a World-Class Sales Team from the Ground Up

Let’s be honest. Jumping into the SaaS industry and trying to compete with well-established titans can be daunting. And there is no magic bullet for ensuring success, no matter how great a digital product you have.

That said, following a well-laid-out template can tilt the odds in your favor so you can 1) get started out on the right foot and 2) set the stage for sustained growth.

If you don’t want to leave your SaaS sales hiring to chance and want to find the true superstars with elite sales DNA, check out the Sales Skills Assessment. It leverages 30 years of data and is 95% accurate at finding the optimal salespeople.

How SaaS Talent Leaders Can Simplify Sales Hiring Without Compromising Quality

Posted on by Nick Mann

I don’t need to tell you how disastrous a wrong SaaS sales hire can be. For perspective, a single bad hire can cost up to three times the rep’s annual salary—translating to losses between $250,000 and $500,000 when accounting for missed quotas, lost pipeline, and the expenses of replacing them. In the never-ending quest to accelerate SaaS sales hiring and quickly fill positions, it’s easy to take shortcuts. Sometimes those pay off, but in many cases, they don’t. For this article, I’d like to explain specific strategies on how to simplify sales hiring without compromising quality.

In fact, these techniques should maximize your collective candidate quality and help you pinpoint your industry’s true elite. Let’s dive in.

Start By Analyzing Existing Data

Assuming you’ve been in business for at least six months and have a decent amount of SaaS sales hiring data, the first thing I recommend is thoroughly analyzing your existing data to identify patterns, trends, and most importantly, weaknesses. Note that if you’re a brand-new startup and haven’t done any hiring, you’ll want to skip this step, but you should definitely use it later on once you’ve generated some initial data.

Here you’ll want to zero in on the most critical metrics, such as applications per opening, time to fill, time to hire, quality of hire, and cost per hire. Here’s a more extensive list for additional ideas.

Armed with this information, you should be able to get a baseline reading of how well you’re performing in each area and identify any glaring inefficiencies that are holding you back.

For instance, maybe your time to hire is much longer than it should be, but everything else looks good. In this case, it would be clear that lowering your time to hire should be your top priority. Improving in this area should put you on track to achieving greater efficiency and minimize candidate drop-off.

Use a SaaS Sales Recruiting Tool

Although recruiting tools have been around in some capacity since the 1970s with the advent of application tracking systems, their capabilities have grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years. Case in point — a SaaS sales recruiting tool like HireDNA.

With this platform, you can simplify sales hiring in a wide variety of ways while also finding the best of the best candidates.

For example, HireDNA uses cutting-edge data-driven assessments to provide an objective overview of each candidate’s core competencies, such as motivation, responsibility, and the ability to handle rejection.

Using a simple scale system, you can conveniently compare candidates side-by-side and confidently narrow your candidate pool down to the cream of the crop. Rather than relying on your gut, which is prone to bias, this gives you crystal clear insights into what each candidate brings, so you find the optimal fit for a position.

Best of all, it can be a huge time-saver because you don’t have to manually sift through a mountain of candidates, which can dramatically lower your time-to-hire.

Leverage Candidate Scorecards

Once you’ve narrowed down the candidate pool to a few select candidates, you need a way to efficiently see how they stack up against one another and how good of a fit each one is to your unique SaaS sales environment. But how do you do this?

One of the best ways is to use candidate scorecards, which allow you to objectively compare each SaaS sales candidate at a glance in key areas.

For example, you could use a cultural fit scorecard where you rate how well someone aligns with your company values or their work style compatibility.

Or you can rate specific skills, such as their proficiency using software or problem-solving skills.

There are many possibilities. Implementing scorecards like this should help expedite shortlisting as you navigate through the latter stages of SaaS sales hiring while giving you a bird’s-eye view of how adept each person would likely be if hired.

Automate Interview Scheduling

While this isn’t as integral to the SaaS sales hiring process as the previous strategies, this can have a tangible impact. Not only can it simplify and streamline things, it can also contribute to creating a better candidate experience, as it gives them flexibility for choosing convenient interview slots without unnecessary back-and-forthing with recruiters.

One of my favorite tools for interview scheduling is Calendly because it makes the end-to-end process a breeze.

A candidate can easily choose a date and time that fits their schedule based on open slots.

Then the interview time is automatically synced with your sales recruiter’s schedule with zero disruptions. Besides that, Calendy offers automatic reminders to drastically reduce no-shows.

That way, you can focus on more pressing business activities and coordinate SaaS sales interviews with minimal friction to better simplify sales hiring.

Reduce the Number of Interview Rounds

In many cases, there will be multiple rounds of interviews for a SaaS sales position. This is especially true for mid-level, high-level, and specialized roles.

And that’s fine. Often, it takes more than one round to get a sense of who’s the best fit for a role.

That being said, you shouldn’t have any more interview rounds than you truly need. This only adds complexity, slows you down, and can be a turnoff for many elite candidates who don’t want to go to the trouble of showing up for interview after interview.

What you want to do is find the sweet spot where you can confidently choose the best person for a role without having needless interview rounds. That’s why I recommend experimenting with this until you find the lowest number without sacrificing candidate quality.

Simplify Sales Hiring: Streamline for Speed and Success

Accelerating SaaS sales hiring isn’t about cutting corners. It’s about leveraging strategies and tools to slash through inefficiencies and find legitimate superstars without wasting time and money.

To recap, this includes tapping into existing hiring data, using a SaaS sales recruiting platform, implementing candidate scorecards, automating interview scheduling, and trimming back interview rounds.

If you want to take the guesswork out of hiring and leave nothing to chance, try the Sales Skills Assessment to provide in-depth insights into each candidate.

How to Avoid Costly Hiring Mistakes in SaaS Sales Recruitment

Posted on by Nick Mann

Here are some sobering SaaS sales recruitment stats.

And here’s the kicker. 74% of SaaS sales recruiters say they’ve made a wrong hire at some point.

No matter how effective your SaaS sales recruitment seems, the chances are good that you’ll eventually choose the wrong person. If this happens consistently, it can have disastrous consequences for company growth and profitability.

To prevent unnecessary drama, I’m going to pinpoint practical steps you can take to avoid costly hiring mistakes to find the best of the best candidates who’ll stick with your SaaS company for the long haul.

Define Essential SaaS Salesperson Competencies

Before doing anything else, I suggest sitting down with key stakeholders and creating a concise list of core salesperson competencies that are essential to success. This should help you crystallize what’s truly important so you’ll know exactly what you’re looking for in a candidate.

Otherwise, it’s going to be difficult to articulate the type of candidate you’re looking for in a SaaS sales role.

There is a wide range of competencies that contribute to a SaaS salesperson thriving, but here are a few examples for reference.

Note that your list may change over time, and you can always make revisions as you accumulate more data. But having something concrete to start with should ensure a baseline level of candidate quality during recruiting.

Don’t Forget Cultural Fit

Besides the nuts and bolts of core competencies, you should always pay close attention to cultural fit. After all, you can hire someone who checks all the right boxes and is an absolute sales superstar. But if they’re a poor fit culturally, this will likely result in internal friction, premature turnover, and in many cases, money.

In fact, Forbes states that “the result of poor culture fit due to turnover can cost an organization between 50-60% of the person’s annual salary.”

On the other hand, SaaS companies that choose sales candidates that closely align with their culture see a revenue increase of 682%!

Whenever you’re posting a job ad, be sure to include which specific characteristics your ideal candidate should possess from a cultural standpoint. That alone, should help filter out a sizable percentage of poor fits. And during an interview, you can ask questions like these to gauge a person’s cultural fit.

Thoroughly Evaluate Hard and Soft Skills with the Right Tool

Once you have a firm grasp on the type of candidate you’re looking for, it’s time to develop a framework that allows you to objectively analyze candidates based on that criteria. As I mentioned earlier, you can get a fairly good sense of how qualified someone is during an interview.

However, this has its limitations, as you can’t always guarantee that a candidate will be 100% honest. Plus, unconscious bias is always a factor that can get in the way.

One of the best ways to properly evaluate hard and soft skills and truly see a candidate from all angles is to use SaaS sales recruiting software. A platform like HireDNA, for example, takes the guesswork out of the process and supplies you with data-driven insights on nearly every sales competency you can imagine.

Everything from sales experience to sales skills and abilities to role compatibility to cultural fit can be quantified with this tool to provide you with a holistic overview of a SaaS sales candidate.

Besides that, you can also gauge things like coachability, resilience, and emotional control, which, up until recently, have been quite difficult to measure.

At a glance, you can get an in-depth feel of how well a candidate would likely perform if hired and how they stack up against the competition. That way, you can easily narrow down the candidate pool to just a handful of A+ players before making your final decision.

Don’t Skimp on Onboarding

One final mistake I see many SaaS companies make is this. They go to the trouble of carefully identifying critical characteristics salespeople need to possess, perform comprehensive evaluations, and follow interviewing best practices to ultimately hire quality salespeople.

But their effort wanes after that.

During onboarding, they just go through the motions, where new reps only learn the basics and aren’t truly in a position to thrive. Then they’re surprised that a high percentage of reps fail to reach their potential, quit, or both.

My point here is that SaaS sales recruitment doesn’t stop once you’ve made a hire. An essential element is onboarding, where you go above and beyond to ensure each salesperson is equipped with everything they need to reach their full potential as quickly as possible.

For reference, here are a few things HubSpot suggests focusing on when training salespeople.

For a deeper dive, I highly recommend reading an article we wrote called The First 90 Days: A Blueprint for New Hire Retention Success. In it, we cover strategies like creating a welcome package, offering structured, phased onboarding, building internal relationships, and much more.

By following these techniques, you should be able to dramatically reduce ramp time and increase new hire retention.

Success Hinges on Talent: Optimizing Your SaaS Salesperson Recruitment

Given that nearly three-quarters of SaaS sales recruiters have botched a hire along the line, and hiring the wrong person can be incredibly costly, recruiting is a process that you want to get right. While perfection is hard to achieve, maximum optimization is fully within your grasp.

It’s just a matter of focusing on critical areas and refining your strategies. To recap, this includes defining essential SaaS salesperson competencies, not overlooking cultural fit, assessing hard and soft skills with a recruiting tool, and getting serious about onboarding.

If you’re ready to take the next step, try our Sales Skills Assessment to learn a candidate’s strengths and hidden weaknesses to make the best possible hiring decisions.

What SaaS Sales Leaders Look for in a Winning Sales Rep in 2025

Posted on by Nick Mann

The SaaS industry is known for innovation and being in a state of constant flux. To build a high-performance team SaaS sales leaders need to look beyond traditional skills and acclimate to an ever-changing market. For this post, we’ll look at five must-have qualities a winning sales rep should possess in 2025.

A High Tech IQ

Given that technology is inherently infused into the SaaS industry it’s only natural that a winning sales rep will have a high tech IQ. By this I don’t just mean being tech savvy but eating, sleeping, and breathing tech.

This starts with having an acute understanding of the SaaS industry itself, including your specific niche, product, and competitors. A salesperson should be proficient with sales and CRM software so they can effectively manage every stage of the sales funnel and customer relationships.

They should be able to put together a solid tech stack, which includes sales and CRM software, as well as networking platforms, social media, video conferencing, and so on. Here’s an example.

Besides that, a winning sales rep should be proficient in sales analytics. They don’t need to be a data scientist, but they should be able to extract insights on macro and micro trends and apply them to everyday operations.

AI Fluency

In the span of just a couple of years, AI has essentially gone from being a novelty to infiltrating nearly every corner of work and life. As of 2024, 75% of salespeople were using AI in the workplace. And 56% reported using it daily.

Based on the current usage trajectory, it’s likely that nearly all salespeople will be using AI in some capacity by the end of the 2020s (if not sooner). Therefore, having AI fluency is no longer merely a preferred ability but a necessity.

From identifying qualified leads to lead scoring to automated outreach to sales forecasting, AI has an abundance of use cases in SaaS sales.

That’s why one of the most critical traits SaaS sales leaders now look for in a winning sales rep is the ability to practically use AI to increase their efficiency and effectiveness, which helps improve the customer experience and close more deals.

Consultative Storytelling Abilities

Would you believe that “94% of SaaS buyers don’t trust sales teams?” It’s true.

Skepticism runs rampant with the majority of today’s customers, so taking a hard-nosed, old-school approach with aggressive sales tactics seldom ends well.

What most buyers are receptive to, however, is what I call “consultative storytelling.” This is where you work to first understand a customer by identifying specific needs, pain points, challenges, and any obstacles that are getting in the way of them buying. Then you seek to provide solutions and position your SaaS product as the ideal platform that checks all the right boxes and delivers genuine value.

A big part of this is acting more as a consultant rather than a salesperson, where you build rapport and collaborate with a customer to ensure you find them the perfect product. Storytelling also comes into the equation, where you objectively show the tangible impact your solution can have by sharing examples and case studies.

That way, you don’t have to rely merely on saying your product is a great fit, and you can show a customer firsthand.

Natural Resilience

Being a salesperson is tough.

And you could argue that it’s never been tougher than it is today, especially in SaaS sales. With so many companies battling it out, competition is incredibly fierce.

As a result, rejection is baked into the job description for SaaS salespeople, and it takes a certain type of personality to shake it off and keep moving forward. If a rep lacks natural resilience, they’re going to have a hard time succeeding in this profession, which is why this is such a vital characteristic to look for.

But with resilience being a soft skill and hard to quantify, how exactly can you pinpoint this in a potential salesperson?

You can always ask behavioral questions that gauge resilience in an interview. Here’s a list of questions for reference.

But one of the better ways to determine someone’s resilience is using a tool that delivers data-driven insights via candidate profiles. With HireDNA, for example, you can generate a comprehensive breakdown of a rep’s core competencies, with the ability to handle rejection being on the list.

This provides a measurable means of determining just how well a SaaS salesperson deals with obstacles, which can help you assemble the best team possible.

Adaptability

As I stated in the intro, the SaaS industry is in a state of constant flux. And as technology continues advancing at its current breakneck speed, the rate of change will only continue to intensify.

That’s why adaptability is the final trait a winning sales rep should possess in 2025.

I like what Mindy Murphy of The Center for Sales Strategy has to say about it.

“An adaptable salesperson has the ability to adjust and thrive in various situations and environments, making them a valuable asset to any sales team. They can quickly respond to these changes and adjust their strategies accordingly.

And they possess the agility to:

  • Respond swiftly to market changes
  • Build stronger, more personalized client relationships
  • Handle rejection with resilience and learn from setbacks”

While you never know exactly what will happen in the SaaS sales world and what changes will unfold, having reps that are equipped to adapt to current circumstances should ensure you’re prepared to handle whatever comes your way. In this respect, adaptability helps “future-proof” your business to a certain extent.

It’s just a matter of finding candidates that possess adapability skills — something that can be done through candidate profiles as I mentioned earlier, as well as using scenario-based assessments, problem-solving tasks, and role-playing exercises during interviews.

The Anatomy of a Winning Sales Rep

Although certain essential characteristics will never change, I feel the five outlined above are absolutely critical to SaaS sales rep success in 2025. Zeroing in on these should help you find superstars who aren’t only equipped to thrive in today’s environment but in the future as well.

If you’re ready to level up your SaaS sales recruiting to reduce mistakes and speed up your time to hire, try out our free Hiring Readiness Assessment.

Why Sales Turnover Is Killing Your SaaS Growth and How to Stop It

Posted on by Nick Mann

Turnover is an issue for many industries. But it’s especially problematic in SaaS sales. According to research, the average turnover rate of US salespeople is around 30%, which is more than double the 13% of all other professions. Based on these numbers, one out of every three salespeople you hire will quit each year. And if left unchecked, this can be disastrous to your SaaS growth.

For this post, I’ll examine the impact high sales turnover can have on your SaaS company and common sense ways to stop it.

Sky High Recruiting Costs

Hiring salespeople isn’t cheap. While the costs can widely vary, experts say that it can easily cost $7,000 to $8,000 per rep. If this happens at scale, it can quickly result in exorbitant recruiting costs that can eat away at your bottom line.

Because of this added expense and the constant strain on resources, profitability can take a big hit. And if you’re constantly hiring and rehiring, you’re basically running on a hamster wheel, making it hard to achieve any real progress.

Loss of Expertise

Seldom can an elite salesperson be easily replaced. Because they possess a unique knowledge and skillset and have an in-depth understanding of your existing customers, you can’t just grab somebody off the street and expect them to operate at the same level.

Even if you find another superstar sales rep, it still takes time to get them up to speed with how your company operates, learn your products, build rapport with customers, and so on. As a result, sales turnover can be detrimental to your sales process and make it difficult to close deals like you would if retain top talent.

Customer Experience Disruptions

Try to put yourself in an existing customer’s shoes for a second. Their primary point of contact has left your company, and all of a sudden, they have to deal with a new rep who’s just learning the ropes. This is almost guaranteed to disrupt the customer experience and could potentially sour the relationship.

At best, it can create frustration with an existing customer. At worst, it may compel them to seek out a competitor.

And for a potential customer who’s interacting with a new rep rather than an established one, it’s hard to provide the same level of experience simply because a new rep doesn’t know the ins and outs. So from a customer experience standpoint, high sales turnover can be toxic.

Sluggish Sales Cycle

Whenever there’s a constant stream of new reps getting their bearings and learning your product and market, it’s likely to slow down the sales cycle. And that can be a big problem given that the SaaS industry has a notoriously long sales cycle — and getting longer all the time.

“The SaaS sales process has grown more complex,” explains Channel as a Service. “Now, the average B2B buying cycle is 43 days, up from 33 days in 2020. For big businesses, this can go up to 65 days, hurting revenue and growth.”

If you continually have to replace salespeople, it can result in a sluggish sales cycle, which can slow down revenue generation and impede growth.

How to Drastically Reduce Sales Turnover and Fuel SaaS Growth

The bottom line is that turnover is more than simply an inconvenience. Not to be melodramatic, but it’s an issue that can have far-reaching consequences and erode a SaaS company from the ground up. But what can you do about it?

It should probably go without saying, but first, make sure you’re offering a competitive salary and benefits, as this is a precursor to anything else. Even if you check all of the other employee retention boxes, you’re going to struggle if you can’t pay top talent what they’re worth.

As for specific numbers, our research found that, as of 2023, the average SaaS salesperson’s salary was just under $100k at $99,826. We wrote a comprehensive article on this topic that breaks this down in detail, which you can find here.

As long as you’re close to this number, you should be in pretty good shape.

Next, I recommend optimizing your SaaS sales hiring process. In particular, take steps to ensure you find the best of the best candidates who not only meet your qualifications but who are a natural fit your for company culture.

For example, it’s smart to use sales recruiting solutions with in-depth, science-based assessments to quantify a candidate’s capabilities.

This takes the guesswork out of the process, and you can easily compare SaaS sales candidates side-by-side and identify the cream of the crop before moving on to the next round of hiring. Not only does help you find the true superstars, it saves a lot of time.

Third, create a 90-day game plan for onboarding new sales reps to get them up to speed and equip them for success. This could include offering new hires a welcome package, offering structured, phased onboarding, setting concrete goals, and measuring success along the way.

Here’s an illustration of what that might look like.

Note that we wrote an entire blog post about creating a 90-day blueprint to maximize retention, which you can read here.

Fourth, make sure that you prioritize ongoing salesperson development and promotion from within. Feeling like someone is stuck in a dead-end sales job with no room for growth is a surefire way to send reps packing.

But if they’re given a chance to continually develop their skill set and climb the ranks, the odds of them sticking around for the long haul increase considerably.

Lastly, get in the habit of not only accepting sales rep feedback but encouraging it. More often than not, being on the lookout for ways you can improve can help you address small issues before they escalate. Not to mention, reps who feel listened to and their opinion valued are far more likely to be satisfied in their jobs.

Retaining Sales Talent: The Key to SaaS Growth

We all know that high sales turnover is harmful. But not everyone understands the full implications. With SaaS sales having a higher-than-average turnover rate, this is something to tackle head-on.

If you’re ready to level up your sales recruiting, try our Hiring Readiness Assessment. It can help you find ultra-qualified candidates, reduce hiring mistakes, and fill positions faster.

Why Your SaaS Company Struggles to Hire Top Sales Talent (And How to Fix It)

Posted on by Nick Mann

Multiple factors impact the success of your SaaS company. Software quality, pricing, and customer retention are just a few examples. But one of the biggest is the caliber of your sales talent. Without a professional, stable sales team in place, SaaS company struggles are almost guaranteed.

In this post, I’ll examine the most common reasons why brands find difficulty hiring top sales talent and practical strategies for overcoming this problem.

Competition

As of early 2025, there were approximately 30,000 SaaS companies across the globe, with 60% in the US.

This industry is scorching hot right now, with new companies constantly popping up in every niche imaginable. As a result, the sheer volume of SaaS companies is a major reason why so many brands struggle with recruiting.

With talented reps having so many options, you’re likely to face challenges if your brand doesn’t have a strong unique value proposition (UVP) and lacks anything to distinguish you from the rest of the pack.

Inefficient Hiring Process

Slow, meticulous, or chaotic hiring is another common way SaaS recruiting teams shoot themselves in the foot. Top sales reps know their worth, and even if they have a strong interest in your company, many will “get off the line” if your hiring process is inefficient.

Pinpointing the exact problem isn’t always easy, but here’s a list of eight particular issues that harm the candidate experience.

Poor Pay and Benefits

It should come as no surprise that elite sales talent expects competitive pay and benefits — if not above average. If, for whatever reason, you’re unable to offer this, it’s going to be an uphill battle from the start.

For reference of what’s considered competitive, you can check out an article we wrote about SaaS sales salary in 2023. Note that there’s been a slight increase as of the time of this writing in early 2025 because of inflation, but it should still provide a basic reference point.

Lack of Career Development Opportunities

MIT research states that 67% of SaaS sales reps value career development. If the position you’re advertising for has little to no options for career development, it’s understandable that you likely won’t attract a large number of qualified candidates.

And even if you do manage to land some A+ talent, your turnover rate will probably a lot higher than what it should be.

Weak Branding

By “weak branding,” I mean lacking the brand presence and desirability it takes to pique the interest of top SaaS sales reps. With so many SaaS companies going after a finite number of qualified reps, it takes something special to make reps want to choose you.

Some of the best examples of companies with excellent branding include HubSpot, Slack, Zoom, and Canva.

How to Fix SaaS Company Struggles

Now that we have crystallized the most common contributing factors to SaaS company struggles, let’s create a formula for overcoming them to help your brand bring in more elite talent.

As we mentioned in the first point, competition is one of the biggest hindrances to building an A+ sales team. By following the strategies for the subsequent SaaS company struggles, which we’ll discuss below, this should give you an edge over many of your competitors and make your brand a more desirable place to work.

This starts with optimizing your hiring process. One of the best ways to go about this is to use cutting-edge technology to objectively identify the best of the best candidates.

HireDNA, for instance, uses sophisticated assessments to determine how well a person will fit in with your unique sales culture and examines core competencies.

It’s also smart to provide a clear outline of what candidates can expect at each stage in the hiring process and maintain close communication from start to finish.

The next issue, poor pay and benefits, can be fixed by 1) identifying what’s considered competitive pay in the SaaS sales industry (in 2023, it was just under $100k) and 2) adjusting your payment structure to match or exceed it.

Admittedly, this can be easier said than done, especially for newer SaaS companies with limited funds. But if you truly expect to build an elite sales force, you’ll need to at least get within the proximity of what other successful brands are offering.

When it comes to career development opportunities, the simple solution is to build your SaaS company in a way that promotes growth from within. Not only can this make your business feel more desirable to work for, it offers a host of impressive benefits, including the following.

  • “Employees stay 41% longer at companies with high rates of internal hiring.”
  • “56% of employees believed promoting from within is better for morale.”
  • “Managers promoted from within were 10% more likely than external hires to report having a highly productive team.”

And given that “33.63% of the workforce has looked for a new job in the last six months due to lack of career growth,” this can be huge for preventing unnecessary turnover and keeping sales superstars around for the long haul.

Finally, weak branding can be addressed in a few ways.

First, work on developing your UVP so that candidates know exactly what makes you different from other competitors and why they should want to work for you. Strive to create unique brand messaging that incorporates your genuine style, philosophy, and values, while being true to yourself.

Build a strong presence on social media and other online outlets to increase exposure and make your brand more recognizable. Also, incorporate positive testimonials on your website and social media from current or previous salespeople to articulate the benefits of working for you.

Making Your SaaS Company a Premier Destination

Unless you’re a well-known mega SaaS brand like HubSpot or Slack, you’ll likely encounter some challenges when attempting to hire top sales talent. By pinpointing the most common reasons for SaaS company struggles — competition, inefficient hiring, poor pay/benefits, lack of career development, and weak branding — and tackling them head-on, you should be able to solidify your brand as a desirable one to work for.

Hopefully, this will supply you with the momentum you need to take the next step forward and build a team of ultra-talented reps.

If you’re looking for the ultimate hiring readiness assessment, check out this one from HireDNA. Use it to source candidates faster, drastically reduce mistakes, increase retention, and build a better sales culture.

89% of Sales Candidates Accept Job Offers of the First Recruiter Who Contacts Them: How to Leverage This for Winning Top Talent

Posted on by Nick Mann

Here’s the scenario. After extensive (and costly) sales recruiting, you’ve finally pinpointed your dream candidate — someone who checks all the right boxes and who you feel would be the ideal salesperson for your role. But when you give them a call or shoot them an email, you find that they’ve moved on and have accepted a role with another company.

What happened? What went wrong?

More often than not in this situation, the problem is that you weren’t proactive and didn’t offer them the job quickly enough. For this post, I’ll discuss why this can prevent you from winning top talent and how to make sure you don’t fall into this trap in the future.

One Statistic You Absolutely Need to Know

First, try to put yourself in the shoes of an elite salesperson for a second. This person likely has plenty of options and leverage.

If they applied for multiple positions — as many jobseekers do — odds are more than one company is interested in their talent. And it probably won’t be long before someone recognizes what they bring to the table and tries to bring them on board.

Even if your company was the one they were most interested in, they’ll likely accept a comparable position if someone gave them an offer before you did. It’s nothing personal. It’s just a matter of who’s quickest to the punch.

And if the candidate needs to get hired in a hurry, it stands to reason that they would accept the first solid job offer that comes their way. This brings us to the one statistic you absolutely need to know.

“89% of applicants accept job offers faster when a recruiter contacts them.”

Rather than waiting around and leaving someone hanging after you’ve made a hiring decision, it’s crucial that you reach out right away with a formal job offer. Otherwise, you run a significant risk of losing top talent to a competitor.

You don’t need to rapid-fire right into onboarding, but you should let them know that you’ve chosen them for the job and what to expect next.

Two Other Compelling Stats

This makes sense considering that having to wait to see if they get an offer can be incredibly vexing for salespeople. In fact, 57% of people say the most frustrating part of the job search is waiting to see if they got the position after going through the interview process.”

Besides that, “Nearly one-quarter lose interest if they don’t hear back within one week after the initial interview; another 46 percent lose interest if there’s no status update from one-to-two weeks post-interview.”

And how can you blame them? The last thing you want to deal with when your livelihood is on the line is sluggish recruiters who leave you in the dark.

The bottom line is that candidates — especially those with a ton of talent and leverage — don’t want to wait around after an interview to be offered a job. They want it quickly.

Understanding this and adjusting your sales recruiting strategy accordingly is key to winning top talent. With that said, here are some specific ways to ensure you don’t squander golden opportunities.

Make Faster Decisions

A precursor to everything else is hastening your hiring decision-making. By this, I’m referring to avoiding requiring multiple levels of approvals from different team members before pulling the trigger. When this happens, you may have A+ sales candidates slip through your fingers by the time you’re able to get the green light for an offer.

Now I’m not suggesting foolishly rushing and not getting anyone else’s feedback. But it’s important to evaluate how many approvals you need before giving a sales candidate an offer and seeing if you could trim it back to streamline the process.

Maintain Consistent Candidate Communication

Communication throughout the hiring process is important anyway. But it’s especially critical after an interview and a candidate is waiting to find out if they landed the job or not. So you want to be sure that either you or a dedicated team member keeps your final round of candidates posted on the job status.

This starts with developing a sales candidate communication plan (you can learn how to create one here). And if someone reaches out to you to check the status, you should respond within 24 hours max.

Strike Fast With a Job Offer

Once you’re certain that you want to hire a particular candidate, don’t waste any time giving them a formal job offer. As soon as all key stakeholders agree, go ahead and let the candidate know right away so they don’t get lured into another position.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to provide them with ALL of the information right off the bat. This will come in phases during onboarding. But you’ll want to give them the good news that you want to bring them on board and provide them with the basics of what to expect next.

Also, be sure to include the basics like contact info, job details, salary, and benefits for quick reference.

That way they can officially shut down their job search and start preparing to join your sales team.

Winning Top Talent By Proactive Recruiting

Let’s recap. Sales recruiting can be incredibly competitive, and highly talented reps often have multiple companies vying for them. One of the main keys to landing superstar reps is having an efficient recruiting process and ensuring a team member immediately contacts them once they’ve been chosen.

The longer you wait, the greater the chances of them being snatched up by another company. But if you act quickly and maintain close communication along the way, the odds are in your favor that you’ll come out on top.

Want to take your sales recruiting to the next level by eliminating weaknesses and attracting ideal candidates? Take the HireDNA Hiring Readiness Assessment. Using it can improve screening accuracy, help you source candidates faster, reduce time to fill, and more.

The Impact of Compensation Structure on SaaS Sales Recruitment

Posted on by Nick Mann

There are several factors that SaaS sales reps consider when looking for a job, including career development opportunities, working environment, benefits, and company culture. But when you get down to the nitty-gritty, compensation is still number one for many reps. Therefore, compensation structure will greatly impact your SaaS sales recruitment.

In this article, I’ll break down the specifics regarding the impact of compensation structure and offer recent data on how much salespeople earn on average.

Attract Top SaaS Sales Talent

According to the 2022 Salesforce State of Sales report, “The top reasons sales professionals want to leave their jobs include unrealistic sales targets and uncompetitive pay and benefits.” Although money isn’t everything, there’s no denying that it’s a major factor, if not THE main factor for SaaS salespeople when considering which company to work for.

If you want to attract the true superstars of your industry, you’ll need an enticing compensation structure. Later I’ll provide a breakdown of what companies pay on average so you’ll have a benchmark for reference. But for now, know that the salary you offer top SaaS sales candidates will heavily impact your ability to bring them on board.

Motivate SaaS Salespeople

Not only does a solid compensation structure help attract top talent, it also plays an instrumental role in motivating them to perform at their best. I think this quote from the Revenue Operations Alliance says it perfectly.

“Poor compensation is a major contributor to sales rep turnover. If you don’t nail your approach to compensation, you may be at risk of losing your top talent. Rewarding your sales team with competitive pay and setting them realistic quotas, keeps them happy and motivated to perform. If quotas are too high, you risk demotivating your reps.”

Just put yourself in the shoes of an elite rep for a second. If they know they’re getting paid fairly and have incentives like bonuses and other rewards for going above and beyond, they’ll be far more motivated than if they were getting paid below average with zero incentives. And if they work for a company that pays better than most competitors and offers robust bonuses and rewards, the rep will likely push themself even further.

Conversely, if they receive less than average pay with little to no bonus opportunities, you’re likely to get only the bare minimum from them. This classic scene from the movie Office Space comes to mind here.

Drive Revenue Growth

When you’re able to 1) attract top SaaS sales talent and 2) keep them consistently motivated to perform at their best, an inevitable result in most cases is increased revenue.

As we’ve discussed, well-paid sales reps are more likely to go the extra mile. In turn, this can translate into a host of benefits, including:

  • Alignment with company goals
  • Not only reaching but exceeding sales targets
  • More closed deals
  • Improved customer relationships to set the stage for upselling and repeat purchases
  • Better collaboration with other salespeople, as well as with other company departments

When you look at it from this perspective, investing more in a salesperson’s salary can pay off in the long run. Although you may spend more upfront, the revenue spike you’ll likely will often justify it.

Retain Sales Reps

And let’s not forget one of the most critical elements for building a successful SaaS company — retention. Obviously, retaining customers is huge for gaining momentum. But it’s also extremely important to retain your salespeople, especially top performers.

This starts by offering a strong salary structure to begin with. But experts say it’s also important to offer periodic salary increases. In fact, “59% of professionals polled believe that salary increases are the most effective tool in retaining top talent.” It’s also worth noting that “26% consider bonuses to be the primary mechanism.”

Ideally, you’ll lay a strong foundation by offering new SaaS salespeople fair or better-than-average pay. And over time, with good performance, you’ll steadily increase their salary and offer bonuses along the way.

How Much Should You Pay Your SaaS Salespeople?

Now that we’ve established why having the right compensation structure is important, let’s discuss the question you’re probably wondering right now. How much should you pay your SaaS salespeople?

This is a topic we covered in-depth in this article, which contains a ton of great 2023. Here are the highlights to give you a basic idea of what most companies are paying their SaaS sales reps.

According to data from Comparably, the US average in 2023 was $109,335, which was the highest of the three sources I analyzed.

Glassdoor had a slightly lower number at $108,003.

And ZipRecruiter had the national average considerably lower at $82,141 per year.

After crunching these numbers, the overall average between the three sources was $99,826 a year. While there are numerous factors like location, company size, and employee experience that will impact how much a SaaS salesperson should get paid, I feel that around $100,000 a year is a pretty good baseline number.

Note that those in the SaaS industry tend to get paid more than other salespeople due to the level of expertise, training, and tech savviness they need to possess. So that’s something to take into consideration. If you’re looking for a practical guide on how to set up a compensation structure for your SaaS company, I suggest this one from HubSpot.

The Importance of a Strong Compensation Structure

To recap, having the right compensation structure can help you attract top talent, motivate your reps, drive revenue growth, and boost employee retention. Beyond that, it plays a vital role in the overall longevity of your SaaS company and in building brand equity. The bottom line is that you want to find the sweet spot where you pay SaaS salespeople enough without throwing money away by going overboard.

If you’re looking to level up your SaaS recruiting to find sales reps who check all the right boxes, try our Hiring Readiness Assessment. Improve screening accuracy, reduce hiring mistakes, and turn your sales hiring into a well-oiled machine.

83% of Sales Candidates Want a Clear Hiring Timeline: Here’s How to Give it to Them

Posted on by Nick Mann

Put yourself in a sales candidate’s shoes for a second. The average person is eager to find a sales position and ready to start ASAP. They’re also likely facing a lot of uncertainty that could make them anxious. The last thing they want is any vagueness with the hiring process.

In fact, this could easily result in them jumping at another sales position, where you lose out on top-tier talent to a competitor. A simple way to avoid this problem is to provide sales candidates with a clear hiring timeline so they know exactly what to expect.

Why It’s Important to Have a Clear Hiring Timeline

Almost everyone knows what it’s like to be in job search mode. I know I do.

You’re busy sending out resumes and cover letters, filling out applications, and corresponding with hiring managers. There’s a lot going on.

When you find a prospective employer that looks promising, your goal is to quickly build rapport and swiftly move through the hiring process. From initial screenings to interviews to follow-up conversations to ultimately getting an offer and beginning onboarding, you want to navigate through this sequence of steps seamlessly.

But what if you find what seems like an amazing employer but they have absolutely no transparency in terms of what to expect with the hiring process? This can be incredibly frustrating, and many would-be superstar salespeople may be lost because of it.

Having a clear hiring timeline is essential because this provides the structure that lets sales candidates know for certain what’s about to happen. And this is something that most people crave, with research finding that “83% of candidates prefer having a clear timeline of the hiring process.”

But it goes deeper than that and is beneficial for your hiring team as well. This quote from ClearCompany summarizes it perfectly.

“Without a hiring timeline, you’re essentially creating a new process every time you hire. You can’t tell candidates — or your internal teams — when a decision will be made. Everyone, including your recruiting team, is in the dark. That’s frustrating for employees and candidates alike.”

With that said, here’s a straightforward strategy for giving sales candidates the clear hiring timeline they seek.

Outline the Sequences of Your Hiring Stages

First, you’ll need to articulate the exact series of steps involved in your sales hiring process. This can look slightly different from company to company, but here are two examples that you can build your outline around.

This one is quite simple and involves five basic steps.

  1. Verify a candidate’s information
  2. Interview them
  3. Evaluate their skills
  4. Perform employment verification
  5. Make your hiring decision

The other example is a little more involved with additional steps, but it should provide a thorough hiring process that increases your chances of finding the ideal sales candidate.

I suggest spending some time looking at these two examples and considering any other steps that are unique to your hiring and fleshing out a concrete process. Also, be sure to include roughly how long each step will take so that candidates and your sales hiring team know.

For example, you may mention that candidates can expect to hear back from you within three days after conducting an assessment test to schedule an interview.

Keep in mind that you can (and probably should) make changes as time goes on. But this should serve as a solid first draft so you can be on the same page with sales candidates. This brings us to our next point.

Provide an Overview of the Hiring Timeline to Sales Candidates

Once you’ve got a finished product, you’ll want to type up a tangible outline that you can give to sales candidates, as well as your hiring team. Here’s a simple example that I came up with off the top of my head.

Application Review and Screening1 week
Initial Phone Interviews3 days
In-Person or Video Interviews3 days
Reference/Background Check3 days
Offer and Negotiation1 week
Onboarding2 weeks

Notice that this not only shows the precise sequence of steps that will occur in the hiring timeline but also the approximate length of time with each step. And in the spirit of underpromising and overdelivering — which I find to be highly important in hiring and business in general — it’s best to give yourself some wiggle room with dates.

For instance, it would be better to tell candidates to expect it to take a week to receive an offer after conducting a reference/background check and it only takes five days to get back to them rather than promising three days and it taking you five.

In terms of the tools for creating a clear hiring timeline, a basic spreadsheet should be sufficient. However, you can find free, customizable templates here that have stronger aesthetics.

Track Progress and Make Adjustments

After you’ve identified the hiring timeline, created a tangible outline, and started implementing it, be sure to track your progress and measure the results.

Here are some specific quantitative KPIs to look at:

  • Time to fill
  • Time to hire
  • Interview-to-offer ratio
  • Offer acceptance rate
  • Quality of hire
  • Cost per hire
  • Employee retention

It’s also important to dive into qualitative metrics that rely less on numerical data and more on feedback. Mainly, I suggest getting direct candidate input on what their experience is like so you can identify pain points to fix. It’s also smart to get direct input from your hiring team to see how satisfied they are with the process and what could be improved.

Optimizing Sales Recruiting with a Clear Hiring Timeline

Given that 83% of sales candidates like having a clear hiring timeline it’s definitely worth your time to provide them with one. And it’s really not that complicated and only involves three steps.

Outline your hiring stages. Provide a concrete overview of those stages to sales candidates and your hiring team. Make ongoing improvements as you gather data.

Do that, and you should be on your way to creating an amazing sales candidate experience, which should result in more quality hires, increased ROI, and greater retention.

If you’re looking to eliminate weaknesses in your sales recruiting, try out our Hiring Readiness Assessment. It can help lower your recruiting costs, expedite your time to fill, and dramatically reduce poor hires.

How Optimized Sales Recruiting Can Shorten Your Hiring Cycle By 60% 

Posted on by Nick Mann

The average time to hire in 2023 was 44 days, with research finding that the process is harder than ever. While you never want to cut corners and risk the quality of the salespeople you hire, it’s important to shorten your hiring cycle as much as possible. According to a 2024 study, the best way to accomplish this is with optimized sales recruiting, which can shorten your hiring cycle by 60%.

For perspective, if it normally takes your recruiting team 44 days to make a hire, that number would be slashed to around 17 days. For this post, I’ll unpack the three main strategies to establish optimized sales recruiting based on the 2024 study referenced above.

Refine Your Job Posting

Sales recruiters tend to run into one of two problems with job postings. They either bring in too many unqualified candidates, which creates delays as they have to sift through a bloated candidate pool. Or they don’t bring in enough qualified candidates, which means they have to make revisions and spend more time chasing down additional candidates.

Ideally, you’ll find the sweet spot, where you drive a sizable volume of qualified candidates, which you can quickly narrow down into the best of the best. But how do you do this?

Here are some suggestions:

  • Use clean job post formatting that’s easy to read
  • Include must-have requirements in a job posting
  • Be transparent about salary
  • Be clear about your company’s values and culture
  • Offer employee testimonials

Another hack is to include a specific keyword toward the end of your job description. When applying, ask candidates to mention the keyword to prove they read the entire job description.

Remove Candidate Application Obstacles

Let’s say a qualified candidate has found your job posting, checked out your brand, and is ready to apply. But once they start the application process they quickly sour because they encounter frustrating obstacles — mainly the application being overly lengthy or complicated.

This is an issue that’s far too common. In fact, one study even found that as many as 60% of talented salespeople ditch an application because it’s too long or complex. Because more than half of would-be candidates never enter the candidate pool because of the application process, this is a low-hanging fruit that most sales recruiters need to assess.

We wrote an entire article on how to simplify the job application process, which you can find here. But some of the highlights include:

  • Keeping the entire process under five minutes
  • Avoiding having multiple steps where candidates have to fill out several pages or forms
  • Avoiding requesting excessive, unnecessary data
  • Avoiding asking a candidate to create an account to apply
  • Having autofill to instantly populate an application with sales candidate info

Also, keep tabs on the functionality of your application, ensuring pages load quickly and there are no glitches that are creating disruptions.

Outline the Hiring Process

The final strategy stated by the 2024 study to reduce your hiring cycle by up to 60% was clearly outlining the hiring process so candidates know exactly what to expect. Not only does this set the right expectations with sales candidates right from the start and create a better overall experience, it also helps your recruiting team because it provides you with a consistent roadmap so you can move through the process more efficiently.

Below is a simple example of what a hiring process outline may look like. Note that this is an arbitrary example and doesn’t specifically involve the sales industry. However, it does a great job of showing what a concise overview should look like.

Use Analytics to Pinpoint Specific Areas to Improve

Like most areas of business, succeeding with sales recruiting requires making data-driven decisions. Even the most airtight sales recruiting process has some type of weakness, and analytics will help you find it. That’s why I suggest using a recruitment analytics platform to make a thorough assessment of your process.

While you can figure out a lot on your own, this provides full transparency that lets you see the big picture. For example, you can see:

  • The total number of candidates you’re getting
  • How many days it takes on average to fill a position
  • How many days to the first interview
  • Which sources are generating the most candidates
  • Which devices candidates are using

Here’s a real-life example of what the main dashboard looks like for recruitment analytics platform Talentech.

This is extremely helpful for getting an overarching view of what’s happening. It should also help you identify any issues that are getting in the way. For instance, maybe you’re spending a lot of time and money on a particular source for driving candidates but it’s only having a minimal impact. In that case, you would want to reevaluate your strategy and potentially pivot, where you double-down on a different source that’s having a bigger impact.

I also like that Talentech has a candidate quality score, which gives you a quantifiable number of what percentage of candidates possess the qualities you’re looking for.

Keep in mind that this is just one platform, and there are numerous options available, each with different strengths and features. The bottom line is that if you haven’t been using recruitment analytics up until this point, it’s definitely worth considering, as it can improve nearly all aspects of the recruiting process.

Drastically Reducing Time-to-Hire with Optimized Sales Recruiting

Hiring Readiness Assessment

Sluggish, inefficient sales recruiting can be toxic to your company, as it can put a strain on your workforce, lower morale, and increase turnover. Therefore, developing a game plan for optimized sales recruiting should be a top priority.

Some of the best ways to do that are to improve your job posting, remove application obstacles, clearly outline the hiring process, and use analytics to eliminate problem areas. Do that effectively, and you can shorten your hiring cycle by as much as 60%.

When it comes to recruiting elite sales talent, try the Objective Management Group sales assessment. It’s designed to help you find rockstar candidates who will thrive in your unique sales environment and keep turnover to a minimum.