The quality of a sales leader vastly affects the overall financial health of a business. Sales leaders ignite the fire that invigorates sales managers to achieve more and drive results! In short, the quality of your VP of Sales directly affects your sales performance. With this in mind, it is vital for HR and recruiting professionals to identify candidates that can leverage their experience for the success of the business.
Continue reading to learn about VP of Sales responsibilities and how to successfully identify individuals that drive business results. In this article, we will examine the following:
A Comprehensive Guide to Hiring a VP of Sales
VP of Sales Job Description
Job descriptions are a summary of responsibilities, necessary skills, and qualifications that a candidate must have to perform the role successfully. In short, it is a comprehensive account of what a candidate should know before applying. Below we’ve listed various VP of Sales responsibilities, and things to consider when building a complete job summary.
VP of Sales Job Summary
The VP of Sales job summary is a brief paragraph summarizing the company’s mission and goals. In addition, the job summary sets expectations for the position. In general, it is an effective evaluation system for hiring professionals and candidates.
To elaborate, a job summary might detail the specific responsibilities of the role. In general, the primary duties of a sales leader is to build a sweeping sales strategy to meet quotas, manage a team of sales professionals, and oversee the financial success of the department.
A well-written job summary is a productive technique to attract the appropriate candidates to your company. Candidates should gain a better understanding of your business and identify with its mission. In addition, candidates should be able to assess and compare their skill set to required responsibilities to make an educated guess at whether they’d be the right fit for the position. To gain a better understanding of the VP of Sales responsibilities, we’ve created a wide-ranging list for VP of Sales responsibilities below to assist the job summary writing process.
VP of Sales Responsibilities
The scope of the VP of Sales responsibilities is wide-ranging. Often sales leaders are strategists, mentors, teachers, and managers. Nonetheless, there are several standard tasks that a sales leader must perform to meet quotas and drive company success. Review this list of responsibilities and tailor it to your business to find the most qualified candidates.
- Promote company products and services
- Develop plans and strategies
- Manage sales teams
- Organize and maintain sales operations
- Manage sales budget
- Take charge of recruiting and hiring sales staff
- Motivate the sales team to achieve workplace goals
- Develop sales training programs
- Monitor market and competitor activity
- Improve customer satisfaction by anticipating consumer needs
- Identify where improvements can be made and develop success-driven plans
- Manage detailed sales expectations and plan accordingly
- Work closely with the marketing department
- Monitor customer activity
- Create sales reports
- Communicate and foster relationships with clients
In all, the responsibilities are wide-ranging. In addition, the duties can vary depending on company goals. Nonetheless, this list of standard responsibilities is a positive baseline for sales professionals.
VP of Sales Resume
Once you’ve laid out the VP of Sales responsibilities and expectations, you will want to make sure your candidate has the right qualifications. If you’ve done your due diligence, your job summary should have attracted only the best of the best.
Nevertheless, an adept resume screening process is needed to single out candidates that meet the appropriate job qualifications. In general, many industries and businesses require that a candidate has a relevant Bachelor’s—or higher—degree. Degrees are often in business administration, sales, marketing, or a related field. In addition, knowledge in a particular industry can be specified.
The candidate will need sufficient experience in the industry/field. For instance, the hiring manager may look for positive growth that the candidate has attributed to in previous roles.
The right candidate should meet all of your preferred characteristics before moving onto the next stage in the hiring process: interviews.
How to Hire a VP of Sales
The VP of Sales role takes a strong person to complete the position’s numerous responsibilities. To explain, a study on successful sales leaders suggests that successful individuals in this position share many attributes. Attributes include a strong command instinct, target fixation, sales intuition, control orientation, and strategic leadership skills.
The interview process provides hiring managers and professionals the opportunity to assess the candidates for these high-achieving qualities. In addition, HR professionals can delve deep into topics related to the candidate’s education, experience, and skills.
Ask your VP of Sales candidates the following compelling interview questions to start the discussion:
- Describe a time when you actively showed leadership skills at work. Your VP of Sales will be in charge of an entire sales department, so it is vital that the person you hire has strong leadership skills and knows how to use them.
- Describe a situation where your supervisor was not around, and you had to make a significant, possibly stressful, decision on your own. Did it work out? If not, what did you learn? Some people find it hard to take action without consulting their superiors. Therefore, you must ensure your new employee can take charge and make quick decisions on the spot. He or she needs to show accountability for his or her actions while still respecting his or her boss.
- What is your sales management process? Describe a time when you found this process to be successful. This question is essential because you need to analyze whether or not a candidate’s management process is effective. Moreover, it’s important to consider whether or not the person’s management style will be a good fit for your company. On the other hand, maybe that person has a management style you have not tried yet—perhaps it will benefit your business.
- How do you motivate fellow employees? You no doubt, want to hire a vice president who will treat your current employees well. It can be hard to motivate full-time employees to do the same job every day. Perhaps it would be beneficial for your company to have a lively, creative VP of Sales to drive employee morale.
- Describe selling tactics you have found to be successful in past roles. Most people will answer this question very differently. However, it will give you insight into how this person approaches the subject of sales, and thus explain whether or not they will be a viable option for your business.
In the end, there are numerous VP of Sales interview questions you could ask. So don’t limit your questions to these five. Ask the candidate questions tailored to your specific business to see whether they could perform well in your company or whether or not they would be an excellent cultural fit.
VP of Sales Salary
Compensation for a VP of Sales position varies widely. Nonetheless, the standard compensation for sales leadership ranges from $110,000 to $300,000, according to LinkedIn.
Keep in mind that the standard salary may deviate from the statistics as mentioned earlier based on the industry, company, location, and experience. To demonstrate, based on the 2019 Pharmaceutical Sales Salary Report, on average, a candidate with less than two years of experience will earn $101,923. A seasoned professional with 20-plus years in the industry can earn nearly $170,000.
All in all, several factors may affect a candidate’s salary. Carefully consider each element to create an accurate and fair compensation package.
Find Your VP of Sales More Efficiently!
There are so many factors that go into finding and hiring the perfect candidate for a Sales Vice President position. So why not make it easier by using an executive recruiting firm?
For two decades, The Recruiterie team has championed business success through extensive consultations to pinpoint individuals and personalities that grow businesses. The Recruiterie partners with your leadership team to learn about the company’s mission and values, and determine what success looks like for your company. Using this information, The Recruiterie performs an exhaustive search to find the best candidate(s) for your business.
Through this process, Recruiterie embodies its mission to build connections that align candidates and stakeholders with similar purpose-driven values. Contact the Recruiterie online or call (602) 326-6820 to start your partnership with Recruiterie and find your next VP of Sales!