Sonia Meloff says founders mistake sales for friendliness and order-taking. Real salespeople are domain experts who need grit to knock on 100 doors and get knocked down 99 times. She covers compensation, quotas, and why commission cuts while raising targets kills morale.
Today we have a very special guest, Sonia Meloff, who helped hire thousands of top salespeople for startups and some of the largest organizations in the world.
I think a lot of people think sales is just being really friendly and listen to the customer's needs and take their orders. And the idea that, no, you're an expert in your domain, you're an expert in your field, and you approach it from a coaching perspective. And you have to have grit, you have to be prepared to knock on 100 doors. You might get knocked down 99 times.
What's the methodology used to recruit best salespeople?
We developed our own methodology, methodology for how to analyze salespeople.
How should entrepreneurs think about compensation, morale, retention?
My boss pulled me in at our annual review. He said, you're doing an amazing job and we have to increase your quota next year. Quotas are going up. And just so you know, the commission structures that we're paying, the commissions are going down. I said, oh, that's interesting.
Is there a most important trait if you're going into sales?
You know, to really be excellent, excellent salesperson, you have to have.
