As an entrepreneur, when you first launch your company, you often start out doing most of the work yourself. However, at a certain point, it’s time to hire a team so you can focus on the higher-level work required of a CEO and grow your business. But who should you hire first? When should you bring on a sales team? What hiring strategies can help you find the best talent? How should you organize your team for top performance and growth? All these questions (and more!) are answered in my latest Sales Talk for CEOs podcast.

This episode features Jacco van der Kooij, Founder of Winning by Design, a global B2B revenue consulting and training company founded in 2012. In this interview, Jacco takes us back to those early days when he was running the company by himself, through his years as CEO, and up until today when he has passed the CEO baton on to someone else and stepped back into the role of Founder of the multi-million-dollar international company.

In this interview, you will learn why Jacco suggests not to hire your sales team first (and who you should hire instead!). He also shares two hiring strategies his company uses to make it easier to find the best candidate for your position (and quickly eliminate those who won’t make the cut!). Finally, you will find out about the intriguing way he groups his team members into customer-focused pods to enable them to become powerhouses for customer service. At the heart of it, this episode is all about growth and how your hiring and team organization can set your business up for success. Listen in, and you are sure to get amazing insight to grow your company too.

Highlights:

3:22 Growth via recurring revenue

8:10 Why you shouldn’t hire for sales early

15:37 Two unique elements to include in your hiring process

17:14: Taking a multi-dimensional approach to growth

21:50 Organizing your team: units instead of individuals

27:25 The evolving role of CEO in sales

31:05 When it’s time to step back

35:35 Marketing: entering the realm of science

“Selling is not what the customer wants. What the customer is involved in is buying. Instead of selling to them, which is against their nature, help them to buy, which is human nature from the get-go.”

Connect with Jacco van der Kooij in the links below:

Website: https://winningbydesign.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaccovanderkooij

You can learn more about and connect with Alice Heiman in the links below:

Website: https://AliceHeiman.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/