A Bath entrepreneur has said he launched his latest company as he was “sick of hiring mediocre salespeople.”
Pitched as the "Tripadvisor of the sales sector”, Kevin Hayler’s new venture Sales Made Easy is a training platform which sees salespeople earn accreditations based on course passes and results - as well as reviews from their own customers. Sales Made Easy said it holds people taking their courses accountable for their learning “in an open way.”
Individual scores out of five and ranking lists are available for recruiters and business owners to see, with the company saying this makes it easier for sales firms to hire the right person - with “no hiding place” for those found “underperforming.”
Mr Hayler has invested £250,000 of his own money into the company.
The businessman, who has previously had sales manager roles with Barclaycard and merchant services provider Handepay, said the platform would motivate salespeople to improve their score in order to progress their careers, while allowing recruiters “a clearer measure” on performance.
Mr Hayler said: “This concept came about because I was sick of hiring mediocre salespeople, because as you imagine, most of them interviewed very well! Once in the role, I found teams of salespeople operating on very different levels of execution, so turnover of staff was high, targets weren’t being met, and interviewing became a hard process to judge performance.
“I wanted to create a way of making the sector of sales an appealing one to enter, one that clearly demonstrates a person’s success rate, and one that will inevitably end the standard interview process.
He added: “It’s my long-term goal to change the world’s perception of sales and get rid of its ‘dirty’ perception. It’s a highly-skilled sector and one that should be recognised positively.”
Sonja Becker, sales and business development manager with Luxembourg-based software development firm Zortify, was one of the programme testers of Sales Made Easy ahead of the launch.
Ms Becker said: “What I personally like at Sales Made Easy is that it is ‘not just another’ sales training that trains us how to make quick profit at any cost. It is much more than that.
“Kevin and his team of sales experts focus with their human centric approach on building relationships, knowledge, trust and on empathy, which I personally think is key to build long-term customer relations.”
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