Employer Branding in Sales: Attracting Top Talent in a Competitive Market

Understanding Your Employer Brand

Before creating an employer branding strategy, it's vital to first understand your current employer brand and reputation. This involves honestly assessing how your organisation is viewed internally and externally.  

Conduct surveys and focus groups to gather employee feedback on their perceptions of the company's strengths, weaknesses, values and culture. Examine your employee satisfaction scores and turnover rates, as these indicate how appealing your employer brand is. 

You'll also want to explore external perceptions by gathering data on your reputation and reviews on sites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn. Social media monitoring can also provide insight into what potential candidates say about your employer brand. 

Evaluating this data will help you identify the most prominent traits associated with your employer brand. Look at which attributes are viewed positively that you can emphasise, along with any problem areas that need improvement. 

Draft an employer value proposition (EVP) that clearly defines what makes your company stand out as an employer. An authentic and compelling EVP will highlight your most attractive qualities. These may include opportunities for advancement, competitive pay and benefits, rewarding work, outstanding leadership, diversity and inclusion efforts, work/life balance, and a great company culture.

Analysing your current employer brand will reveal key strengths to promote and any weaknesses to address. This will allow you to devise an employer branding strategy that maximises your appeal to top sales talent.

Creating a Compelling EVP

The employee value proposition (EVP) is the unique set of benefits an employee receives in return for the skills, capabilities and experience they bring to a company. A strong EVP is crucial for attracting top sales talent in a competitive market.  

When creating your sales EVP, focus on the key elements that will appeal most to high-performing sales professionals:

Compensation

To reward top performers, offer competitive base salaries, uncapped commissions, and performance bonuses. Salespeople want to know they can earn what they are worth.

Career Progression

Provide clear paths for advancement and growth. The chance to take on more responsibility and develop new skills appeals to ambitious sales talent.

Learning and Development

Invest in ongoing sales training, coaching, and mentoring to help your team continuously improve. 

Technology and Tools

Equip your sales team with the latest CRM, sales engagement platforms, and productivity tools to work efficiently.

Culture and Leadership 

Foster a sales culture of collaboration, transparency, diversity, and purpose. Salespeople want to enjoy where they work.

Some examples of companies with compelling sales EVPs include:

• HubSpot - Offers unlimited vacation time, career growth paths, and solid sales enablement technology.
• Salesforce - Known for highly competitive commissions, sales contests, and merit-based promotions.
• Microsoft - Provides extensive sales training programs and pathways to leadership roles. 
• Oracle - Promises the opportunity to work on enterprise deals with large commissions.

By tailoring your EVP to appeal to top sales talent, you can stand out and attract the best professionals for your team. Match the desires of your ideal candidates and deliver on your employer brand promise.

Promoting Your Employer Brand Externally

An employer's external brand and reputation play a massive role in attracting top sales talent. With today's digital landscape, companies must develop and promote their employer brand across various online platforms and channels.  

Social Media and Online Presence

An active social media presence and engaging content strategy enables companies to authentically showcase their employer brand and workplace culture. Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and X allow brands to highlight their mission, values and employer proposition. This gives candidates a transparent view of the company and whether it aligns with their values.  

Sales professionals are digitally savvy and will review a company's social channels when researching employment opportunities. Share employee testimonials, videos, photos and announcements to humanise your employer brand. Developing an ambassador program can also empower employees to organically endorse your company.

Recruitment Marketing Tactics

Companies can amplify their employer brand through recruitment marketing campaigns on social media and digital platforms. This involves creating branded content, advertisements and landing pages that speak to your ideal candidates. 

For sales roles, this could include ad campaigns targeting passive candidates on LinkedIn or sponsoring relevant podcasts and video channels. PR and partnerships with industry publications help broadcast your employer brand to wider talent pools.

Employer Review Sites

Sites like Glassdoor and Indeed enable current and past employees to review companies, providing transparent insights into their employer brand, culture and reputation. While you can't control these reviews, you can monitor your profile and use feedback to identify areas for improvement. 

Respond professionally to both positive and negative commentary. Address constructive critiques as an opportunity to showcase your responsiveness. This level of transparency and accountability helps attract candidates who value ethics and accountability.

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Living Your Employer Brand Internally 

Your employer brand needs to come to life internally for employees to authentically represent it externally. Employees are your most valuable brand ambassadors, so aligning your internal culture and environment with your EVP is crucial. Here are some tips:

• Enable Two-Way Communication - Encourage open and honest feedback between leadership and employees. Make sure employees feel heard and know their opinions matter.
• Train Managers - Managers represent the company culture, so equip them with the skills to align team values with your employer brand. Offer management training if needed.
• Celebrate and Recognise - Spotlight employees that exemplify your values. Recognition fuels engagement and gives real examples of your culture in action.  
• Onboard for Culture - Set the tone from day one that new hires are joining not just a job but a company with a distinct culture. Clarify expectations.
• Measure Sentiment - Use surveys and stay interviews to gauge employee satisfaction and sense of belonging. Track progress over time.
• Support Wellbeing - Foster work-life balance, health, and community. Make sure perks and policies align with your employer brand values.
• Enable Flexibility - Allow employees to work in ways that empower them to do their best work while supporting work-life integration.
• Encourage Collaboration - Break down silos and enable cooperation. An interconnected culture makes for better brand ambassadors.  

The bottom line is ensuring employees feel aligned with your values, included in the mission, and supported. Satisfied employees who see your brand coming to life internally will naturally promote and protect it externally.

Investing in Professional Development  

Professional development opportunities are a key driver for top sales talent. Investing in your team's growth demonstrates your commitment to their success and gives them the skills to thrive. This strengthens engagement, retention and your employer brand.

Some impactful ways to invest in professional development include:

Training, Mentoring and Career Growth Opportunities
Offer formal training, mentorships, stretch assignments and clear paths for advancement. This shows your willingness to develop skills and invest in your team's future leadership.

Ongoing Learning and Skills Building

Provide resources and incentives for continuous education through conferences, online courses, certifications and more. A learning culture is magnetic for ambitious professionals.

Leadership Development Programmes

Develop tomorrow's sales leaders with programs that teach management, strategy, communication and other critical skills. This builds your leadership pipeline and equips your team for greater responsibility.

The world's most talent-focused companies all share a strong commitment to professional development. This enables their people to thrive, making the organisation more capable and competitive. By actively participating in your team's growth, you demonstrate that their success matters and position your employer brand to win top talent.

Providing a Great Work Environment 

The work environment plays a huge role in attracting and retaining top sales talent. With so many options available, sales professionals can be selective about the type of workplace they want to be part of. 

To stand out, make sure you provide an exceptional work environment with the following characteristics:

Modern, Collaborative Office Spaces

Invest in comfortable, inspiring office spaces that facilitate collaboration and relationship building. Open floor plans, creative common areas, and technologies like video conferencing create connectivity.

Remote and Flexible Work Options

Offer flexibility through work from home options, adjustable hours, and sabbaticals. Empower employees to work when and where they are most productive.

Fun, Engaging Company Culture

Foster positivity and camaraderie through employee events, team-building activities, and social hours. Make the office an enjoyable place people want to be.

An inviting work environment shows you value your employees' needs and happiness. This gives your employer brand a competitive edge in wooing top sales professionals who prioritise corporate culture in their job search.

Aligning with a Higher Purpose 

An increasing number of top sales talent, especially millennials and Gen Z, seek employers with a higher purpose beyond profits. They want to work for companies that are contributing to society meaningfully. This presents an opportunity for businesses to highlight their commitments to corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion.

Giving back to the community through volunteering, donations, and philanthropic programs resonates with socially conscious talent. They want to work for companies that care about more than just the bottom line. Whether matching employee charitable contributions, allowing paid time off for volunteering or organising fundraising and community service days, companies should showcase how they make a difference.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have also become priorities for job seekers today. They want to see a workplace culture that values and embraces differences. Businesses must demonstrate their commitment to DEI in their external branding and internal practices. That includes proactively recruiting underrepresented groups, having employee resource groups, ensuring pay equity, providing unconscious bias training, and holding leaders accountable for cultivating an inclusive environment.  

Aligning your employer brand with a higher purpose beyond profits is vital to attracting sales talent who want their work to have meaning and impact the world. Companies that authentically live these values will have a competitive advantage.

Summary - Bringing It All Together

As we've covered, to create the best employer brand, there are several key elements to focus on:

• Understand what your current employer brand is and what perceptions exist in the market. Perform research to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
• Create a compelling and authentic EVP that highlights your differentiators as an employer. Align your EVP with your target candidate profile.
• Promote and share your employer brand story across all candidate touchpoints. Leverage social media, your careers page, events, employee advocates, and more. 
• Ensure the actual employee experience lives up to the employer brand promise. Foster a positive work culture and invest in professional development.
• Offer competitive compensation, excellent benefits, and a supportive work environment. Make sure your environment enables sales success.
• Align your employer brand with a higher purpose that resonates with top sales talent. Demonstrate your commitment to ethics and values.
• Continuously gather feedback from employees and candidates. Track metrics tied to your employer brand. Identify new opportunities to evolve.

For companies looking to attract the best sales professionals, prioritising your employer brand is key. By conveying what makes you an employer of choice and delivering on it, you'll be better positioned to win top talent. Assess your current employer brand and explore how to make it more compelling for sales recruits. A strong employer brand gives you a vital edge.

Martin Veasey Talent Solutions specialises in recruiting high-calibre sales professionals for companies worldwide. Contact our team for more information on employer branding and attracting the best candidates.