Dave Stein's Blog for Sales Leaders

I had rollercoaster ride of an afternoon.  First, I reviewed my notes from yesterday’s briefing for ESR’s Principal Analyst, Al Case, and me by Corporate Visions.  We’ll be publishing a brief on them within a few weeks.   I prepared for an upcoming briefing with HR Chally.  We’re doing some upcoming work in the area of strategic account management as well.  Set up some calls for Al and me on that subject.  I led a conference call with four executives from a client’s sales organization.  They’re going to be evaluating and selecting a strategic sales performance improvement partner.  Then it was a one-on-one,  hour-long call with the CEO of a new client, with me beginning to understanding how, what, and to whom they sell.  Six more calls with his team coming up this week.  I spoke briefly with the CEO of a leading sales training company who would like to verbally use some of what ESR said about his company (in our recent Guide) with a prospect.  That’s generally fine with us, by the way.  The vendors tell us it’s a big credibility booster.  We do insist on prior approval of anything in writing.  Things were going well.

Then it went downhill, fast.  While preparing for the Chally briefing I spent a few minutes looking up pieces on hiring sales people, an often-covered topic here and by ESR.  I was horrified to read a piece by a well-known sales expert who is completely and utterly wrong on the subject of sales hiring.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that people reading and following the advice in this piece are contributing to, rather than overcoming, the sales hiring problem.  It’s almost guaranteed they are going to hire the wrong people for their open sales positions.  This person’s recommendations have been proven ineffective again and again, not only in the sales area, but in hiring for any position, in any company— proven ineffective in the field and through significant research over the past twenty years. This isn’t my opinion, it’s fact.

After I quickly decided that I wasn’t going to attack the person’s advice (never the person) from this blog, at least not today, I partioned off my frustration and disappointment, and moved along.

I was rewarded, and then some.  I came upon a series of blog posts by my friend Dave Brock.

There is no need for me to explain, position, or set the stage.  Read these three posts.  They are very, very important.

Photo credit: © goldenangel – Fotolia.com

Filed under: Hiring