Three Hiring-Related Truths About Sales Effectiveness
I was on a phone call this morning with the CEO of a client company who was describing how he had just rejected a candidate for a critical sales leadership position, which would based in a remote location.
Although this company doesn’t employ as formal a hiring process as ESR recommends, they are on the right track. During a one-hour phone interview, answers to specific questions the CEO posed resulted in him not feeling the candidate was “diagnostic enough”—a specific requirement for that position. Warning flags went up.
The candidate convinced the CEO that he should come to corporate headquarters, apparently trying to create a closing situation with the CEO. The CEO agreed to the visit, but asked the candidate to prepare a presentation to be delivered to the CEO and other executives simulating a selling situation. The CEO had followed our advice on this. ESR always recommends simulations as part of any recruitment process.
The CEO told me, “the presentation was underwhelming. He turned out to be more a talker than a listener, because there was too much reflecting back. He didn’t really understand our business and value proposition. He was just mirroring…” It was immediately and abundantly clear that this candidate was not who he purported to be.
So this CEO averted a hiring disaster. This person would have cost his company a million in salary, benefits, expenses, lost business opportunity, as well as potentially damaged relationships with existing customers in that territory and a loss of momentum for that company during these challenging economic times.
So my conversation with the CEO prompted me to share with you three hiring-related truths about sales effectiveness:
- If you don’t have the right people in the right jobs, all the training, coaching, tools, technology, and support in the world is not going to result in sustainable sales effectiveness.
- You can’t coach, train, motivate, incentivize, or otherwise transform C-players into B players. Not according to ESR’s definition of those categories. So, to put it simply, don’t hire any more C-players and put a plan together to redeploy the ones you currently have.
- ESR has seen very limited cases where hiring authorities can consistently select the right salesreps, sales managers, or VPs of sales without a formal process, including profiling, structured behavioral interviews, psychometric/predictive tests, and simulations.
Photo: © Rick Sargeant – Fotolia.com
Filed under: Hiring
Definitely agree wholeheartedly 3 Hiring Truths and with the importance of a structured process to interviewing and hiring salesreps, since it’s virtually impossible to provide enough training/coaching to fit the wrong profile into the right position.
In addition to the behavioral questioning and profiling techniques, having a list of the first, second and third priority of personality traits can also be helpful. One company I worked with in the past simply assembled this list:
First priority of Personality Traits: Extrovert, Competitive, Energetic, Confident, Great Listener
Second priority: Team Player, Strong Problem Solver, Big Picture Person, Perceptive, Empathic
Third priority: Focus, Relaxed, Quick Thinker, Persuasive, Self-Directed
As you can see, the salesrep really needs to be ALL of these things – but simply getting a sense of priority to a company’s ‘culture’ can really help focus the interview & questioning process. Role plays, sample presentations and other tactics during the interview to see the salesrep in action also really provide a great window into the style, presence and knowledge of the candidate.
The other thing that can be effective to selecting the right sales resource is being honest and clear about what parts of the sales cycle they will be completing. If the sales job entails the full spectrum of the sales cycle (from cold-calling, prospecting, discovery, solution definition, proposal, contracts, negotiation, closing, and even account management), then ensure this is communicated during the interview process! Clarity on expectations is crucial for a fit for both the company and the employee. And realistically, salesreps may not enjoy or be comfortable conducting all stages of the sales cycle– so knowing where they are highly skilled and comfortable, and where they may need assistance will go a long way to a successful employee-employer relationship!
Sue,
You’ve offered some real value in your comment. Thanks.
For the record, ESR’s hiring model considers skills, traits, and behaviors (the manifestation of the skills and traits) as critical components of the profile mentioned in original post.
Great post. I have two observations. First, if people are not succeeding in their role, they are not happy. Their fear of looking for a new job may be a stronger emotion than their current unhappiness, so they do nothing. Ultimately, a manager is only hurting a C player by keeping them on board.
Second, corporate hiring processes are geared more towards processing all the candidates and their is generally no mechanism for tracking back the quality of hires to the process so that the process can be improved. Hiring poorly is extremely costly. Invest time (and money if necessary) to improve. After all, how many businesses have declared that they will never hire another person again?
Dave,
As always, I enjoyed your points on this topic.
It’s interesting to me that with the emphasis that has been put on top grading, how many organizations still try to find a way to keep C players around. In sales, of all disciplines, it would seem that this would not be the case. But it still continues to happen way too much.
Your comment on simulations is spot on. As we all know, most salespeople can sell a 1 hour interview. But if you have them present, simulate a sales call, write a follow up letter to a sales call, etc you get to see them in action. I recommend to my clients that they have a sales candidate do all three of these as part of the process .
Thanks for another great post.
The follow-up letter is something that we recommend as well. But we have the candidates do it while they are still in the prospective employer’s office to assure it is they, not their professional-writer friend, that composes the letter.
Great post – Dave and useful tips. Hope all is well. We still see 8 out of 10 sales managers hiring based on smile and confidence of the reps they interview (which probably serves to explain why 40-50% of reps are below target). Even the smallest amount of process including steps such as role plays, behavioral tests, structured reference checks, or sample exercises, will make a difference in hiring results.
Cheers,
Eliot.
http://www.PeakSalesRecruiting.com/blog
[...] Dave Stein about the importance of a structured approach required to consistently hire sales reps – Three Hiring-Related Truths About Sales Effectiveness. As always he is logical in his observations: 1. If you don’t have the right people in the right [...]