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The First Week With Your New Sales Hire

Week One – Orientation and Training 

Setting The Stage For Success

As a sales manager you want your new sales rep to be out in the field producing as soon as possible. At the same time, you don’t want them to burn through leads simply because they don’t have a clear understanding of their product line. To ensure their success, there are several things you can do with your sales rep in their first week.

General Orientation

Provide company orientation, including values, history, department information and more.

Key Aspects of Selling

Train the new rep on key aspects of selling in your market. Discuss sales approach, your customers, the market, current trends and the competition.

Forecasting

Take time to walk through forecasting methodologies and systems. Not only will you ensure the new hire knows the standards surrounding these systems, but also your specific views regarding forecasting.

Product Training

Provide product and service demonstrations to aid in the learning process. If possible, make these demonstrations live. The more your new hire knows about the products they are selling, the more sales objections they will be able to overcome and the more sales they will close.

Call Shadow

New sales representatives perform better in the long run when they have the opportunity to see an experienced sales rep conduct a few sales calls. Have the new hire listen to several live sales calls performed by someone on your team who excels in this area and is a model representative for your company. This will allow the new sales rep to see how prospects and customers react to your product or service, as well as how objections are handled.

Presentation Shadow

Now that the new rep has an understanding of the product, they need to understand how your business presents it to prospective clients.

Take the new rep on tours of customer sites and provide introductions to key customers. Have the new sales representative shadow another rep while they present to a number of potential clients. Having the new rep listen, watch and learn as another team member interacts with a client allows you to properly demonstrate how your team presents your solution.

At the end of the week there should exist a comprehensive review to make sure that the new rep is on the same page as the sales manager in terms of goals and vision and that the rep is retaining all the new information to which they are being exposed. Read more about this phase of the on-boarding process in the free eBook The First 90 Days – Your Guide to Making New Sales Hires Produce Fast).

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

The First Week With Your New Sales Hire

Week One – Orientation and Training 

Setting The Stage For Success

As a sales manager you want your new sales rep to be out in the field producing as soon as possible. At the same time, you don’t want them to burn through leads simply because they don’t have a clear understanding of their product line. To ensure their success, there are several things you can do with your sales rep in their first week.

General Orientation

Provide company orientation, including values, history, department information and more.

Key Aspects of Selling

Train the new rep on key aspects of selling in your market. Discuss sales approach, your customers, the market, current trends and the competition.

Forecasting

Take time to walk through forecasting methodologies and systems. Not only will you ensure the new hire knows the standards surrounding these systems, but also your specific views regarding forecasting.

Product Training

Provide product and service demonstrations to aid in the learning process. If possible, make these demonstrations live. The more your new hire knows about the products they are selling, the more sales objections they will be able to overcome and the more sales they will close.

Call Shadow

New sales representatives perform better in the long run when they have the opportunity to see an experienced sales rep conduct a few sales calls. Have the new hire listen to several live sales calls performed by someone on your team who excels in this area and is a model representative for your company. This will allow the new sales rep to see how prospects and customers react to your product or service, as well as how objections are handled.

Presentation Shadow

Now that the new rep has an understanding of the product, they need to understand how your business presents it to prospective clients.

Take the new rep on tours of customer sites and provide introductions to key customers. Have the new sales representative shadow another rep while they present to a number of potential clients. Having the new rep listen, watch and learn as another team member interacts with a client allows you to properly demonstrate how your team presents your solution.

At the end of the week there should exist a comprehensive review to make sure that the new rep is on the same page as the sales manager in terms of goals and vision and that the rep is retaining all the new information to which they are being exposed. Read more about this phase of the on-boarding process in the free eBook The First 90 Days – Your Guide to Making New Sales Hires Produce Fast).

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Related posts

Outside Salespeople: Our Quick-Start Guide to Hiring

6 Ways to Cut Your Employee Onboarding Timeline

The 6 Elements of an Effective Sales Onboarding Program

close relpost-thumb-wrapper

Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Offer guaranteed compensation when negotiating with a sales candidate?

Temporary guaranteed compensation is a topic that often comes up in our work. It sometimes scares employers who are accustomed to paying sales people based on performance.

So should you include guaranteed compensation in your offer to a prospective sales hire? 

The answer depends on several factors:

If a prospective candidate is selling at quota for another employer, it likely took them time to ramp up and build full selling momentum.

Switching jobs and having to rebuild that momentum will impact a candidate’s commissions and income for some time. If the person is currently earning more in commissions than when they join your company, this represents a big disincentive.

Switching jobs also means leaving a well known environment for one that is unfamiliar. This translates into risk which great sales people will want to mitigate. Furthermore, the longer they have been with one employer, or the more successful they are, the higher the risk they assume when changing jobs.

While you may be offering better long term upside and other non-financial rewards, there is nothing more enticing to a candidate than a large base salary. This type of financial commitment is a sign that an employer is ready to invest in the new hire and ensure that they are happy and productive.

What kind of guarantees should we consider? 

The most common way to entice a great sales person to join your company is a draw. A draw is paid on top of base salary for a set period of time while the new hire develops their sales funnel and starts to convert sales at a full rate.

There are two types of draws:

  • Recoverable Draw – the sales person is paid a guaranteed level of commissions during the post hire start-up period. Depending on what the sales person earns in commissions during this period, additional commissions are paid to the rep or the rep owes commissions to the employer.
  • Non-Recoverable Draw – similar to the recoverable draw except the rep can earn additional commissions during the start-up period. Commissions, however, are never owed back to the employer. This type of draw is the most attractive to a new hire.

Draws represent an effective method for an employer to recruit top sales talent. To mitigate risk, we encourage companies to be selective about who they hire, and make sure there is a comprehensive on-boarding program in place. Choose the right person, invest in them and make it work.

To your success!

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

How To Create A High-Performance Sales Culture

We are big believers that creating a winning culture is absolutely essential for any type of success from sports to raising children and it is particularly important in terms of driving superior sales results (see our previous posts: Building a Culture of Success in Your Sales Team and Why Culture Matters in Sales Hiring).

Sales managers have a full plate every day; hiring, training, and driving their sales teams to meet demanding sales numbers. Few managers have the time to think about creating a culture of success. Yet, that is exactly what the best companies do—they work hard to build and communicate a culture that demands, and rewards, sales excellence.

Looking back at some of the books we have enjoyed and business experts we admire, we culled together some key success traits common across the cultures of leading organizations.

Candor

Managers should expect and encourage frankness from their sales people. Early in my sales management life, I had one rep who always had strong sales forecasts – that were never realized. We have all employed a”sunshine pump.” You have to challenge your reps. Dig beneath what they are saying, and motivate them to do better. Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of General Electric, credits developing candor throughout GE as a key reason he was able to change it from a stagnant corporation to a global powerhouse.

Welch would push sales teams to strive for more. If they achieved a 15 percent annual increase, he would applaud them, but then ask if they were exploring every possible avenue to achieve even higher goals. Candor ruffles a few feathers, but is critical to building an action-oriented business culture.

Planning and Strategy

The most successful companies we work with put emphasis on planning and strategy. They are not alone. A while back I read Jeb Blount’s book, “People Follow You,” and in it he says that great sales managers provide consistent systems that allow their people to win. They focus on coaching, mentoring, and providing a structure that gets their account executives in front of customers often. They spend lots of time watching their salespeople and helping them learn, as well as holding them accountable and recognizing their achievement.

Consistency

Another interesting read, Robert Hogan’s “Personality and the Fate of Organizations”, notes that 75 percent of people at work say their boss is the most stressful part of their work life. Part of the reason for this is management inconsistency. We see this as well when recruiting sales managers and reviewing their performance and management style. Micro-managing when they have time or under managing when they are busy. Providing conflicting guidance and not regularly holding reps accountable or reviewing performance. Great organizations are able to get a lot out of their people because they present a consistent culture. Team members are expected to excel, but always know where they stand.

Modern Sales Process

Creating a consistent culture of sales success is especially important in today’s world of advanced technology. In the past, prospects and clients got most of their information from the salesperson. Today buyers research different options online well before they contact any vendors.

A CEB Marketing survey showed B2B clients across many industries contact a salesperson after they have finished an average of 60 percent of the buying decision. As a result, every person in your company, as well as every piece of marketing, must share a consistent vision so that prospects receive a unified message.

Inspire Your Team

Sales is all about money, right? Well yes in most cases, but actually, creating a culture of success demands that sales managers have a broader foundation. Teach reps how to have meaningful integrity-based relationships with customers, and more than simply reminding reps of the goal to deliver revenues, promote a larger mission such as improving the lives of customers and regularly point to examples where this has happened.

Explain Why

Wait, aren’t good sales leaders hard-headed pragmatists? Who cares about inspiration? The best leaders make sure their people buy into their vision. In his landmark 2010 TED talk, author Simon Senek explains that great leaders inspire with belief. It explains why some leaders inspire while others do not.

Senek says every organization knows what they do, some know how they do it, but very few know why. Most companies and leaders operate from the outside in, with the “why” in the middle. Great leaders do the opposite. They live from the inside out, by starting with the “why.” They are able to create a culture of success because their followers support what the leadership believes, not just what they do.

Recast The Mission

Sales trainer Troy Harrison told American Business magazine that every successful company he has worked with had a strong sales culture. He recommends that organizations forget their original corporate mission statement, and start over by developing a mission with a sales slant that guides every decision made.

Rory Vaden, sales trainer and bestselling author of “Take the Stairs,” agrees. He explained in the American Express Open Forum that one of the keys to creating a top sales culture is being able to share a vision. He believes that great salespeople need an overarching creed, and it is the responsibility of management to create one for them.

High-performance sales cultures are based on candor, consistency, and a deeper mission to improve the lives of employees and customers. Step back from the daily grind, and examine where you can use some of these techniques to improve your own sales culture.

To your success!

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

The Most Common Sales Interviewing Mistakes

Optimized-Interviewing Mistakes

This may sound like a familiar scenario. That new sales person you hired isn’t working out. After six months on the job, he hasn’t met one monthly sales goal. And, he doesn’t get along with others on the team. How did this happen? He seemed so great in the interview!

If this sounds familiar, maybe it’s time to look at your interview techniques to determine if you are making these common sales interviewing mistakes that prevent companies from hiring great salespeople:

1. Not Asking Open-Ended Questions

If you ask mostly closed ended questions, candidates can often guess the right answer from the question and have a 50% chance of answering the correct answer – even candidates who are a poor match for your open role. Pose questions that require the applicant to provide thoughtful, detailed answers. The more the applicant tells you about their motivations and sales philosophy, the better you are able to judge whether they’re right for your company.

  • Questions such as “tell us about your largest sales achievements” or “why do you want to work here?”  may seem trite, but the answers will tell you a lot about the motivation and makeup of the applicant.
  • Another open ended question such as “how would you describe your sales style?” provides useful clues to how well he or she relates to customers. Do they listen to the customer and build relationships or are they all about the hard sell? Is their style right for you?
  • Asking “what specific features about our products do you think are most attractive to potential customers?” provides insight into whether the applicant has done his homework and researched your company. How will they position your products to customers?

2. Not Asking Behavioral Questions 

There is a stark difference between behavioral interview questions which focus on what someone has done and regular questions which focus on what someone would do. For instance, if you ask a sales candidate to describe how they have successfully sold a new product in a price competitive market, you will get a very different answer than if you asked how someone would sell your new product which exists in a price competitive market. The former questions forces someone to demonstrate that they have the critical experience and gives you insight into how they will behave if you were to employ them, while the latter question will elicit a theoretical answer which likely represents what the candidates thinks you want to hear, but may not provide any indication of how they will operate on your team.

3. Not Asking Follow-Up or Cross Referencing Questions

Many salespeople are able to predict the questions they will hear in an interview. They can often concoct convincing answers which may make them sound more accomplished and skilled than they actually are. This is particularly true for salespeople that can’t hold jobs and have more experience interviewing than closing sales. The key to breaking this is to ask key questions multiple time or multiple ways and to ask follow on questions that challenge the answers. For instance, if someone claims to have made 50 calls a day in a particular role, ask them to talk about their ratios of calls to closes. More often than not, winners know their own metrics and the metrics make sense when stacked against total sales performance. Does it all sound plausible? Challenge claims. If he or she cites percentages, ask for real numbers. Increasing sales by 50% is not very impressive if the real numbers were small to begin with.

4. Ignoring Applicant’s Language and Demeanor

There are many small queues which provide useful insight into both the real character of the person you are interviewing and their level of honesty.

  • Is the applicant conversant with standard sales terminology? How about the terminology used in your particular business?
  • Does he or she seem comfortable when citing facts and figures about  past accomplishments? Do his or her claims seems exaggerated? If so, they probably are.
  • How does the applicant present himself? Does their casual manner or formal dress strike the right tone for your business? Will this candidate fit in?

5. Forget to Check the Facts

Check all facts listed on an applicant’s resume, including college graduation dates, degrees earned, dates of past employment and, if possible, details such as salary history and the authenticity of awards claimed. Do this both in interviews and in reference checks. Ask around within your network. Does anyone you know also know the applicant? Does their story check out?

While there is no way to guarantee that your next new sales hire will be perfect, avoiding these common sales interviewing mistakes should increase your chances of hiring a great sales rep.

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

CSO Insights on Sales Hiring

A colleague forwarded to me a copy of the the Accenture report Connecting the Dots on Sales
Performance. The report, which analyses the 2012 CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization
Study, is a bit outdated, but still contains many useful insights.

We have pulled some quotes and added our own commentary.

The report suggests that changing customer behaviors, the blurring lines of multiple
industries and a shift from traditional to solution sales are making it difficult for employers to hire and retain
the right sales people.

CSO Insights 2012 data shows an overall lack of rigor in sales organization acquisition and retention processes.
Although a full 65.5 percent of CSOs believe that a scientific approach, such as using a competency testing to
hire sales representatives, delivers greater sales effectiveness, the data shows that very few organizations are
actually pursuing a more systematic hiring practice.

Peak’s Take: This is consistent with our own findings. Organizations
that have a structured formal approach to sales hiring are the exception not the rule, yet it is hard imagine
anything more critical to sales success than getting the right sales talent onto your team. Not surprisingly, we
often see a correlation between a lack of rigor in sales hiring with a lack of rigor in other aspects of the sales
organization including sales management and processes. And consequently mediocre results.

On the fact that hiring success is improving:

The 2012 data shows that more organizations are improving at hiring the right sales
people with 35.3 percent of CSOs saying that they consistently hire representatives who succeed at selling.

Peak’s Take: This means that an alarming 65% of organizations are not
consistently hiring reps that succeed. There is lots of work to be done in the average organization.

On the percentage of reps who are reaching their quotas:

The percentage of sales representatives attaining quota is not improving. In the last three years, a startling 36
to 47 percent of sales representatives have not reached their annual sales quota numbers.

Peak’s Take: It is not surprising that the percentage of sales reps that
are succeeding does not align with the number of sales managers who who claim to be successful at hiring. Sales
managers are a competitive bunch and I have met very that would admit a major portion of their team was missing
targets, even if that was in fact the truth. It will also take time for improved hiring practices to fully impact
the overall performance of sales teams.

On staff turnover and the ability of sales organizations to retain sales reps:

Organizations are continuing to experience high attrition problems. CSO Insights 2012
data indicates that the annual sales representative voluntary and involuntary turnover is at 21 percent.

Peak’s Take: The issue here is usually not only the lost staff and the
sales production they represent (the best sales talent tends to consolidate at the best companies), but also the
enormous lost investment in hiring, training, managing and developing sales reps that  must be replaced after hiring
them.

On the bottom line impact of effective sales hiring:

According to Accenture analysis, since talent hiring and retention policies impact as
much as 10 percent of the top line per year, it is imperative for CSOs to use scientific profiling to reduce
attrition rates

Peak’s Take: This is the knockout punch. 10% is enormous. Even a small
improvement in sales hiring effectiveness will have a huge impact on the success of most organizations. The sales
leaders who invest in their sales recruiting engine and place a priority on a structured approach to sales hiring
will hire better reps and drive superior sales results.

See the full report here: Connecting the Dots on Sales Performance

To your success!

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Connect:

Eliot
Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and
leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams.
He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also
Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton
University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales
Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales
team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.


Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Assessing Your Sales Compensation Plan

The answer depends on several factors, some of which can be hard to determine. Consider this: High turnover among sales staff may appear on the surface to be a bad thing. But if the skills of entry-level sales reps are adequate for the business you’re in, turnover may simply signal that your sales staff have done well and are now ready to move on. Why pay more for experienced talent if it’s not necessary?

On the other hand, don’t assume that your sales team is productive just because they are making their goals and not complaining. Perhaps they’re content to mine the established customer base because your compensation plan doesn’t encourage them to develop new business. An extra incentive for new accounts could motivate the sales staff and increase your market penetration. Then again, if they are paid more for new business, will they just go for the easy sell, pushing the cheapest item on the sales floor simply to get that new customer bonus? In that event, you’ll be paying them more for generating less revenue!

The key to assessing your sales comp plan is to measure it against the goals of your business strategy. Ask yourself:

1) Are your sales people demonstrating the behaviors you want to see?

The plan should be structured to reward the behaviors that are most likely to drive the strategy and achieve your business objectives. If the answer is to sell more big ticket items, and you are not seeing this, then you need to be sure your plan incorporates generous incentives for selling the right products and services. If the answer is to help your business serve a new demographic, then think about including a bonus for the rep who opens the most new accounts.

2) Am I losing reps to competitors who pay more?

People leave for a variety of reasons, and in some cases this is a good thing, but if you are losing good people to competitors and you think compensation might be the reason, ask yourself this: is your compensation plan competitive in today’s talent market? In other words, if you have to hire new sales staff, will you be paying enough to entice the best people to come to work for you?

3) Does the plan seem to effectively motivate some reps and not others?

You want the plan to motivate everyone on the sales team and to be perceived as fair, but different people are motivated in slightly different ways particularly as they mature and life situations change. Does your plan work for all sales people, the old hands as well as the up and comers?

4) Is your cost of sale inline with your business goals?

If you have a plan and stick with it in spite of fluctuating market conditions and changing sales volumes, you might find that your costs are too high relative to your output (your CFO will usually give you plenty of warning that this is happening) and you may need to make sure your sales comp plan scales effectively with sales production. Basic commission at the low end and accelerators at the higher end of performance can be a great motivator for reps while keeping costs inline with business goals.

Taking the time to answer these four questions will go a long way toward determining if your sales compensation plan is or is not effective.

To your success!

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Inside vs Outside Sales – Are these roles blurring?

There are many different types of sales roles, but traditionally there have been two main divisions in selling: those who sell to the people that come to them (inside sales, aka in-house sellers, aka inbound) and those that go out and hunt down their own prospects then close the deal (outside, those who sell on the outside, or outbound). Now as sales evolves and the economic conditions demand that more sales are done on the phone rather than in person, the lines of inside vs outside sales are blurring.

Why Are Sales Hunters So Hard To Find?

These days, even B2B companies employ large inside sales teams to work on driving new business. In some cases, there are sophisticated organizations with lead gen and cold calling teams that seek deals, nurture them and then hand over larger deals to senior reps who close them as well develop strategic accounts. Are these inside or outside?

In the sense that they travel very little, and work in-house for the most part, they are inside sales, however the fact that they hunt and close new business makes them outside in the true sense of the word.

As we have previously written the personalities for outbound vs. inbound sales are completely different. Trying to get someone to make cold calls when they lacks the DNA to do so can be very frustrating.

The Distinction Between Inside and Outside Sales Are Definitely Blurring

But there are also slight differences in the type of person that enjoys face to face selling vs phone selling. Some people communicate with their hands and this isn’t that simple on the phone.

Today many outbound sales roles are 90% phone based and 10% in person selling, which demands a rep who can both influence a prospect on the phone and sell in person. In smaller companies reps manage a territory and will be responsible for both fielding incoming calls and making cold calls, so this demands skills in both hunting and lead conversion. These factors combine to demand a multi-skilled rep with a unique DNA.

To your success!

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

3 Reasons To Start Selecting Sales Hires Randomly

When our research tracked 20,000 new hires, 46% of them failed within 18 months. But even more surprising than the failure rate, was that when new hires failed, 89% of the time it was for attitudinal reasons and only 11% of the time for a lack of skill. The attitudinal deficits that doomed these failed hires included a lack of coachability, low levels of emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament ~ Mark Murphy, Author of Hiring for Attitude, as well as the bestsellers Hundred Percenters and HARD Goals (quoted in Forbes Magazine).

The way many sales managers hire, they might as well be making random choices. To be frank —the results would probably be as good as what they are doing now, and possibly better.

If your hiring success rate is less than stellar, you may want to start hiring randomly as well. To get you started, here are three completely random ways to choose your next sales rep:

  1. Take the stack of resumes and throw them in the air with gusto—really make them rain. The one that lands on top of the pile on the floor gets the job.
  2. Crumple the resumes in to balls, and shoot them from increasingly farther distances into a waste bin basketball hoop. The resume that goes in from the greatest distance wins.
  3. Ask the interns to review the current candidates and make a recommendation.

Of course, these ludicrous approaches would never work. But most sales job interviews aren’t much better, and they are lousy predictors of how the candidate will perform on the job. Stephanie Clifford reported in an Inc. magazine article, “The New Science of Hiring,” that standard interviews have only a “.2 correlation with predicting success.” What??

The price of failure is enormous (see What is the cost of a bad sales hire?), but there is good news: sales and hiring managers can avoid these costs. A study by Harvard University, showed that the vast majority of turnover can be directly connected to errors during selecting and hiring new employees.

Over the years, Peak has increasingly relied on scientific and behavioral techniques to assess candidates and their suitability for our customer’s open sales positions. The 90%+ success rates of our candidates speak to the value of our methods but there is also more broad support for leveraging science in the hiring process. CEB, the world’s leading member-based advisory organization, reports that firms that use assessment science to choose and develop sales reps get 16 percent better performance. In addition, employees are 50 percent more likely to continue working with the company rather than leave.

Why don’t sales managers make more objective hiring decisions using proven scientific techniques? Many times they interview with methods they experienced when they were hired, using archaic questions and cheesy challenges. In other words, they don’t know any better, nor do the other managers in the firm. They compound the problem when they add other errors as well, including:

  • Not checking references. A surprising number of hiring sales managers do not check references at all. On the other hand, a report from the Society for Human Resource Management shows 96% of HR managers do check references. However, the vast majority of the references only verified employment.
  • Not preparing for the interview. Glancing at a candidate’s resume as the interview starts is not adequate preparation.
  • Hiring to fill a desk. This is common when a company gets extra busy. They may a rep to fill a desk just to relieve some of the stress on sales and support staff, only to realize they made a mistake when business returns to normal.
  • Allowing interruptions as the interview progresses. Hiring a sales rep has long-term consequences for a firm. Sales managers should provide the focus the process warrants.

It is a bizarre fact that the hiring process is the most important part of running a business, yet is the business process is most likely to be ad-hoc.

Finding great sales talent is like looking for a needle in a haystack – blindfolded!

Not that it is easy. It’s tough to find the right salesperson in the best of conditions. Only a small percentage of those applying for a job tell the truth about their relevant background and experience. Not only that, two-thirds of resumes had creative embellishments of some kind!
Despite these challenges, your current hiring practice can be improved significantly by using proven scientific and behavioral testing methods. See more of our sales hiring insights here > Sales Recruiting Insights

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The Anatomy of a Terrible Sales Resume

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

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