There is no such thing as the perfect sales candidate

Recruting sales people is one of the riskiest decisions any manager can make and most managers will be selecting the wrong salesperson 1 time in 4 when they add to their sales team.  

Here is one of the key reasons: it is not about hiring a great salesperson, or finding the person that can 'sell sand to the arabs'. 

Success requires finding the right salesperson for your organisation given its size, resources and culture and the particular sales and marketing opportunities and challenges facing your company at this particular time in a specific market. 

For example, will a successful sales person from a large organisation such as IBM be successfull in a small organisations where they do not have the brand, marketing, lead generation and pre-sales support they are used to.

Will a proven deal closer be successful in an early stage organisation where opening doors and generating leads is the requirements.  

There is no one best, ideal or perfect sales candiate.  Getting a clearer fix on requirements is the first step to increasing the chances of success. 

Or can a sales person who has a proven track record of closing big deals succeed in a role where there will be no deals to be closed until 6-10 month of ground work is done in terms of building target lists, cold calling companies, first meetings, etc.

The big lie - Great sales people are born, not made

Despite the traditional misconception, great salespeople are not born, they are made.  Ok there are personality characteristics that indeed can help in selling, such as; an outgoing personality, the ability to develop rapport easily and maybe even the ability to deal with rejection.  However the reality is that a great many of those qualities traditionally associated with the natural fast talking and super-confident sales person are a hindrance, rather than a help.

However, the core skills essential to sales success are not part of the DNA, but are learned, practiced and perfected over time including; listening, asking questions, empathizing, building rapport, expertise / product and industry knowledge, determination, communication skills, etc.  These skills are the difference between the average sales person and the sales champion. 

The profession of selling is open to everyone.  The price of success thereafter, is the continual learning and refinement of a set of skills – the skills involved in helping people to buy.  You don't have to be the perfect or natural salesperson, just one that is committed to getting better all the time. 

Like any other profession selling requires continuous improvement and refinement of skills, attitude and approach.   And the most important way to learn is not necessarily through training, or from books, but by doing.  The good salesperson always analyses the last sales meeting, the last sales campaign and the last proposal to identify opportunities to refine their approach and thereby increase their success.  With every sales call the good salesperson gets even better.

Average sales people can achieve extraordinary results if they following the right approach to selling their product, or service and if they are provided with the right systems and supports.   A great sales person in the wrong environment with the wrong sales approach, will achieve only average results.    In particular, sales success is increasingly about process - a consistent set of steps, governing key activities; such as pre-qualification, relationship building, needs analysis, etc.

Top 5 Recruitment Mistakes

Picking sales and marketing people is more difficult than picking any other candidates.  With that in mind here are the Top 5 mistakes made in their recruitment:

 

1. Job description too broad (essentially combing two or more specific roles into the one) or too vague (e.g. make and log telephone calls with a minimum of X potential customers per week).

 

2. Not asking the practical questions (e.g. We are beginning a marketing drive in the UK in May, if you had responsibility for it what specifically would you do ensure its success?  What would be your focus in week 1 of the job? Etc.

 

3. Not asking sufficiently detailed questions about previous roles, activities and achievements and then following up on references.

 

4. The getting off to a good start (the first month or two are a golden period, if it is not successful and the candidate is not managed properly in this period, it is very difficult to change things later on).

 

5.  Failing to ensure the candidate is a hard worker, with an action-bias and practical bent.  As somebody once said ' I would rather have a body without a suit, than a suit without a body'.

Gambling on a new salesperson?

The success rate for new sales hires is a miserable 33% - that means adding a new sales person to your team is one of the riskiest gambles you can take.  Given recruitment fees and long lead in times it is also one of the most expensive.

Most managers have experience of a failed sales or marketing hire, but how to maximise the chances of success and miminimise the costs of failure?

1. Get the timing right - Too many sales people join organisations at the wrong time - their desk and phone are not ready on the day they arrive, the target segments are not clear, there is no target list of customers, no marketing material, the induction training is not ready, etc.  It can be tempting to recruit a new sales person as soon as possible, however it is very important that the new hire joins when you, your organisation and your market is ready.

2. Prepare the ground first - As a general rule don't bring a sales person on board until you have your sales and marketing strategy set - that is your product is market ready, the sales proposition is clear and the choice of market segments has been validated. 

3. Set the right expectations - Don't be vague in terms of your job description for the new hire - specifically what level of sales activity do you want and what results do you realistically expect (given historical conversion rates and lead times).

4.  Define the role - there is not just one type of sales person, but a multiciplicty - which one suites depends on the size of the company, its stage of development, the sophistication of its sales and marketing, etc.  The two most common mistakes are:

• To hire a heavy hitter sales person - with a track record of closing big deals (supported by a sales and marketing organisation and established brand) to a start up company where there is minimal support in terms of lead generation, marketing materials, etc. 
  
  
• To hire a sales person who is a successful account manager with an established customer base, for an organisation that requires a sales person who can successfully identify and recruit new customers.

5. Adopt a more sophisticated approach to recruitment - sales and marketing candidates are good at selling themselves, so you are going to have to be very careful in your selection.

6. Get off to a good start - The first 6-10 weeks is a golden period.  - Have everything ready for the new hire, and provide full support, training and coaching.  Leads are a stumbling block to most sales people getting off the ground quickly, so put a programme in place in advance to provide some fresh leads and enquiries that the sales person can follow-up in the early weeks. 

7. Remember you are still responsible - if a new hire does not work out, his/her manager must share the responsibility.  Too many managers appoint new sales people, provide the training and then step back - leaving them to their own devices.  It is important to spend lots of time with the new person visiting customers and prospects, to plan and review activity in regular and structured sales meetings, as well as to use a sales system to track activity.

8. Make the call early, but not too early.  Having made a major committment of time and resources to the appointment of a new sales hire, managers are understandably reluctant to pull the plug it is not working out.  The temptation is to give it a little more time and hope for an improvement.  However, if the support has been provided, then the manager is entitled to ask why the planned levels of sales activity has not been completed, if it has then why it has not borne fruit and whether the attitude, enthusiasm or skill of the sales person is at fault.  Every month that passes when a sales person is either in active or ineffective is a waste of time and money.