Nothing Happens Until Someone Sells Something: Hiring a Salesperson 
by Jeff Davies, Recruiting Practice Leader
jeff@performtogrow.com
Recently I have been searching, interviewing, and recommending the placement of outside (B2B) sales people. The market is good for sales people right now because many sectors of the economy are in a down cycle. Smart companies know that when business is down they better be focused on getting more sales. Hiring a Top Gun is a good strategy.
How do you bring on the right one? Bryan Johanson had some insights I think are valuable to anyone who needs to get the job done.
Stereotypes don’t exist! The typical sales job description isn't a job description at all, it's a people description. Their past behavior and stage in life says a lot about how they will perform for you. Retail experience doesn’t translate into B2B and vice-versa. Experience selling large quantities of small items (although the annual revenues could be significant) doesn’t translate into selling big ticket items. Being in sales for 10 years doesn’t mean they can withstand the pressure and persistence of long sales cycles.
To help you better define what success looks like in your sales job, ask yourself what do they do in the job that separates the top performers from the average performers.
Even different territories within the same company often require slightly different skill sets to be successful. It's one thing to open up a completely new territory; it's quite another to mine an already well established territory. Defining what success looks like is the first critical step to consistently hiring top performers.
What's the best interview question to ask a professional sales person? Johanson suggests, "What was your quota and what did you actually achieve? Walk me through your quota achievements for the past five years." I use a dozen different questions to probe how they got to where they are and how will that translate to success with my client’s business.
Don't be fooled by first impressions. Yes, they must impress you. But just as important is how they follow up…and follow up. It takes time to hire sales people because they need to be evaluated in a realistic setting. How would they need to act to bring a new customer to your business? After you have more knowledge, what impression are they leaving you with?
Hiring sales people isn't rocket science. Some basic common sense will go a long way. Hiring is one step…next month we’ll discuss managing the same type of person.
Jeff Davies is a partner of Performance Growth Partners Inc., a full service organizational improvement firm specializing in HR audits, corporate outplacement services, customer service assessments, customer service training, supervisory training, employee surveys, employee handbooks, teambuilding programs and team training, on-call and project based HR consulting services, outsourced HR services, employee retention programs, performance improvement programs, executive coaching, manufacturing process and operations improvement consulting, training and programs, safety assessments, safety training, strategic planning, employee retention programs, performance improvement programs, interim executive placement, conference speaking, keynote addresses, business turnaround consulting, healthcare consulting and a wide range of other services. Contact Jeff toll-free at (877) 739-4747 or e-mail him at jeff@performtogrow.com.
© 2008 Performance Growth Partners Inc.
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