They're Out There... Do You Know How to Find Them?
According to a study done by ManpowerGroup, sales representatives constitute the second most difficult position for employers to fill, only behind those with skilled trades. Despite a national unemployment rate of 8.3 percent, it seems that many organizations are continuing to experience challenges in recruiting the right sales people.
The cost of hiring the wrong person in a territory can be significant for your business.
Not only do you need to consider the cost of hire (fees, interview costs, management time, and opportunity costs), but it may take between 3–6 months for you to truly understand whether you have made a mistake. During those months you’re footing the bill for their salary and expenses, while they give away your market share to the competition. So how do you build a successful sales team?
Hiring the wrong person can cost you
“Make no mistake, hiring the wrong person could cost you well beyond six figures,” says David Mattson, CEO of Sandler Training. “What most people don’t realize is that they might find that their ideal sales representative is already working for their company — just not in the sales function. We work with business owners and sales managers who are open to building an effective sales team by developing this talent within the organization, as well as hiring from the outside.”
Sandler Training offers these tips for organizations that are looking for the right internal candidates to fulfill the sales function:
Create The Ideal Profile. Create a job description and identify the primary functions of the role for which you are recruiting. Use this to develop a custom profile of your ideal candidate and accompanying hiring criteria that is specific to your type of business, the sales environment within which it operates, and the level of performance you are seeking.
Most importantly, if the last five salespeople that you hired didn’t work out, challenge your hiring criteria by seeking an independent third party to help you connect the dots and find what commonalities these people have to establish the trends that didn’t work.
Chances are that you are hiring the same “type” of person without even realizing it. Screen candidates and score each one against that ideal profile. Make sure that the individual you are interviewing is ready to assume the role. If they don’t fit the profile, don’t take them any further in the process.
Find the Innate Traits. So what character traits do successful salespeople possess that others do not and how can your business decide what can be learned versus what is innate?
“The traits that are often attributing to making good salespeople may actually be traits to avoid,” counsels Mattson.
“We have seen study after study refuting common misconceptions about salespeople’s personalities, such as a good salesperson is Mr./Ms. Personality — one that everyone loves; or the perception that a company has to hire from outside the company to get the talent it needs. These may be among the worst misconceptions that companies have.”
Instead, look for a person with the right qualities who can learn the sales function. A successful sales process is a mathematical, scientific function that can be taught by training the behaviors that lead to the intended results. If you find the right people, sales is a discipline where success can be taught, duplicated and multiplied time after time with the right training and reinforcement program.
Train and Retain. Retention is just as important as recruitment and you need to ensure that your best salespeople are fully on board with recruitment decisions that will impact their team.
Involve them in the interview process and ensure that all new sales team members are provided with advanced training that equips them with the tools they need to do their jobs, and outlines what behaviors and actions they will need to become successful. This will ensure that they can contribute to the success of the entire sales team and will help you retain the right people.
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