The Secrets of Hiring Great Sales People Finally Revealed

Lou Adler hits it on the head "again"! Many of the salespeople I have interviewed over the years have said they can sell anything. Their track record in a variety of industries would seem to back up their assertion. But oftentimes a client insists that a person has to have worked in THEIR industry or they won't even consider them. Makes me wonder if they are really looking for the industry experience - or the book of business???

Here's Lou's take on hiring great sales people: (seen on ERE.Net)
"Over the years, I’ve been involved in developing hiring tools for sales representatives in a variety of industries including high technology, financial services, industrial products, consumer products, auto sales, woman’s cosmetics, business services, medical products, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare.

Surprisingly, most sales managers make the same bad decisions, regardless of the product or industry.

Here’s the list of where most sales managers go wrong. Start eliminating these error-producing behaviors and just about all of your sales hiring mistakes will go away.

They think their job is unique. They’re not. There is a common sales process behind each one, that when understood can be used to benchmark any candidate’s past performance against.

They overvalue first impressions. First impressions don’t predict performance. People with great first impressions are frequently incompetent and people with marginal first impression often have a track record of great success. It’s best to measure first impression at the end of the interview and then determine how the candidate’s first impression affected their performance in consistently achieving quota. From what I’ve seen, the best sales managers don’t worry about first impressions, they worry about the candidate having a track record of achieving good sales results selling similar products, to similar buyers, in similar situations.

They overvalue their gut or instinct. This is only acceptable when the sales manager has a track record of hiring all top performers who all make quota in combination with very low department turnover. Emotions, intuition, or instinct are poor predictors of on-the-job success. A track record of past performance selling similar products or influencing similar buyers is a great predictor.

They don’t know the job. Sales is a process that starts with lead generation and ends at closing. Certain aspects of the process are more critical than others. If a sales manager doesn’t know what these are, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to accurately assess them in the candidate. As a result, the sales manager shifts the decision criteria to first impressions and gut instinct.

They assume they’re great managers. Most great sales people aren’t great managers, yet this is the person most likely to get promoted. It takes a great deal of work to build, develop, and manage an effective sales team. As part of the assessment process, the sales manager has to assess the fit between her style of management and how each person on the team needs to be managed. This directly relates to Hershey and Blanchard’s situational leadership model.

keep reading…

10 Great Ways to Make Bad Hiring Decisions

With his tongue firmly in cheek, I'm sure, Lou Adler's article gives advice on how NOT to make hiring decisions! Here's a quick peek at the article:

"I wrote a rather controversial article last week comparing Obama vs. McCain using our 10-factor evidence-based assessment system. The stated purpose of the article was to propose that Presidential candidates should be vetted just as rigorously as any candidate for any job.

The underlying purpose was to demonstrate the point that many important decisions, especially hiring decisions, are based on invalid assumptions, false impressions, personal beliefs, and lack of objective data." Read Lou's article 10 Great Ways to Make Bad Hiring Decisions by clicking on the link.

Enjoy!

Are Your Sales People Farmers or Hunters?

I read Jeffrey Gitomer's articles, books, and newsletters every chance I get. I think Jeffrey is one of the top experts on sales - how to do it, how to manage those who do it; and his advice in his newsletter is always top notch. You can subscribe to his Sales Caffeine newsletter by clicking on the link. Do it now while you're thinking of it!

I read this article in Jeffrey's most recent issue of Sales Caffeine and it reminded me of how often employers hire the wrong type of sales person for their company. Many candidates have made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and when they apply for a job, the potential employer is very excited thinking they will be able to do the same thing for their company. However, they should look into that person's previous sales track record more closely to see what KIND of sales they have done. Read David's article to see how that is possible.

Farmers or Hunters
by: David Steel

Are your salespeople a bunch of dummies or, probably more likely, are they just lazy? In response to this you have likely set up a lot of company rules and regulations designed to force them to work instead of goof off. Unfortunately, such rules and regulations are about keeping control instead of giving motivation or incentives to produce -- and it's those latter things that salespeople really need and thrive on.

The kind of salespeople you've probably unwittingly created are Farmers. These Farmers don't break new ground by getting new clients -- they just till the same old soil (already existing clients). And what's really bad about that is that once someone becomes a Farmer they get so comfortable that it's extremely difficult to change most of them back into the Hunters they were meant to be.

You see, Farmers know all their clients well and are old friends with them. Farmers don't have to do the difficult work of convincing total strangers to trust them enough to become clients and friends, but even though they would make much more money for themselves -- and you -- if they did, the money they get from Farming, which is like a salesperson's "busy work,” is just good enough in exchange for being allowed to stay in the comfort zone. Indeed, there's a place for Farmers in the sales force of most organizations: they keep the existing clients very happy and that brings in a certain dependable cash flow.

But that can't be permitted to be good ENOUGH for everyone or for your business.

In order to push the right salespeople to become Hunters (and you need some of these, for sure), every new salesperson you hire should be fully expected to: seek out new prospects; develop new relationships; and maintain the status quo with existing clients at the very same time that they are bringing in new business.

And -- that's just about ALL that these salespeople should be doing, all the time. And one of the best things to help free them from Farming tasks or make them flow faster and easier is the tried and true friend of business: technology. Your salespeople should be equipped with the latest and greatest technology that can contribute to their having more time on their hands so that they can use it to do more selling. It's "work smarter, not harder" put in motion.

And there's a side benefit to hiring and cultivating Hunters: they will either inspire or guilt-trip everyone else into working harder through their attitude. From out of the ashes of the Cain and Abel style friction that will arise will come a phoenix of productivity. Give the new Hunters old, underworked accounts; give them powerful titles when they earn the rights to them; and most of all, deliver on every incentive you promise and deliver it on time.

This is the beginning of how you let your sales force bring in more business than you can handle.

David Steel is one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic of Sales Motivation. He’s a popular and widely recognized author and motivational speaker who works with businesses and individuals as a sales management consultant, offering insights into hiring, compensation, goals and strategies, and teaching the use of sales management skills to build and maintain highly aggressive sales teams. To download a complimentary copy of his book "The Care and Feeding of Highly Aggressive Sales People" please visit www.feedyoursales.com

McCain vs. Obama Using Adler’s 10-Factor Scorecard

I am a long time fan of Lou Adler - I read his books and use his one-question interview technique a lot when I interview candidates for job openings. But I have to say, I'm glad the President isn't chosen using Lou's 10-Factor Scorecard! Here's a teaser from his newsletter on this issue (you'll have to click on the link to read the whole article! *smile*)

"In my book, Hire With Your Head (John Wiley & Sons, 3rd Edition, 2007), I introduced the idea of using an evidence-based assessment process when evaluating and comparing candidates. This is based on using ten factors that have been shown to accurately predict on-the-job success, and on having the hiring team rank each one in a group meeting on a 1-5 scale after the interviews are completed. Click here for a sample of the form we use for staffing and middle-management positions. I thought it would be interesting to use this 10-Factor Scorecard to evaluate who would make a better President, Obama or McCain." Read the full scorecard here

THE TWO CRITICAL INGREDIENTS FOR A SALES PERFORMANCE TURNAROUND

In today's tough economy, sales managers who take over struggling sales organizations are under enormous pressure to perform. Those who don't make visible progress toward a turnaround – and make it quickly – are likely to find themselves looking for another job. Yet despite the intensity of this environment, many managers do succeed – and some do so spectacularly. How? To answer this question, two Bain & Company partners conducted an extensive study of what successful managers do right - and what some do wrong.... For More See:

Five Questions Every Sales Manager Should Be Able to Answer

Every sales manager knows the basics about his or her sales team and selling process – which reps are the A, B, and C performers; the length of the sales cycle; the dollar amount of the average deal, and so on. However, successful management requires much more in-depth awareness of what's going on in a sales organization. For instance, do you know the common stalling points in your sales process? Or which competitors you lose the most business to and why? Find the answers in Selling Power's Sales Management Newsletter
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Why Good Salespeople Often Turn into Mediocre Sales Managers

A topic dear to my own heart, turning your best sales person into a mediocre sales manager! Check out this article:

Why Good Salespeople Often Turn into Mediocre Sales Managers by Dave Kahle

We've all done it. Promoted a good salesperson, often our best, to sales manager. My files are full of cases where the results were below expectations for everyone involved. Principals and CSOs are often disappointed in the lack of results, and the sales managers are confused and frustrated with the lack of achievement of their teams.

A variation on this theme usually produces even more angst. A good salesperson, without any real management experience, is hired from outside the company to fill a sales manager position. When these decisions go bad, the hurt feelings, negative attitudes and difficult situations which result can be ugly.

Not that this is always the case. Many CSOs and executives rose through the ranks in just this fashion, contributing exceptionally at every stage. But, these cases are generally the exception, not the rule.

The rule is that few good salespeople make good sales managers.

Why is that?

Consider the unique blend of strengths and aptitudes that often mark the character of an exceptional salesperson. Exceptional salespeople often have very high standards for themselves and everyone around them. They are highly focused on the customer, often to the determent of their relationships with their colleagues. It's not unusual for your star salesperson to irritate and frustrate the people in the operational side of the business, with a brusque and demanding attitude. After all, they think, I'm extending myself to take care of my customers, why shouldn't I expect everyone else to do so also?

When they become sales managers, they expect all of their salespeople to be just as hard driving and achievement oriented as they were. Unfortunately the reality is that most of their salespeople don't share the same degree of drive and perfectionism that they had. If they did, they would have been promoted to sales manager.

That means that the sales manager often is frustrated with the performance and attitudes of his charges, and confused as to how to change them.

The exceptional salesperson is often an independent character, who thrives in a climate where he can make his own decisions, determine his own call patterns, and spend time by himself.

Alas, he loses almost all of that when he is promoted to sales manager. He's expected to work a consistent, well defined work week, to spend a certain number of hours in the office, and to fulfill certain administrative functions. The freedom to make his own decisions, to determine his own days, is gone. So, he often struggles with how to adjust to this new work environment and still be productive.
read the rest of this article here

Wish List Aces Hiring Shenanigans!

Reading an article from Kevin Wheeler today Why Do We Love Hiring Shenanigans?reminds me of why I decided to use a "Wish List" when getting down to the nitty gritty of what a company REALLY needs their sales person to do to be successful.
Kevin related 4 good and bad things about practicing this elitist approach to hiring, and some reasons why it is so hard to not practice it:
"Acceptance rates go up. If you want your candidate acceptance rates to go up, make getting accepted really hard and stressful. We all like to believe that we are special, gifted, or better than others. If we are asked to take some sort of test or go through an initiation process that supposedly selects the best, those who get accepted feel superior to those who do not. This belief, even when not supported by facts, is a motivator for people to accept an offer from you. The more exclusive the choice seems to be, the more rigorous the selection process (regardless of its rationality), the more likely a potential hire is to say yes to your offer. A recent book by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson called Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts carefully and clearly relates story after story about the power of belief in superiority. They conclude the section with these words: "The results are always the same. Severe initiations increase a member's liking for the group."
Short-term retention may go up, but longer-term retention may go down. While I have no empirical evidence to support this claim, I do believe that being part of an exclusive group of similar people at first makes life easier and fun. Social patterns, likes and dislikes, language, and academic experiences will be similar and compatible. Organizations that select employees with rigid criteria tend to have little diversity. Over time this can become a limitation. As an employee grows more mature and finds that she is competing against similar people with similar advantages or not progressing as rapidly as she would like, she may leverage the exclusivity and desirability that belonging to the organization has bestowed on her to get another position at the competition or to start her own business.
Hiring managers like it because it validates their superiority. Hiring managers are usually enamored of tough interviewing processes and rigorous selection criteria because it supports and underlines their own skill, insight, and wisdom. They can boast that they have chosen the most talented or gifted team of employees. It can also provide a sense of security: If I have the best people working with me, we must be making the right decisions. This is one of the problems that Enron encountered. They had so many smart people that no one believed they could make bad decisions. When selection is based to a significant degree on suspect interview criteria and unverified reactions to events, it is very hard to account for success or failure. It provides a way to discriminate. Unfortunately, rather than creating workplaces full of contradictions and differences where creativity thrives, the practices described above create a workforce made up of similar people in thought, attitude, background, education, and belief in their own superiority. All real creativity occurs at the edge, at the juxtaposition of opposite ideas and experiences. The healthiest and most creative workforces are those where people are assembled almost at random. The creativity of Silicon Valley, for example, has been correlated to the influx of diverse people and ideas from all over the world. It was the coming together of these people that created the integrated circuit, the Apple computer, and computer games. Organizations should embrace diversity as a means to creativity and innovation.
In the end, good selection is based on matching candidates' competencies and skills to the particular set of activities an organization needs to have completed or outcomes that need to be achieved. These competencies can be identified with a variety of objective tests and properly constructed behavioral interviews.
Whether someone can answer the manhole question, has a 4.0 GPA, or has gone to Harvard makes no difference at all to potential performance."
So, in the long run, my "wish list" aces these hands down! I ask the client to tell me what are the 5 most important things they want the person to have done in the past and the 5 most important things they want that person to do for them. They are far more likely to find the perfect person for their job opening!