Consider these stats [i]:

• In the U.S., average turnover in sales is between 20% to 30% annually. This means that for many firms, the equivalent of the entire sales team must be hired, trained, and socialized every 3 – 5 years.
• Depending upon the position, it now takes 3-4 months to hire a salesperson and,  once hired, getting to full productivity takes more than 9 months. That is more than a year without a fully productive seller, and each hire becomes a sunk cost for a longer time while a bad hire is very costly.

Hiring in sales is often more expensive than many companies’ cap­ex decisions, but typically treated with less rigour than purchasing software. How can you get better at this core task?

First, recognize the challenges inherent in sales hiring:

Unlike many other business functions, there is no easily identified resource pool or educational priors for sales positions.

If you’re looking for an engineer, you can go to an engineering school and find people who have studied engineering. For an accountant, finance person or software developer, you can find majors in those subjects. But few colleges and universities have sales programs or even a sales course. Yet, it’s estimated that more than 50% of graduates (in U.S. colleges) will work in sales at some point in their careers, regardless of their major.

Hence, most salespeople start with little preparation and must learn by doing on the job. And selling jobs vary greatly depending on the product or service sold, the customers a salesperson is responsible for, and the relative importance of technical knowledge during sales calls.

In dealing with these hiring challenges, here are two common mistakes to avoid:

(1) Hunters versus Farmers

Sales roles are far more diverse than that cliched dichotomy. Consider the difference between reps who sell direct to customers versus those who sell thru channel partners, those who work in highly automated inside sales models focused on SMB prospects versus those who call on enterprise accounts, those who sell individual products versus a bundled package solution, or those who sell multi­year software license agreements versus monthly SAAS contracts.

The Hunter/Farmer dichotomy is of little use in setting hiring criteria between those roles. In fact, hunters and farmers are, in my experience, usually used by managers as after-the-fact rationalisations for their hiring choices, not ex­-ante hiring criteria. Make sure your managers have relevant criteria before they make an offer, not just when they try to justify the decision.

(2) Chasing Stars

Talent matters and differences in individual sales performance are typically very wide in most firms. The top 20% of salespeople often account for ­60% of company revenues.

If 20% of your salespeople are making 60% of revenue, that’s a 3X multiplier; and since the remaining 80% bring in only 40% of revenue, the top sellers are 6X more productive than their peers. Sales is like other creative occupations where the stardom phenomenon is well documented. In areas like software programming, the arts, sports and others, the best are typically a lot better than the average. Performance profiles in those areas are (in statistics jargon) a “power distribution curve,” not a normal­ distribution bell curve.

However, stardom is not easily portable because it typically depends upon firm-specific qualities and resources—e.g., brand, training, team chemistry, and other factors—as well as individual capabilities. [ii] This is especially true in sales where tasks are determined by a firm’s business strategy and choices about which customers to focus on.

In turn, selling behaviours are affected by your control systems, culture and how you hire. Those are all firm­-specific factors and, when you hire someone from another firm, they leave all of that behind. Talk to the corporation who hires the high performing star from a competitor and finds that she does not perform the same way she performed there. Or consider startups who bring in an experienced big­ company rep and he flounders in the early-stage firm. Those people didn’t suddenly get stupid or lose individual capabilities. In business, there’s no such thing as performance in the abstract. There is only performance in each context—here, not there—and much of selling depends upon the relationships, knowledge, and mutual trust that the rep establishes with others in his or her company.

Sales is a performance art and salespeople exhibit a wide range in performance outcomes. Those outcomes depend upon innate talent as well as the context in which that talent is nurtured and deployed. Further, the effects of talent management are cumulative as people learn from each other. Reps get better by watching how the best of their peers perform key tasks. They pick up lessons about how to pitch, answer objections, and other aspects of selling that product at that price in that market.

Here are 4 tips for screening and hiring high performing sales professionals:

(1) Hire for the Task

Effective hiring starts with knowing what you need. Sales tasks are determined by buying contexts which differ greatly by industry. In computers and electronics, channel management is a key capability, but not in metals and mining. In the former, the products are often part of a package that customers buy at one-stop-shop intermediaries; in the latter sectors, direct bulk buys are the norm. Account management skills are important in chemicals where managing a portfolio of specialty and commodity products is a key sales task, but not so much in electronics where channel partners often perform account management tasks.

Every sales job has implicit required behaviours. Take the time to clarify and make that explicit in your job postings. When companies focus on the tasks, not job titles, the relevant labour pool typically expands. Coding boot camps, for instance, are now an accepted source of software talent because after a few months of task focused work the participants have job relevant skills without (and often despite) previous formal degrees. The same is true in sales. Relevant talent comes in all shapes and sizes but is dependent upon the job to be done, not some abstract ideal of undifferentiated selling skills.

(2) Avoid Behaviourally Useless Cliches

Ask sales managers what they’re looking for in candidates and you typically get lists of cliches like Sense of Urgency, Passion, Motivated by Money, Work Ethic, Coachability, Emotional Resilience, Communication Skills, Listening, Integrity, Humility, Efficiency, Commitment to Succeed, and so on.

These traits are behaviourally useless for doing what a hiring process must do: say yes or no to an individual applicant for a given job. When you’re speaking with someone at an interview, how do you unearth whether they have a “sense of urgency”? One author says, “Look for answers around impatience and 4th quarter comebacks.” Really? Confusing this stuff with job skills and evaluations is a waste of time and resources. In a job interview, who would not want to come across as hardworking, resourceful, efficient, and so on?

You’re hiring the person and not the interview version of the person. But only about a third of companies monitor whether their hiring practices lead to good employees or track cost per hire. Another problem with these lists is the assumption that a salesperson needs all of those qualities to be effective. However, it’s often advisable to shrink the span of sales activities. This requires understanding where the salesperson (versus marketing, service, or a customer success team) has the most influence. In many inside sales models, activities like lead generation and qualification are the jobs of Sales Development Reps (SDRs) and renewals are given to service personnel. This allows the firm to focus more precisely on recruiting for Account Executive roles where product demonstrations, pricing, and closing the sale with a multifunctional buying unit are the key tasks.

(3) Complement Interviews with Behavioural Assessments

Decades of research consistently show that managers overrate their ability to predict someone’s performance and fit for job tasks on the basis of a few interviews. Correlations between interview ratings and job success vary from about 0.1 to 0.4 — less than the 50/50 odds of a coin toss. [iii] In fact, some studies show a negative correlation between interview assessments and subsequent job performance: the firm would have been better-off selecting at random!

Judging a person’s fit for a sales job is, in most circumstances, a complex task. It involves evaluating the relevance of past experience, personality, fit with the culture, and so on. But people are inconsistent in making summary judgments of complex information, so always get multiple opinions and perspectives in evaluating candidates. Doing multiple assessments also often motivates people in your firm to discuss and communicate the tasks you’re hiring for and the questions and activities likely to elicit relevant skills. Conversely, this approach provides the interviewee with a better basis to judge fit.

Then, complement interviews with role plays, task assignments and, whenever possible, internship type hiring scenarios. Selling is about behaviour. Job performance from one time period to the next correlates at a much higher rate than interviews. So probationary periods are better predictors of actual performance. Meanwhile, technology is increasing options for behavioural assessments via game-like activities, video, and online media.

(4) Assume Mistakes Will Happen

Sales hiring requires judging people’s future performance in a changing market environment. Mistakes are inevitable, but the sunk cost fallacy—continuing to throw good money after bad—is not.

Consider Amazon’s policy of offering a voluntary severance package called “The Offer.” Annually, each service and warehouse employee are offered up to $5,000 to quit. The policy helps to deal with inevitable mistakes—by the hirer or the person hired—and with the reality that people change and their relationship to their work can change with marriage, divorce, sickness, the need to take care of an aging parent, or any of the other natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Amazon believes “The Offer” helps it shed less-committed employees while improving retention among others. [iv]

Sales reps represent your company to customers and prospects. A poor hire is not only costly but can also do collateral damage to your brand. It’s worth your time and effort to improve your sales hiring criteria and process.

Frank Cespedes teaches at Harvard Business School and is the author of six books. This article is adapted from Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. Published by Harvard Business Review Press.

[i] See Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance (Princeton University Press).

[ii] For a review of this research, see Jason Dana, Robyn Dawes, and Nathaniel Peterson, “Belief in the Unstructured Interview: The Persistence of an Illusion,” Judgment and Decision Making 8, no. 5: 512-520. 

[iii] For a review of this research, see Jason Dana, Robyn Dawes, and Nathaniel Peterson, “Belief in the Unstructured Interview: The Persistence of an Illusion,” Judgment and Decision Making 8, no. 5: 512-520. 

[iv] Alana Samuels, “Why Amazon Pays Some of Its Workers to Quit,” The Atlantic:  https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/amazon-offer-pay-quit/553202/.

The post Valuable Tips for Improving Sales Hiring appeared first on Head Of Sales.

The numbers paint a vivid picture: LinkedIn is the place to be for job seekers.

LinkedIn is a smorgasbord of opportunities. I’m sharing the best LinkedIn tips that will help job seekers to squeeze every last bit of value out of LinkedIn.

These are not my tips. I’ve opened the floor to some amazing Australians that live and breathe the careers space.

Here are 10 expert tips on extracting value from LinkedIn:

Angela Farmeary, Mindful Careers

Angela helps her clients navigate the highly competitive job market through individualised career coaching.

1. Create your hit list.

Write down ten companies you’d jump on the opportunity to work at. What do they have in common with you? Do your values align?

2. Follow company pages.

Head to each business’s LinkedIn company page and click follow. Now, you’ll get notified of new hires, promotions, changes at the company, and, crucially, job opportunities.

Rebecca Jarvis, Javrow

A recruiter for the tech industry, Rebecca was awarded LinkedIn Top Voice 2020.

3. Stand out with your About section.

A recruiter looks at five-plus people, all with similar skillsets. How will they decide who to call? I call it “getting your character off a page.” If your character seems interesting, you are more likely to get the call.

Clare Phelan, Persuit Consulting

Clare is a career coach and job search strategist that guides you in becoming the CEO of your career.

4. Utilise LinkedIn messaging with professionalism. 

Being CEO of your career means having the systems in place to enable you to efficiently and effectively promote your value to potential employers. Messaging is part and parcel of communicating effectively throughout the job search process, however, getting this right can be overwhelming!

5. Utilise LinkedIn recommendations. 

Aim for three strong recent recommendations. When asking for recommendations, reach out to those who been privy to your great work. If you are searching for roles with a particular skillset, ask your referee to focus the recommendation on your positive traits relevant to that type of role.

Gillian Kelly, Outplacement Australia

Gillian is a Forbes Council career coach, keynote speaker, and award-winning master resume writer.

6. Analyse your profile through the eyes of a hirer. 

Hirers want people who offer value to their business. What does your target hirer see when they look at your profile? What shared connections do you have? How relevant are your skills to their business? What impression do your headline and photo make on them? How credible are you in your subject area or field? What does the tone of your past posts say about your communication style and values?

7. Don’t confuse visibility with credibility. 

Use LinkedIn well, and your actions can help you stand out to potential hirers. Abuse it, and it can damage your job hunt. Be strategic with what you post and how you communicate. Don’t damage a relationship by asking for favours too early. Respect others’ time, opinions, and rights. Consider how posts or comments may impact your brand. Visibility is not the same as credibility.

Shilpa Kulshrestha, Scintillate Coaching

Shilpa is a career strategist, coach, and best-selling author and speaker that helps people who are stuck create impactful careers.

8. Do not try to be someone that you are not.

It will come back to bite you in the face. Or it will push you towards the restlessness of being an imposter. Your authenticity can be your biggest magnet on this platform.

9. Do not ask for help.

Instead, add value without any expectations. You will create some beautiful relationships. I have got my best employees and 90 per cent of my clients from LinkedIn.

Jo Green, Jo Green Coaching 

Jo is a career change coach helping people work through career transformations without stress.

10. Look for people, not jobs.

Lead with your curiosity by finding people on LinkedIn who work in companies you are interested in or careers you want. Get in touch to organise a quick chat or send them a few questions when you connect. Be honest and authentic about why you are reaching out.

The information they give you will help you understand the job market, the companies you are interested in, and new areas you might want to move into. And your new contacts will know you are looking for a role. They may even let you know if they hear of anything.

Thank you Angela Farmeary, Rebecca Jarvis, Clare Phelan, Gillian Kelly, Shilpa Kulshrestha, and Jo Green for your contributions.

The post 10 Expert Tips To Stand Out On LinkedIn appeared first on Head Of Sales.

For many years the legend of the 600lb sales gorilla or Alpha Hyper Masculine ‘sales superstar’ has been strutting the hallways and boardrooms of businesses. Often revered for achieving top of the league ladder sales results, yet feared by many for their aggressive, manipulative, ego centric, demanding, intimidating antics, countless CEO’s and sales managers have allowed these sales prima donnas to remain in their sales teams but at what cost to their sales team and their business?

Too scared to confront them about their behaviours or sales tactics for fear of losing their sales contribution, many sales managers and their sales team have simply suffered in the presence of these sales bullies. In my many years of working with sales teams and sales managers I have met my fair share of Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies and their distressed managers and sales teams. Here’s what I have observed:

1. They have the ear of the Managing Director/CEO who thinks they can do no wrong.
2. They won’t let the business anywhere near their customers.
3. They tell tall tales about their legendary sales conquests.
4. They refuse to be coached, counselled or trained.
5. They are very demanding, always complaining about the lack of resources and taking up the time of countless people to do their bidding, leaving the other sales people to fend for themselves.
6. They often exhibit bad behaviour, and may be heard swearing or making inappropriate comments to their colleagues or other staff who are often too fearful to report them (see point 1).
7. They can engage in questionable sales tactics, yet claim that they are pristine and operate with the utmost of integrity.
8. They claim to know a lot of people and be very well connected.
9. They use actual or implied intimidation to get their way with internal team members.
10. They use charm and manipulation to get their way with key stakeholders.
11. They act with righteous indignation if you question anything about them.
12. They don’t think they need to comply with company policies so often refuse to complete paperwork or keep up to date CRM’s if they think it’s a ‘waste of time’.

You only have to watch the movie ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ to see your fair share of Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies. This type of sales culture was revered by a number of industry sectors in the 70’s and 80’s, including real estate, car sales, stock broking, etc. Watching it makes me feel ill, but many sales teams got off on this and even use ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ as a model of how they should sell in some quarters today.

Yet most people watching ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ or meeting their very own Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies feel repulsed by them. Often very wary of them, others wonder why they have to tolerate them and why management won’t act. Truth is these sales bullies have never been pulled into line. Their outstanding sales results have somehow bought them immunity from behaving in a civil manner. The smell of money they can bring in has condoned behaviour that has often outweighed the need to act ethically and uphold team values and respectful behaviour. Their bad behaviour has been allowed to manifest without restrictions, ‘oh let him get away with it. Look at the results he pulls in’. These sales gorillas are the direct result of poor quality leadership, lack of clear standards and bad decision making.

What most businesses do not know is that these sales bullies, for all their so called sales success, actually fall well behind the real sales superstars in terms of achieving high level and sustainable sales results who, by contrast, are open minded, curious, collaborative, team oriented, open to learning and aim for partnerships on every level. And these real sales superstars are humble too which is a direct contradiction to the behaviour of the sales bullies.

• So are you currently letting fear hold you and your team hostage by allowing your Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies to persist?
• What would happen if you got rid of the sales bullies?
• How would the rest of your team respond when they left?
• What would happen to sales and the clients?

In my experience when the sales bully – the Alpha finally departs, there is an initial sense of shock which quickly gives way to relief and the opportunity for the sales team to really pull together and prosper. The biggest fear of losing the sales bully’s sales power and their clients doesn’t eventuate in the vast majority of cases. In fact it is often revealed that the clients are happy the sales bully has left and look forward to a more open and prosperous relationship with the company concerned and sales grow even more.

I am not suggesting that most leaders intentionally hired these sales bullies or intended for them to manifest however, without clear codes of conduct or values and a proper understanding of what you want by way of ‘ good sales performance’ ‘ you cannot hire or develop the right salespeople to do the right things in the right sales culture.

In his book ‘The No Asshole Rule’, Leigh Buchanan writes about bosses behaving badly. Its thesis – don’t hire jerks, has become public policy in many companies around the world. I would suggest we think clearly about what we want manifested in our sales teams and take a leaf out of Leigh’s book and make sure we employ ‘The No Asshole Rule’ and don’t hire sales jerks.

The post Hiring A 300kg Gorilla Is A Big Mistake! Why? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Sound familiar?

Your business is growing and diversifying. You’ve experimented with bringing in an inexperienced sales person (who did not work out). You realise you need a more experienced direct sales person, but you don’t know where to go or what to look for. All you know is you need a sales person who is able to prospect for, and win, new business opportunities on a consistent daily basis, however you are not really able to detail anything else. You know your recruitment approach is haphazard at best. And what’s worse, it’s costing you big time.

Or you’re an established business whose been hiring sales people with industry experience from your industry for years but that’s not working any more. You just seem to be getting the same old idea and results.

I’m very familiar with these scenarios. Many businesses, large and small, still find it very difficult to recruit effective sales people.

You see, before I started my own business in 1995, I used to work in sales recruitment where I interviewed over 8,000 B2B sales people and sales managers in the technical, industrial, medical, scientific and building sectors. I have had a lot of experience helping to determine what good sales people and leaders need to have and have researched much better ways of assessing sales talent.

Many people who know me know that I’ve been going on about having a more disciplined structured sales recruitment process and strategy for years. Many people are cynical about sales recruitment. You can hear the sighing or see the eyes rolling, can’t you?

The problem is most people are not trained in effective recruitment practices and yet it is one of the most critical jobs in your business, especially for sales. They often give it to someone else and then blame them when it doesn’t work.

So who is in charge of your sales recruitment process?

You are! Whether you go direct to market or use a recruiter, you hold the key. If you do not own the sales recruitment process you and your business are in big trouble.

I went out on a limb a few years ago and set about building effective and user-friendly sales recruitment processes because they weren’t satisfied with what options they were using. I wanted to give them control so they were in the driver’s seat.

Many sales leaders feel at the mercy of the market when it came to sales recruitment. Especially when using recruitment companies. It was all a bit “black box”.

Now you might think I have an issue with recruitment firms (I am an ex-recruiter myself). In principle I do not, but my advice is “recruit your recruiter”.

Make sure they really do know how to recruit what you need. I am not entirely blaming recruitment firms (sure there are a few shonky ones out there, just as in any industry) but I do believe there is work to be done on both sides.

Here are some of the issues I see plaguing businesses when it comes to having poor sales recruitment outcomes:

Issue 1: The Right Sales Approach Or Sales person

You do not know what type of sales approach or sales person you need to deliver your sales strategy. Ask: Has your strategy and/or marketplace changed recently? If so, how do you need to sell now? Not all sales roles are the same. Be clear about what type of sales approach you need to make your business successful: For instance do you need:

• An ‘expert’ who is bringing new products, ideas or concepts to the market versus an ‘organiser’ working in an established ‘educated’ (about what you do) market place?
• A sales person who can develop long-term viable business relationships with clients or a person who can get around to many people in your customer market and make quick one-off sales?
• An account manager who maintains accounts or someone who can develop new business with new or existing accounts.
• A sales person who can sell expensive quality value products/service or a person who can sell commodities or cheaper price sensitive items?

Issue 2: Sales Competencies

You do not really know how to clearly define, articulate and compare what qualities you want in a good sales person. What skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours do your sales people need to demonstrate to be competitive and successful in your marketplace?

For instance, latest research now reveals that high performing sales people also display high levels of emotional intelligence (EI). Know what sales competencies you need.

Issue 3: The Recruitment Process

You do not use or have a logical structured recruitment process to objectively assess, compare and select candidates. Providing structure is probably the single technique most likely to help in improving the reliability of a selection method or process. Use a structured recruitment process to follow that allows for you to compare and contrast applicants in a more disciplined and consistent manner.

• Use the Key Selection Criteria (competencies mentioned above) as the framework.
• Standardise all selection activities.
• Rank the criteria: Are they essential, desirable or nice to have? And select in that order.

Research shows that the average percent increase in output from using a structured multi-assessment selection approach (structured behavioural competency interviews, relevant psychometric assessments, simulation exercises, structure reference, etc.) is approximately 2.5 times greater in sales jobs than in low-complexity non-sales jobs

Issue 4: Outreach Approach

You do not have or use an integrated recruitment strategy to find good sales people. How do you find the “right” sales people for your business and how do prospective sales candidates find out about your business?

Just like sales, in today’s market you need a combination of “push and pull” contact strategies for finding the right candidates for your business. Advertising alone is not likely to yield the candidates you seek. You are always recruiting sales people even if you do not have a vacancy.

Issue 5: The Usual Suspects

You continue to recruit from your own industry, recycling the same people and do not look outside your industry to refresh the gene pool with new talent. Same old people, same old ideas, same old results. Need I say more?

Issue 6: Benchmarking

You do not screen your recruiters for “best practice” nor do you brief them properly. It is a very costly exercise to get recruitment wrong and many people so not have the time to do it themselves.

However many are equally sceptical about the real value of using recruitment consultants. It is as difficult to find a good recruiter, as it is to find a good sales person. If you are going to use a recruiter, ask them what processes they use to source and select candidates.

Check them against the processes recommended above to see if they use “best practice” methods or just “wing it”.

By giving the recruitment consultant a clear job and person specification and competency profile you are able to clearly articulate and request what you need and what they need to deliver.

No more “bums on seats”, thank you very much. The good ones will tell you who is available in the market place, what each type of person is attracting salary wise, and most importantly help you find the right sales person for your business.

Being in control of your recruitment process is very important. Not being able to articulate what and who you need to perform the job well is very risky. As you can see it’s all in the preparation. Putting in the work on getting it right up front and then sticking to a plan really pays off.

The positive feedback I am getting from sales managers and senior managers when they do follow the process is so rewarding. For instance:

• “It really works! I was able to make a selection decision based much more on the evidence not my emotions or prejudices.”
• “I’m not getting caught up in my own dialogue and can really concentrate on them.”
• “I didn’t think it would, but it saves me so much time and money.”
• “I don’t take any one out of desperation and more.”
• “When we follow the process, my co-interviewer and I come to the same conclusion time and time again and we have the evidence to prove it.”
• “I feel in control and are able to make more informed decisions.”
• “I know how to work with my recruiter to my best advantage.”

I hope this helps.

The post Sales Recruitment – 6 Issues You Need To Address To Get It Right appeared first on Head Of Sales.

For years now we’ve all been told that best-practice in the ‘selection’ piece of recruitment looks like:

Review cover letters – to see the highlights of the applicants’ rationale for applying

Review resumes or curriculum-vitae – to see that the applicant has the requisite skills and experience in our field

Conduct structured interviews – quite possibly a ‘behavioural event interview’ – to confirm that the applicant can indeed do the things they said in the cover letter or resume – and of course to tell if they’re a ‘fit’ to our culture

In the more enlightened age and businesses, maybe do a personality test – to get insights into their preferred style at work

Conduct reference checks – to again confirm that they can and did do what they said they did at the interview

Go to that length and do it all thoroughly and you’re sure to pick the winner! Right? Well in the current Australian vernacular – “Yeah, nah.” – You see… A recent revelation in Harvard Business Review shows that that exhausting list of time-consuming activities only has a .26 level of predictive reliability! (Where the ideal number is 1)

What the…!

You see ‘the game’ has changed. Try typing “Resumé writing services” into the Google search bar. I did that just now and I was presented with over 408 million – yes million – responses to that query. So quite possibly, many of the resumés (and cover letters) you are reviewing and being impressed by, in response to your job ad, may have been written by a professional resumé writer. In terms of its reliability as a means of predicting likely success in the role you are advertising for – well that’s questionable.

But that’s ok, because you have a structured interview process, right? Hmmm…

Choose just one of 200,000,000+ tutorial videos of about 2-3 minutes length, watched on the applicant’s device just before they step into reception at your office and one of the best sales of their life will be made right there!

According to Richard Nesbitt, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Michigan:

“When it comes to choosing a candidate, (traditional) interviews are as much use as flipping a coin.”

And in fact, even LinkedIn are now advising:

“Studies show the traditional job interview predicts job performance as well as no interview at all. Interviewees can give rehearsed answers and interviewers are unconsciously biased to pick candidates whom they like rather than those with the most potential.”

Now I’m not saying don’t do interviews. You do need to do them in order to get any understanding of the person. But understand that you cannot and should not rely on these alone as having any kind of predictive validity. And that’s what the selection phase is all about! Predicting whether this person can do and will do the things you intend to hire them for. And do them well. But Caveat Emptor my dear friends! Especially you DIY die-hards… your mind plays tricks on you.

Because we human beings fall victim to our subconscious (or, unconscious) biases – especially those who do not conduct interviews for a living. And as a consequence we use erroneous ‘data’ (sometimes incorrectly positive and sometimes incorrectly negative) to make hire/don’t hire decisions. And research is now revealing that because of these biases, the traditional interview process is quite ineffective at discerning people-skills (aka ‘soft’ skills – I hate that term) or an applicant’s inherent weaknesses. And these areas are showing to have at least equal importance in the success of an individual in almost every role in the business. Especially for my clients – the small and medium size enterprises where the impact of a bad hiring decision can be catastrophic.

“the traditional interview process is quite ineffective at discerning people-skills”

I find it fascinating that with all of the advancements in technology that have occurred in the last 10 years alone, when it comes to recruitment, the methodology still remains incredibly analogue and absolutely prey to the vagaries of the human mind.

It’s time for data to be playing a much bigger role in recruitment decision-making.

As I’ve written elsewhere, this thing we call recruitment is one part marketing – attracting talented individuals to show an interest in your job opening – and then one part crystal-balling  – predicting which applicants have the highest likelihood of future success in the role.

As we take a closer look at the predictive piece, what are the facts that will tell us this person is a strong contender?

(I’ll be writing on this subsequently but let me tell you that it’s not past-performance…)

Quite simply the data we need to evidence is:

1) do they possess sufficient competence to perform the routine tasks associated with the role. Do they possess the competencies of (21^st Century) selling?

2) do they possess the intellect required to comprehend, analyse, interpret and respond to the sort of information which forms an everyday part of the role? (and to be able to learn all of the new things which will surely come along)? (BTW, IQ still remains one of the strongest predictors of success in ANY role)

3) are they naturally hardwired so that the way we need them to behave and conduct themselves, in order to be successful in the role comes naturally to them? (Eg. How naturally assertive are they… and what does success in this role require? What if they’re too assertive?)

4) how effectively do they deal with the stresses that come with the role? (There’s almost no other role in the business that has the level of everyday performance expectation (“Have you dialled 50 suspects today?”), coupled with the levels of potential rejection, that sales does).

For an overwhelming majority of businesses those 4 areas are assessed using analogue methodologies, which date back to the 1950’s or more. But it’s the 2020’s now and each can be measured via online assessments which will produce rich and vastly more reliable data.

By way of example, Objective Management Group is the provider of its OMG Sales Assessment, which is rated as enjoying a 95% success rate in predicting sales high performers. The assessment not only identifies which skills (competencies) a candidate has relating to different aspects of the sales process, it goes deeper to understand what are the underlying psychological beliefs that may stop a candidate from executing on those skills. The third aspect it measures is the Will to Sell – desire, commitment, outlook and responsibility. This tool has been voted as the most effective sales capability assessment in the world, each year, for the last 9 years, with in excess of two million respondents.

Accompanying this is a tool known as the Profiles Sales Assessment, from Wiley. It’s a multi-construct psychometric assessment which discerns the respondents’ cognitive abilities, hardwired behavioural traits and occupational interests. The individuals’ results are then compared with a benchmark that has been created by profiling known high-performers in that role. The predictive reliability of this tool is rated at .82 – and unlike so many other poorly constructed ‘personality’ assessments, if you sit this test again in 3 years there will be a .95 correlation to the original results.

Using a high-performance cohort including 180-degree input from their managers, it is also possible to develop an ‘Expert Benchmark’ which shows the Interpersonal Strategies (aka emotional range) that high-performers draw upon when facing increased pressure/stress. This tool forms part of the Australian-owned Expr3ss predictive-hiring platform.

This combination of approaches alone means you can decide to hire a future sales star with 300%+ more reliable data, than the ole resume and “If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?” or, “Where do you see yourself in 3 years?” bullshit interview questions.

Look, the list goes on and is growing by the day, of ways in which as a hiring manager you can much more cleverly discern, using data and behavioural science which candidates have got ‘the right stuff’ for your sales vacancy.

It’s time to stop recruiting with your fingers crossed on one hand behind your back. It’s time to start leveraging data-driven recruitment.

The post How Data Changes The Recruitment Game appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Well for some.

Australia, like most parts of the world, finds itself in the midst of one the greatest economic downturns in our lifetime. The pressure of that is most definitely being felt by small to medium-sized enterprises, with many having had to shed staff over the weeks and months since March of this year.

However, there are signs of a resurgence – albeit small and tentative. Announcements will be delivered by both State and Federal governments in the next few weeks, intended to kick-start our economy and to begin to rebuild confidence. My own experience in recent weeks, as a recruiter of sales professionals for SMEs, has been that many small business owners have bounced back from the initial shock of shutdowns due to the pandemic and realised A) there’s lost ground to be made and B) conditions are going to be tough and so bringing on expertise, in the guise of a sales professional, is probably a smart thing to do.

Like almost everything in life, of course, there’s no one perfect answer or way forward, so there are a number of things that we should each be considering, when it comes to hiring (or, re-hiring) sales staff in the coming weeks and months.

There’s a fine line between being ‘trim’, or even ‘lean and mean’… and becoming anorexic. In downturns and recessions past, I have witnessed businesses that became so ‘skinny’, they were in fact unhealthy. They had bandwidth and therefore fulfilment challenges because they had cut back on their staffing numbers, too deeply. Whether we like it or not, customers/clients (even if there are fewer of them) still have an expectation about quality and timeliness of service/product, regardless of the economy. So, undertaking a proper analysis of the balance between anticipated demand and workforce planning, to be able to meet that demand is really important right now. Now, more than ever, we need to strike what I describe as ‘A Goldilocks Balance’. Where there’s not too many staff draining the bank account for not enough return… nor too few staff, resulting in dissatisfied customers/clients or vital sales opportunities being missed. It needs to be ‘juuust right.’

For those that have shed sales staff in weeks past, it seems obvious that if we’re ready to grow again that they would be the first port of call. To re-hire them. Better the Devil you know and all that, right? In principle that’s a sound move. However, now is also a good time for you to assess your method of working. Are there revenue generation activities you used to do inhouse that could be outsourced and paid for on a piece-by-piece basis? Also worth thinking about is whether the previous incumbent really was performing to the standard you’d hoped? Or were you living in hope that they’d come good?

In my business and for many of my clients, I use and have taught managers to use a simple formula to weigh this question out. I call it the Hope Index. Quite simply reflect on their past (and you can use this with current team members too) performance and rate them as:

1. Exceeds expectations
2. Meets expectations
3. Below expectations

Then, consider how much effort they put into their work. Do they:

1. Strive to deliver on expectations
2. Cruise – you know they’ve always got ‘gas left in the tank’
3. Minimal – they do the least they can get away with to stay off your radar

And then, how teachable/coachable were/are they?

Green: A Seeker – they’re always coming to you wanting to learn new things

Orange: Open – when you want them to adopt new methods, they run with them, without resistance

Red: Resistant – Always pushing back or finding reasons to not take up the new way

Anybody you rate as having been 3 C Red, you probably don’t want them back in the business. Even a 2 B Red might be a question mark.

With those that you do re-hire, what will be important now, is for you to give them absolute crystal clarity on the outcomes you expect them to be delivering in their role. You don’t pay people a wage to perform tasks. You pay them to deliver outcomes to the business. You’re not a freight-forwarding business (unless you actually are!), so, you don’t carry baggage. You’re not an airline (unless you actually are!), so, you don’t want to be carrying passengers. Get very clear on what success looks like for each of the revenue generation roles you have in your business and then be very clear about communicating that to your new or re-hired sales team members. Imagine they were a contractor that you only paid if they delivered a result. What would that result look like? How would you define success?

For those of you looking to hire sales staff afresh, 7 things to consider…

#1 Recruitment is a marketing exercise.

So many small business owners fall foul of an arrogance where they believe they’re doing the potential new employee a favour if they employ them. In our experience the truth is quite the reverse. As a small or medium business you have a fraction (at best) of the stability, financial backing, resources and ‘door-opening power’ of much larger businesses – what that can mean is you really are a risk to work for, by comparison. So, getting good quality applicants is as much of a marketing exercise as getting new customers or clients. Boring, arrogant, lazy job ads which portray you as unimaginative, uncaring and possibly demanding are highly unlikely to get you the result you want.

#2 You are not Google, or Virgin, or Apple, or… Gary V Enterprises Inc…

You’re a SMALL business with great aspirations (as yet, unrealised). So, stop kicking your ad’s off with rubbish like “We’re the market leader in…” – “We’re the number 1 in…” It means absolutely nothing to any potential new-hire with even an ounce of social-savvy.

#3 Humans like resonance and belonging

Most job ads list a bunch of required skills, experiences, competencies (we call it the ‘ransom note of demands’). 9 times out of 10 – especially when recruiting for someone with experience – the right applicant knows, without you listing them, what’s required to be able to perform the role. Far more effective is to describe the nature, the characteristics, the way the ideal person is likely to naturally conduct themselves. If I see me described in the ad, I’m far more likely to apply.

#4 Humans love human stories of aspiration

Most job ads, for the last 50 years have been an exercise in chest thumping, followed by a list of ‘demands’ (aka “The ideal candidate will possess…”). They’re inhuman. Robotic and just a tad arrogant. Instead, try telling the story of your business. Not the brag story – but the ‘journey story’. Give your business a personality, bring it to life.

#5 Don’t rely on job boards

A) Boooring! B) You need to be where your best candidates are – which might be job boards… and Facebook and LinkedIn and your company website and your company LinkedIn page and YouTube and even Twitter. Today’s ‘social’ world means you need to build and publish ads that are dynamic stories about your business, about the role and about you! And they need to be found wherever your best likely future employee hangs out. Most job ads bore people to death – and they don’t attract the best. Get creative with them – and definitely add video today…

#6 We join organisations… and leave bad bosses. Right?

Chances are you’ve done this already in your own working life. So, your next new sales hire, is far more interested in who YOU are than your company’s brand stuff. So, consider telling your story in the ad. Your journey, your passion, your ‘why’. Who are you? What do you value? Why did you start this business? A really powerful way of conveying this piece is via a 3-minute video – talking to camera. (You can add these on Seek).

#7 A picture paints a thousand words

You’ve heard that saying dozens of times- and it’s true. Depending on the limitations of the various platforms you might be posting on, include colourful, or, thought-provoking, or humorous images that add to your story line – and catch the eye.

Like it or not, even in this economy the ‘War For Talent’ is raging and at the small end of town we’re the combatants trying to defend our turf. Getting creative and human with your recruitment ad’ campaign is ‘mission-critical’ in 2020.

The post 7 Considerations For Sales Recruitment During COVID. appeared first on Head Of Sales.

What should I be looking for in a good sales recruit?

This is a vexing question for many sales and business leaders.

And some of the answers we still hear aren’t very helpful either.

‘They must be hunters.’

‘They need to be hungry.’

‘They’ve got to be able to close deals.’

‘They must have a mortgage and family so they are ‘motivated’ to sell more.’

‘They must have industry experience.’

Notice anything familiar about most of these answers?

They are all stuck in the ‘aggressive, self-serving, desperate approach to selling’ paradigm which is not what good selling actually is – at least the selling practices and qualities we know to be suitable, good for business, salespeople and customers.

The industry experience one can be an issue, too. Often times when we recruit industry experience we can often get the same people, with the same old ideas and the same old results. So be aware about industry experience, as it’s not always the best path to follow.

These tired old tropes keep us from hiring the right sales talent our businesses really need.

So we encourage you to not fall into this simplistic mind trap because it won’t end well for you, your customers, your salespeople, or your business and its reputation.

So what should we really be looking for in a good sales recruit?

It all depends… What are you selling and to whom?

1. Are you selling B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to consumer)?
2. Are you selling unique solutions or specialised/customised products or services?
3. Are you selling simple off-the-shelf products or services?

The higher the complexity of what you are selling, the more skilful and knowledgeable your salespeople will need to be when it comes to customer engagement.

At the other end, if what you’re selling is simple and off-the-shelf, then you will more than likely need to have an online presence that is automated and underpinned by a human service component that helps sort out any issues as they arise.

Either way, you need to determine what type of salesperson and/or approach you need first before you answer the original question posed here.

However, if your business needs people in sales roles who need to sell in person to other people who need problems solved and opportunities realised, then here are some core qualities, capabilities and competencies you might want to assess for before you take anyone on board.

The information I’m sharing with you is based on over 20 years of research we have done into sales competency mapping combined with my many years in sales recruitment where I interviewed over 8,000 people in sales and sales leadership roles face-to-face for about an hour each. I trust this will help you make more informed decisions when it comes to recruiting good sales talent.

A fair exchange of value

Regardless of what you sell, at the heart of any good sales interaction and relationship is the realisation that there has been a fair exchange of value where both buyer and seller benefit. Authenticity, empathy, and logic are the foundations of trust. And trust has to be built by salespeople and their businesses in order for buyers to feel confident in the choices they have made.

So what would I be looking for in a good sales recruit first?

• What they see as a fair exchange of value and how they create the conditions for this to happen
• How they approach developing new business with new and existing clients;
• How they approach developing new business relationships and maintaining existing relationships so opportunity can continue to flourish for both parties
• What selling means to them – do they see it as a vehicle that allows opportunity to flourish and people to prosper together, or as a means to an end where the customers are merely objects to be exploited?
• How they arrive for an interview: Do they arrive on time? How do they treat people when they arrive and leave reception? How are they dressed? How prepared are they? and so on
• Do I trust them? Do I feel they have my best interests at heart?

Before I dive into the technical depth of their skills and capabilities, I am looking at their character, their values, their self-management, their manners and courtesy, and their perspective on building trust and fostering healthy relationships internally and externally now and for the long term.

If they cannot get that right then no amount of technical know-how and experience is going to make them a good fit.

If they pass muster here, then let’s go into more specific detail. While I cannot account for every nuance in every sales role here now, here are some of the core competencies we found most businesses in B2B and complex B2C want their sales recruits to be across and accomplished in to be effective salespeople:

B2B or Complex B2C Salesperson’s Role

• Knowledge
  • Business Acumen
  • Understanding customers’ needs
  • Understanding the market
  • Knowledge of resources (incl. product knowledge, CRM, sales tools/systems and social selling practices)
• Skills
  • Building relationships and networks
  • Prospecting and new business development
  • Account management and planning
  • Solution Selling
• Mindset
  • Consultative problem solving
  • Empathy and understanding
  • Ethics, integrity and professionalism
  • Self-reflection and development

Next time we’ll look into how to assess for these qualities.

The post What Qualities Do Good Sales Recruits Have? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

I’ve been in professional selling for more than 3 decades and during that time I’ve been a sales rep, sales manager, sales director of public companies, and Managing Director of my own businesses and also for the Asia-Pacific region of global operations. I’ve written a best selling book on sales leadership and I teach sales master classes for the MBA program at the University of Technology Sydney.

YOU’D THINK I WOULD BE MASTERFUL AT HIRING THE RIGHT SALES PEOPLE. BUT I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE – IT’S INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT!

What defines the right sales person and how do you screen-out those who look good but can’t deliver? Once you’ve got a short-list, how do you get past the masterful façade being projected? How do you differentiate the candidates and find those with the right attitude and values? I’ve written about the importance of cultural fit and how to best execute a job interview but for the employer or recruitment consultant, how do you uncover the truth about their capabilities, values, and weaknesses?

Without doubt, the biggest mistake a manager can make is to hire the wrong person. This is because it damages your own personal brand and wastes huge amounts of time and emotional energy in managing the person out. It also has devastating consequences on revenue and lost momentum. Finally, it can also damage corporate relationships in the market-place. Never hire the best of the bunch. Only hire the right person – the one you feel strongly will be successful in the role and fit within your team culture. Here is what I regard as the best process for hiring and also rules that should never be broken if you are committed to managing risk.

Go beyond the job description and qualifications. Forget generic job descriptions! Instead write an ad that talks about what the person is expected to do and how they will need to execute. Ask them to write a one-page letter, attaching their CV, highlighting why they are the ideal candidate to join your team. Don’t accept something that merely plays back the advertisement and obviously reject those who do not have prerequisite qualifications and experience. Does their CV provide evidence of consistent high performance? Have they been with past employers for sustained periods of time? Do they possess the necessary qualifications and experience?

Progressive screening to qualify out. Now that you have an initial group of candidates who have the necessary qualifications and responded as requested; it’s all about a progressive qualification process to continually screen down to a short-list.

Can they write? If they could not write a good letter (structure, grammar and spelling) or failed to do basic research and adapt their pitch, then reject them immediately. The covering letter and CV should also have been tailored to show relevancy for the role. You don’t want a generic sales person and neither do your prospects and customers. Seriously, this is important because if you hire someone with poor written communication skills, you will forever be editing or rewriting proposals or correspondence – you don’t have time. Worse than this, they will submit losing proposals that miss the mark with prospects. In complex B2B selling, written skills are essential.

LinkedIn social proximity. LinkedIn is phenomenally powerful and it is likely that you know someone who knows someone who knows your candidate. Use your network to check the candidate out informally. Do it as an ‘off the record’ conversation, nothing official. Ensure the conversation is nuanced and that you pick-up the subtext of commentary about the individual. None of these conversations should be with a formal referee listed on the CV and certainly not with their current employer.

Psychometric Testing. The next step is to conduct psychometric testing (intelligence and operating style) and personality profiling (if not incorporated into previous). Here is something controversial: I don’t hire amiable personalities for business development roles – they have no chance of executing concepts such as Challenger Selling. Anyone who has a personality that avoids conflict or tension will be high maintenance and struggle to execute – you will forever be pushing them. The HR department will not like this, nor will they be in favour of informal ‘social proximity’ conversations but you cannot afford to get the hiring decision wrong, and you must take all necessary steps remove risk from the hiring process.

Written Exercise. Can they write under pressure? Before you run your ad, take the time to create a realistic sales scenario with a two page brief supported by a subset of your marketing collateral. This should be tailored for the sales role (field sales versus inside sales versus pre-sales / solution architects). Only give the candidates 24 hours to respond. For a business development role, ask them to write a two page executive summary that would lead a formal proposal. You’re looking to see whether they can construct a relevant, concise, professional, logical, evidence-based letter that focuses on business value rather than features of your company or functions of your product, service or solution.

The Interview. This is where you are laser-focused to determine cultural fit. They have already demonstrated that they have the skills and qualifications to do the job but now it’s all about their values, work ethic, attitude and personality. Put them under pressure and ask them to provide real examples of how they’ve dealt with difficult situations. Ask them these kinds of questions: 

• How do you define ‘strategic selling’ – what do you do that makes you ‘strategic’?
• What was your biggest loss and what did you learn?
• How do you qualify an opportunity?
• What was your biggest win and how did you create value and manage risk?
• What’s your approach for building pipeline and how do they leverage LinkedIn and other social platforms and tools for monitoring and research?
• What are the professional development books you’ve read in the last 12 months?

Integrity trap. If the candidate comes from a competitor, ask them what they can bring to role beyond their skills and experience. Ask them what IP they possess that can help them accelerate their success. If they say anything other than their insights, domain expertise and relationships; don’t hire them. Anyone who offer to bring a contact database, pipeline report, or any other private and confidential information belonging to your competitor will most likely do the same to you when they leave. Integrity is everything – yours and theirs. There are also obvious legal issues you could become embroiled in. Your personal and corporate reputation is everything so reject anyone who shows poor moral judgement.

Reference checking. Never delegate reference checking and never make it an afterthought. Always select the people you want to talk with rather than the ‘buddies’ listed as referees on the candidates CV. You know they will say nice things and report back to the candidate afterward. Instead select the most senior contact of a large deal they won, or a senior contact with their biggest channel partner. The hiring manager (the person who the candidate will directly report to) must do the reference checks personally, over a coffee if possible rather than a phone call.

Hiring the wrong person is the biggest mistake you can make. It will cause you enormous pain and damage your own career. When in doubt about a candidate, don’t hire them. Wait, be patient, get it right. If you use a recruitment consultant, make them earn their fee by ensuring they understand your culture and that they define value in fewer CVs rather than more CVs. Don’t let them bombard you with marginal candidates or send you anyone that is not both technically and culturally qualified. The very best recruitment consultants work with a ‘less is more’ ethos and invest the time with you to understand your culture.

Here is the sales aptitude test absolutely free. I won’t use your email address to market to you – no spam. The self-assessment takes approximately 50 minutes but there is no time limit. Upon completion, summary scores are provided for the following seven competencies in professional selling:

1. Sales Process
2. Communication
3. Knowledge, Attitude and Skill
4. Opening
5. Closing
6. Objections
7. Opportunity Development

The post Hiring The Right Sales People Is Incredibly Difficult. appeared first on Head Of Sales.