Sales managers have given up on it. Business owners don’t
know what to do about it. Recruiters and headhunters are avoiding it. Human
Resource managers have decided to outsource it. What is this?
It is the job of getting the right sales people to
hire. Why is hiring right such a
difficult task for business people and human resource experts alike? From where we stand as specialists in sales
recruitment we have observed the following mistakes that business owners and
managers are making while recruiting sales people.
1. Looking for the
super sales person:
Many organizations are obsessed with getting that one single
super star……….. a sales magician………..a superman. That man or woman who will
come in and start delivering results in a few days or weeks.
When they come across someone they think bears the marks of
this magician they make big promises and commitments on compensation and other benefits
to this person. Then they sit and wait
for the results to start flowing in.
Then as days start counting into weeks and no results come
as expected. In the meantime the costs of maintaining this star are piling up
and soon they become too much to incur. The person is put under extreme
pressure to deliver. Often the terms of
engagement are changed downwards. Disappointment gives way to something closer
to hatred on this guy. He is accused openly or behind his back of lying to get
the job.
The superstar will either opt out or will be fired for
failing to live up to unrealistic expectations.
The mistake made is failing to appreciate that every sales
person however great will take time to start producing. Depending on industry
this ramp up time may even run into months. This time can be shortened through
various strategies which must be spearheaded by the employer.
2. Trying to hire
yourself out of a sales crisis:
Many organizations hire salespeople to get out of a sales
crisis. Whether it is falling sales volumes, lost opportunities, losing
business to competitors or stagnated growth many organizations result to hiring
sales people as the first line of response to the crises.
The truth is that you
cannot solve your immediate problems through hiring. Hiring as a short term
remedy normally deepens the crisis. As stated previously in this article you
should not expect immediate results from new hires, regardless of their
experience and understanding of your business and industry.
You need also need to recognize that the people are usually
part of a sales organization and rarely are they the biggest cause of the sales
challenges you have. Only after you address the other challenges you do you
result in hiring.
You need to address issues to do with your sales strategy
and sales management structures before you start shopping for great sales
talent.
3. Entrusting the
success of new salesperson to the new salesperson:
Many organizations particularly the Small and Medium Sized
Businesses hire and then sit back wait for them to produce. They hope that the new
person will discover and overcome the various hurdles in the business and the market
on his own initiative.
The support the new
guy or girl will get will be a few minutes’ introductions to existing staff, some
orientation by some bored and disinterested staff from other departments, some
product training and sustained pressure to produce.
I believe that for you to make it as a salesperson you
require to be self driven, a person with great sense of discipline and
initiative and a quick learner.
However, for these qualities to deliver the highest results
they should be employed in the right places and in the right ways. These are
the ways the firm has discovered and mastered over its business lifetime. This is the excellence knowledge which should
be shared with every sales person –new or old- through rigorous training and
coaching. This knowledge should be developed into tools, procedures and
processes to aid the new person to succeed.
You need to have support structures and systems that aid the
new hire to start producing without having to invent his own wheel of success
in your organization.
4. A faulty selection
paradigm:
Can you tell for sure what kind of candidate you require in
your organization? What qualities should that candidate have? What are
the-must-have qualities, the good to have and the others you don’t care about? Are
you convinced these are the qualities that make the person excel in your business?
Do you know how to identify those qualities in a candidate? How
can you measure them?
Every manager will tell you that past experience and
education levels are the least important determinants for success in sales yet;
these two are the major determining factors in the selection of majority of
candidates hired in the market every year. Actually, if a candidate doesn’t impress on
the basis of these two factors in their resume they are unlikely to be even
shortlisted for interviewing.
5. Hiring people you
don’t have to develop:
Everyone wants to hire people whom they will spend minimum
effort, time and resources to develop. While this may sound like great business
wisdom, casual observation reveals otherwise. In most organizations the most
productive, the most competent and the most loyal sales people are the ones who
were hired on basis of potential rather than previously acquired selling competency.
This potential was nurtured and developed through training, mentorship and
coaching within the organization they are working for. Many of those who move from organizations that
initially developed them struggle to perform in the same manner they did in the
original employer.
This then makes a case for you to hire on basis of sales
potential or sales aptitude. You need to be able to identify this aptitude and
then provide nurturing and development structures and systems that will convert
the potential into results.
If you avoid these mistakes you will save your company
millions of shilling every year. You can calculate your real costs of sales
hiring mistakes by using this CALCULATOR
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