Hiring new sales reps is not among most managers’ favorite tasks, largely because they see it as a guessing game and the stakes are high.
The problem, says Andrew Rudin, is that companies use the wrong criteria to attract and interview candidates. Rudin, managing principal at Contrary Domino, a sales strategy consulting company, offers this example of a recent posting he saw for a software sales rep:
- Minimum 5+ years of successful software sales experience
- Experience in consultative selling
- Experience in lead role of a team-selling environment
- Ability to uncover and identify new business opportunities
- Excellent communication, organizational and interpersonal skills
“Millions of people have experience doing things. I have experience golfing, but I’m not a good golfer. That doesn’t stop me from checking the experience box,” he states. And what does “successful” mean? Achieving quota every year or just selling something every now and then?
Excellent communication, organizational and interpersonal skills are an obvious must for a sales position. Why would anyone lacking these skills have the temerity to apply?
None of these criteria are concerned with past client outcomes, he adds. “It’s all about revenue, and not whether there was a satisfied buyer who paid for the product or service.”
Rudin proposes dumping the “picayune sales rep ‘must have’s” and focusing on discovering three self-reinforcing skills in sales candidates:
Gain rapport and trust. Without this, nothing else can happen.
Qualify opportunities. A salesperson who is able to qualify opportunities throughout the buying process has a much stronger chance of making quota than one who doesn’t.
Guide buying transactions through completion – and beyond. What used to be known as closing, but Rudin shuns the term because, as a customer, he doesn’t like being closed. “A salesperson can only be effective when he or she knows how to guide prospects to outcomes that are mutually beneficial for buyer and seller. Long term, the sale doesn’t matter if the buyer doesn’t benefit.”
“The years of experience, industry knowledge, team selling, consultative selling, what have you — is simply icing on the cake,” Rudin says. “These skills depend in part on innate abilities, and they require constant attention to hone and perfect. Include them in every hiring requisition. And challenge job candidates to back up their claims of competency with past examples, and to provide explanations about how they have developed these skills. This will help you find right talent. The rest can be taught on the job.”
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