Being the Sales Director, Mark has a lot of other things to do besides interviewing sales candidates.  However, due to the extremely high sales staff turnover, Mark has been getting a lot more involved in the sales staff hiring process, sometimes getting involved even in the preliminary interviews.

     Still, despite his best efforts to make sure only the sales people with the relevant experience, the best track records and whom had made the most impressive impression during the sales interviews are hired.  6 months later, most if not all sales hires have failed to deliver according to expectations.

     When Mark asked his Sales Managers why the new sales hires are not performing, the answers somehow centre around the following:

• "These young people are simply not motivated to work hard enough"

• "They just don't have the 'sense' to do business with the customers"

• "They just cannot fit into our kind of business", etc.

     Somehow, Mark feels rather helpless as no matter what he did, his new sales hires are just not performing.  Now Mark needs to find some ways that will give him some indications of future success, or he might as well implement a hiring freeze since his company has been wasting a lot of resources hiring under-performing sales people.

     Mark is not alone in his predicament.  Many companies are making a lot hiring mistakes when hiring new sales people.  If these mistakes can be rectified, these companies can see significant improvements in their sales results.

The Fallacy of Hiring Experienced Sales People
 

     However, if you were to look closer, these are not the critical success factors that will determine if the sales person will deliver results for you.

     One key reason is that the market place that we are operating in is constantly changing.  You will notice that:

• Customers are getting more and more demanding and knowledgeable;

• Competition is getting more and more intense;

• The things you sell are getting more and more complex, etc.

     In some markets, the changes within a 5-year period can be so drastic that it's beyond recognition.

     So if you are hiring based on past experience, how do you know that what worked in the past is going to work in the future?  The same factors that gave you success in the past are getting less and less relevant for today's and the future's challenges.

     What about a good sales track record, you might ask.  Surely, if a sales person has been consistently producing great results will still continue to produce great results.

     Unfortunately, unlike many other professions, the sales profession is one where dealing with failures is essential to becoming a successful sales person.  No successful sales person can claim that he or she has never been rejected by customers, or has never lost deals in an ongoing basis.  In fact, just like in many negotiations, the better sales person knows when to "walk away"  and seek other better prospective customers, while the weaker sales person hangs on too long to customers that are never going to buy.

     Hence, if you see sales people who seem to have "perfect" track records in the sense that they always reach or exceed sales targets could be:

• Selling in a monopoly where customers have no choice but to buy from them;

• Entering the market in an early stage so that they got the biggest customers in that market;

• Selling for a well-established brand to loyal existing customers that really need little persuasion to buy

     This is not to say that having the relevant experience and a good track record is not important to a sales person.  It just means that having some years of sales experience and a track record is no indicator of future performance.

The Critical Behaviours that Drive Sales

     While companies are always looking at sales figures to determine the success of their sales force, most of the time it is the sales process (i.e. how you sell) that determines the results you get.  How well the sales process is being executed depends largely the habits and behaviours of each sales person.

     Different companies will have different sales processes for different customers in different regions who are buying different product lines.  Hence, the critical behaviours that drive sales success will vary from case to case.  The sales processes that companies have can include:

1. Selling only to a few Strategic Accounts, and sales people will have to work through complex relationships so as to gain buy-in from all levels in the customer's organisation;

2. Constantly generating new leads and getting new customers to buy frequently; or

3. Having a balance of new business development and key accounts management so that sales people are getting both new and existing customers to buy from them with varying complexity, etc.

     In reality, sales processes can get a lot more complicated as different customers in different markets have different needs that have to be satisfied in different ways.  So what if you aren't quite sure what is the sales process for the next sales person, here are some "generic" critical behaviours that apply to most sales processes (and which are found lacking in most sales people too):

• Constant prospecting to make sure the sales person fills up the pipeline.  Most sales people, no matter how experienced, will prefer to deal with existing customers than to look for new ones.  However, if the sales person shows the disciplined behaviour to keep on prospecting for new prospects, that is a sign of a good hire;

• Constantly exploring what are the customers' "pain" or problem areas, and pro-actively seeking to provide  solutions or suggestions to customers to help them overcome those challenges;

• Making sure that the relationship with the customer are developed with all major key influencers in the customer's organisations, rather than relying on one single contact.  Such sales people are also usually good developing relationships with less influential "informants" who can provide critical information;

• Learning from mistakes and customer rejections so as to do better next time.  In a similar vein, knowing when NOT to pursue a customer when it's not worth the time or effort, AND spend time looking for new and better customers instead, etc.

     Hence, during your interviews with candidates, you can ask the following questions:

• "If I were a prospective customer, and you want to do business with me, how would you go about making that first contact?"  (Do a role play, and also ask the candidate what is his usual modus operandi)

• "What makes your customers buy from you instead of anybody else?  Why have some other customers chosen NOT to buy from you?"  (Note:  if the candidate gives general answers like  "because I provide good service", probe in deeper by asking "what is good service")

• "Typically, how many people do you have to communicate with before you can get your sale?  Can you cite an example where you need to work through many contacts before getting the sale?"  (Get the candidate to draw his customer's organisation chart if need be)

• "Are there any instances that you thought you probably have won the sale, but somehow lost it in the end?  What do you think you can learn from such cases?"  (Beware the candidate who's very confident and tells you he knows his customer real well)

• "Are there times when you need to give up on a specific sale?  What happened and what did you do then?"  (Watch out for the candidate who claims "I never give up any sale!"  It is a sign of poor priority management and qualifying skills)

Developing Competent Sales People

     It may not be surprising that most if not all of your candidates fail in ALL of the above questions.  It could well possible that even some of your existing experienced sales people fail some of those questions too.  (Or else sales consultancies like us will be out of business very soon!)

     The next question will be: if we then set such high standards that no candidates actually display the required critical behaviours, does that mean we don't hire anyone?