Hiring the Right Salesperson – Part 3

This is the third of four installments of an article on how to select the right salesperson. These same strategies and tactics could be applied equally to hiring ANY position in any industry. In How to Hire the RIGHT Sales Talent Part 2 and Part 1 we answered four important questions:

In Part 3 of Hiring the RIGHT Salesperson, we’ll explore the answers to three more provocative questions.

Question 5: When Considering a Candidate, What are the Best Predictors of Success?

This is a critical question that deserves consideration. It costs a great deal to hire someone and even more if they don’t last long enough to pay for themselves. Look at the success factor balloons below. All of the factors are important considerations when evaluating a sales candidate. Which success factor (or factors) is (are) the best predictor(s) of a salesperson’s success?

To more fully understand the answer, organizations such as McKinsey and Leadership IQ have studied success factors correlated with a salesperson’s productivity and longevity on the job. Attitude is important, but there are people with terrific attitudes that don’t sell effectively. While people may stay at or leave a job because of their manager (see Gallup-backed research here), their degree of success is not determined by their manager.  A person’s technical skills give them an advantage when it comes to understanding a complex or technical product or service while knowing the relevant skills to do the job is important, but neither is predictive of success. The type of product or service being sold has little bearing on individual success.

The two factors that were most predictive of someone’s success once hired were fit (1) and desire/passion (2):

Question 6: What Factors Must be Considered in Order to Get Sales Compensation Right?

As discussed in Part 1 of Hiring the RIGHT Salesperson, a sales compensation plan must motivate and drive behaviors that are good for their employer. Not all revenue has the same value, so compensation plans should reward high-value revenue more, and low-value revenue less. Other considerations include:

Question 7: Are There Different Factors to Consider When Adding Sales Staff, Versus Hiring a Solo Performer?

As was discussed in Question 5, fit with your culture and with your team is the best predictor of success. One way to measure this likelihood of fit is through the use of a behavioral profile such as DISC:

Candidates for solo roles perform better if they possess a generalist set of skills. Generalist skills allow salespeople to relate to most/all of the prospects and customers they are likely to serve. Conversely, if adding to an existing staff, prefer candidates with specialist skills, especially specialist skills not possessed by your existing sales staff.

There is a special DISC assessment for sales and customer-facing roles that reveals a candidate’s selling behaviors, and we recommend it whenever hiring sales talent.

Bottom Line

So far we’ve dealt with seven questions that must be answered if you want to make consistently good hiring decisions:

• What are the top four mistakes made when hiring salespeople?
• What is the actual cost of making a poor hiring decision?
• What are the essentials of planning you must get right at the start of the hiring process?
• What are the top job-specific factors that must be considered when hiring?
• What are the best predictors of success when considering a candidate?
• What factors must be considered in order to get sales compensation right?
• Are there distinct factors to be considered when adding to the sales staff, versus hiring a solo performer?

In the last installment of Hiring the RIGHT Salesperson we’ll explore such topics as which hiring decision factors to consider when selecting a candidate, and what should be included in an effective onboarding program.

The preceding was created from our webinar, Hiring the Right Salesperson, which is part of Boyer Management Group’s B2B Sales Essentials™ program, named a Top Sales Training Program for multiple years.