DON’T HIRE Until You First Craft the Ideal Salesperson Avatar

In the fast-paced world of sales, discovering the perfect salesperson is like catching all green lights when you’re running late – rare, but when it happens, it quickly and profoundly changes your revenue trajectory.  It requires discipline, a dash of intuition, and a healthy dose of science. I always find that before I begin the hiring journey, I have to write down the key aspects of the candidate by building my perfect salesperson avatar.  Here are some keys you may want to consider.

Seniority

In strategically building your sales team, the imperative is to precisely delineate the experience level sought. Is the objective to recruit an entry-level candidate, primed for intensive training and rapid development, or a seasoned senior seller, equipped with a proven track record and a network of contacts, for immediate impact. The choice demands a careful analysis of your team dynamics and the specific challenges at hand. A judicious alignment of expertise with organizational objectives will ultimately dictate the success of your recruitment strategy.

The Sales DNA: Unraveling the Genetic Code of a Closer

First and foremost is the Sales DNA – the genetic makeup that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary in the world of sales. It's about having a sales gene that imbues the individual with an insatiable drive to always be first in their peer group while being very handsomely compensated.  They possess a set of habits, traits, and attitudes that make them consistently excel without external input.  This will be revealed through assessments and their interview conduct.

Track Record – Are They a Quota Killer

This is the indisputable proof that separates the great interviewers from great sales talent.    Their potential future at your organization is nicely predicted by their sales behavior in previous roles.  Their experience of successfully achieving or over-achieving previous sales quotas over a substantial period (say 3-5 years) is evidence of their long-term drive rather than episodic success.  Your ideal salesperson should be a quota killer, someone who thrives under pressure and consistently delivers results. If your candidate has a history of turning quotas into mere steppingstones, you're on the right track.

Cultural Alignment: The Secret Sauce of Team

A perfect salesperson doesn't just fit into your organization; they become an integral part of its fabric. Picture your ideal candidate seamlessly blending with your team, embodying your company's values, and enhancing the overall dynamic.  This isn't just about a shared love for remote work. It's about aligning values, work ethic, and a collective vision for success and the expectation of excellence.  A salesperson who not only understands your company culture but also contributes to its growth and evolution is an invaluable asset.

Your Avatar Will Be Your Guide.

So, now that you have well-defined your perfect hire, how do you know when you've found the right candidate?  As quaint as it may seem, it will feel like recognizing a long-lost friend in a crowded room – a gut feeling that transcends resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Trust your instincts but be disciplined to stick to your well-defined avatar.

As you embark on this worthy endeavor, remember, your perfect salesperson isn't just a hire; they're a catalyst for success, a driving force that propels your team toward unprecedented heights.

Experience is not always the key in hiring salespeople!

Finding a great salesperson is a noble quest that few get right.   Yet identifying a rockstar seller is literally a game-changer for any business.   As a buyer of products and services, each of us have worked extensively with salespeople as both a consumer and a business professional.  It is this experience set that we feel fantastically informs our hiring decision.  This is a misguided notion!  Rather, it is a crippling mindset that imbues us with unearned confidence.  Let’s digest that a bit.  How many of those salespeople that you worked with responded to your inquiry?   More importantly, how many found you?  (It is my hearty recommendation that you retain the contact information for this later group!).

According to Crunchbase, reps that don’t do cold outreach have 42% less sales growth.  However, cold calling has only a 2% success rate on average.  That is a huge dollop of rejection that few can endure over the long haul.  The revealing question, then, is what do these persistent cold callers have in common?  The answer is that it isn’t their experience, it is their “Sales DNA”.  It’s not what they learned, its who they are.

Very often as we embark on the arduous task to add or replace a seller, we invariably seek to find industry-experienced sellers with deep contacts among the buying community.  Make no mistake, this is hugely valuable.  But as you are looking to make a hire, it’s critical that one honestly explores where you need to be on the Experience – Sales DNA spectrum.  Ideally, we seek to find an individual that is strong on both measures.  However, the data does not favor that outcome.  In a famous research study of over 2,000,000 salespeople, only 6% were “elite.”  Their success had no known correlation to their industry experience.  It was their “Sales DNA”.  It was not only their ability to do the work – but their drive to do so vigorously and continuously over the long run.  So, it comes down to one clarifying question;

“How quickly and thoroughly can I teach a talented, natural seller to be successful in my business?”

Depending on the competitive advantage for your company’s products/services and your onboarding capabilities, you might have greater long-term success hiring a strong seller with no industry experience than a very experienced (and expensive) sales veteran.  These veterans tend to have great experience with decision makers who, at some point will graduate or retire out of their positions- leaving a veteran with less sway. While a tenacious seller will continually do the required activity to continue to bring new companies into your client portfolio.

Sales assessments are valuable but should only be about 25%-40% of your decision.  It is the sales hiring process that is the magic to creating an unstoppable sales force that will be the envy of your industry!

The problem with your sales team is YOU!

If you are a business owner or a sales manager and you are underwhelmed by your pipeline, conversion, average ticket, or client retention, look no further than the mirror.  it is easy to try to put a Band-Aid on your sales leakage problems with training and consultants. However, all you are doing is asking your sellers to be the type of person they are not. 

The driving force in the sales success of any company, regardless of scale, is the quality of the sales team. If you are suffering from any of these sales maladies mentioned above, it is because you allowed these individuals into your company, and you haven’t replaced them. There is a myriad of reasons that they still have a chair inside your organization, but none more compelling than that you haven’t developed a reliable system to attract, vet and recruit outstanding sellers. The long-term effects of this is a widening aperture in your sales system that is permitting the slow creep of mediocrity to infiltrate you culture.

In the spirit of “Misery loves company”, you might be gratified to learn that you are not alone.  In a study of over 2,000,000 newly minted salespeople, only 6% were considered “Elite” (defined as climbing to the top half of the sales organization within the first 6 months), 20% of that group were good, but took longer to achieve expected results. However, fully 74% of these sales hires were a colossal waste of money. 

So why do we all have such difficulty hiring salespeople? In a FORBES report, it was determined that salespeople are the second most difficult position to hire after the “C’ suite. The reason is simple. Salespeople are a crafty bunch that possess enough finesse and common sense to outsmart most assessment tools and nearly all hiring processes. 

Perhaps you believe that your seller interview questions are profoundly “telling”. The truth is that the candidate was asked those same questions by in their two previous interviews. It is fair to say that some of these questions are very revealing.  But the key to hiring great salespeople is that it is not what they say during the process, but rather what they do. The answers to your great questions will only tell you how they think. It is their pursuit of the position that will tell you what they will do when you give them that chair.