This is an adapted from the book Sales Recruiting 2.0 – How to Hire Top Performing Sales People, Fast

Is there any better icon of a winning culture than the New York Yankees? Each year they field a team expected to win it all and if they don’t get to the World Series, their fans are upset. This is a team that doesn’t know how to lose and they are ruthless in their pursuit of winning (ask anyone traded off their team).

We have all been part of teams where the few people are hitting targets, there is a tolerance for mediocrity and the leadership is not inspiring. Negativity breads negativity and if your team doesn’t have a culture of success, you will often pay with your job or your business.

Creating a culture of success is an absolutely critical part of a high performance sales force. Maintaining this kind of culture takes commitment and there may be times when things seem off. Pay attention because even if things have only become a little lax, getting things back on track can be a big challenge.

Start with rewarding the right behaviors.
The one best thing you can do as a leader to create the culture of success is lead by example. Practice excellence yourself. Roll up your sleeves and close a key account. Show your team you are prepared to work hard yourself and it how it pays off. They will follow your lead. Reward members of your team who go above and beyond to win and be professional (both are critical).

Add team members with the right DNA.
If things have been sliding for a while, you may need to clean house and bring in fresh blood. Not everyone will buy-in to your change program, and bringing in ambitious success oriented people who will be excited about your team’s success can have a huge impact on the others – especially the quieter ones who are heavily influenced by those around them.  Peak was once engaged by a large national telco to help them hire 60 reps in 120 days to achieve a complete overhaul in one of their divisions. That change enabled them to achieve their FY target and had a strategic impact on the company.

Communicate frequently.
Far too many sales managers skip this step – if you want your team to take part in a new culture, or to do anything for that matter, you need to tell them what you’re looking for, show them and then show them again. What is intuitive and top of mind for you, may not be for them. Communicate to your team often and demonstrate that things will improve vastly for them working as a team, following your plan.

Gandhi said “be the change you want to see in the world” and the same goes for sales culture. It starts from the top down.

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We have been involved in thousands of sales hiring and recruiting projects. We are often called in to investigate and fixed failed hiring initiatives. Here in countdown order are the top 10 sales hiring mistakes we see and what you can do to avoid them.

10. Hiring based on gut.
Problem: while a person may feel right from meetings, your gut is often not skilled enough to make the right choice. Usually the hire that will perform is the one that scores the highest against specific criteria such as competencies, experiences, proven success and fit with your sales environment and culture.
Solution: Map out exactly what you need and objectively evaluate all candidates using the same criteria, same process and same interview questions.

9. Hiring who’s available instead of who you need.
Problem: The pressure to hit targets is immense and often a sales manager jumps to hire the first person that looks good or good enough, but getting sales hiring right takes patience and in the end they may end up wasting money and time investing in someone that is not the right fit.
Solution: Your best bet is to know the sales competencies your reps require and look for them when interviewing – past success is the best proof of ability.

8. Hiring a product sales person to sell solutions.
Problem: The selling activity and skills required to sell solutions is completely different than for products.
Solution: Your best bet is to know the sales competencies your reps require and look for them when interviewing – past success is the best proof of ability.

7. Hiring someone from a big company into a small company.
Problem: In a small company there is typically less infrastructure and support, less stability in direction and less brand recognition. It is tougher.
Solution: If your prospective hire has not successfully sold in a start up before, you need to test their comfort with the environment your company offers. Don’t sugarcoat.

6. Hiring the person with the best resume.
Problem: Often the best reps spend more time selling than polishing their resume. Solution: Focus on results and don’t be fooled by someone whose resume overstates limited accomplishments.

5. Hiring without doing thorough reference checks.
Problem: Sales people are often at their best in interviews and accomplishments may be embellished.
Solution: Validate all their claims and truly understand what it is like to employ them. Place a priority on former employers over colleagues and even customers.

4. Hiring based on industry experience rather than sales competencies.
Problem: Many companies believe that a new hire needs to come from the industry, have the right rolodex and domain knowledge in order to be successful, but the top performers are typically successful because of DNA not sector experience.
Solution: Give the job applicants tests and role plays that demonstrate their ability to learn and sell your offering. Top performers are usually fast learners.

3. Hiring reps from the competition.
Problem: Two head to head competitors can have vastly different offerings, cultures and selling environments, which require different characteristics in successful reps which means they may not be suited to your company and may in fact, bring baggage. Furthermore it reduces the pool of people you can choose from and raises the price you will have to pay.
Solution: Model your selling environment and know which competitors if any actually have the right people on their team.

2. Hiring a farmer when you need a hunter.
Problem: Each role requires completely different sales DNA and hunters can often learn to be farmers but the reverse is seldom true.
Solution: Make sure your hiring process includes tests to make sure you select the right DNA for the role.

1. Falling for a smile and a happy disposition.
Problem: Sales is a confidence sport and being likable is a good attribute to customers, but winning in sales takes hard work, persistence, optimism, ability to handle adversity and luck.
Solution: Look at past successes and references to ensure you are picking a performer with a great disposition.

In the end it doesn’t matter what kind of training, development, incentives and management you have in place if you don’t have the right people on board in the first place. You need to build the right team to be a sales powerhouse.

Eleven weeks to go until year end. For most it has been a bumpy year and a strong finish will be critical. Hard work creates opportunity and there is still lots of time to find and close net new deals. This is a great time to work hard towards a strong finish. Here are the ten best ways to make sure your team hits target by year end:

1. Communicate the Importance of the Target to the Team – all the reasons for hitting the targets may be patently obvious to every senior manager in the company, but may not be obvious at the rep level – they are more focused on their own day to day work and deals, regardless of whether they are on target. Even if the team has heard the message fifty times, it never hurts to say it again and like a coach cheering their team on in the fourth quarter when fatigue may be setting in, you need a rallying cry (or several) to keep the energy levels high right to the finish.
2. Put extra focus on key deals and territories – for smaller deal sizes, review overall pipelines and daily plans to capture a high percentage of the opportunities. For enterprise sales review the best deals that each rep has in their funnel – determine which are the most important deals and make yourself available 24/7 to help close whatever needs to close – often reps can’t get the attention of senior management – now is the time to make sure they can. In either case, don’t be limited to what’s in the CRM as many of the good deals somehow don’t make their way in. Don’t neglect the rest of the pipeline.
3. Don’t let anyone quit – often there are reps who feel like they won’t make their number with only a few weeks left in the quarter and they stop working hard especially with Christmas falling at the end of the quarter and clients taking time off. You can’t afford for anyone to give up and try to sandbag next quarter…..watch for defeatism on your team and work with them to stay motivated to keep pushing to close deals. Encourage them to keep prospecting and act as if there is still 6 months left in the year.
4. Make sure everyone is practicing good discipline and work habits – with holiday season parties going on at the end of the year, reps might be staying out late at night and then coming in later missing key selling hours. You can’t afford to let them do this. You need your reps to be well rested and ready when they come into the office and you need them to start early finish late.
5. Reach out to all existing customers – customers are often not aware of your targets, so now is a good time to let them know you are prepared to offer the best deals for repeat business and timely purchases. You can also remind them that prices may be going up next year and buying now may in fact save them money.
6. Watch out for Excuses – top performers don’t make excuses, they keep fighting to succeed all the time. If someone on your team is making early excuses about why they can’t hit their numbers, you need to have a chat about expectations and their career. Of course you don’t want them to conceal issues either so you need to make sure you are constructive so you can help them advance deals and be successful.
7. Monitor Activity Volumes – are calls, meetings, proposals, etc. in line with typical ratios required to hit targets? This can be your clue to deteriorating effort. Jump on any sign that people are not doing the work that leads to results.
8. Track Deal Slide – What percentage of forecasted deals are sliding into the next quarter? Often reps dismiss deals early in the quarter assuming they have plenty of other deals to work. Time kills deals, so any that slip may in fact be dying. Jump on these to understand why they are slipping and what you can do to close them before quarter end.
9. Keep the focus on the revenue target, not the news – the news easily puts negative thoughts in the heads of your reps or distracts them from what is important, which in turn it doesn’t put them in the right frame of mind to be positive in front of customers, and instill their confidence and trust. Focus on the customer and the sale. There is no certainty in the outlook and won’t be for the foreseeable future. Get over it.
10. Have fun – nurture the friendly competition, the bonding that occurs across the team, and smile as much as possible knowing that you are doing everything you can to win. Your customers will appreciate it and reward you.

Last point don’t forget the importance of prospecting so you are set up to succeed in Q1 next year by starting with a strong funnel.