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Accountability – the Key to Success in Managing Sales Reps

AccountabilityDuring a coaching call with a CEO yesterday, I was asked for my thoughts on some of the best ways to get sales reps to perform. We discussed the elements of effective sales management from strategy, goal setting, communication, coaching and training. Amongst these tactics, holding reps accountable is arguably the most powerful tool for getting reps to perform.

Accountability – the key to success in managing sales reps

In my experience as a sales manager, successfully holding sales reps accountable involves five things:

1. Clearly Defining Goals – The first rule of goal achievement is having some in the first place. At the beginning of each reporting period, be sure to document and communicate the goals that the rep must achieve. Include revenues, sales wins, activities and whatever expectations the rep must meet, but keep it simple so that there is never any confusion about goals or conflicting priorities that might prevent the rep from staying focussed.

2. Regular Feedback and Communication – Few reps manage themselves. They need regular guidance and direction to be effective so make sure you are speaking at least once a week. I liked to meet with my reps every Monday am to go through forecast, discuss activities, set goals for the week, and address any team issues and then have ad-hoc meetings in between to discuss account plans, address challenges and to provide coaching. Some reps need more communication and some less – you will know the balance – but most need plenty and there is no such thing as over-communicating.

3. Measurement – Sales reps are metrics driven and excited by numbers (at least the the good ones are), so don’t make them guess where they are at vs their numbers. Make sure stats are easily accessible via some sort of dashboard and if the team works out of the same office,  a scoreboard with live data can be very powerful. Tap into the competitive nature of reps and create good energy on your team by showing the numbers for each and every rep side by side. Reps will naturally work harder to be at the top of the leader board.

4. Consequences – Many companies are afraid to let go of a poor performing rep, either because there is no replacement for them or the company feels they have made too big an investment in the rep to part ways , but this breeds complacency. There needs to be a sense that achieving the sales goal is not optional. This doesn’t mean that you terminate someone that doesn’t hit their targets once, but it does mean that you might have to accept a loss and part ways if someone is perennially under-performing and you have tried to work with them on developing skills and the right behaviours.

5. Fun – Hitting big sales numbers is tough work so in between all the hard work and grinding to achieve targets, take every opportunity to laugh and have fun. This will keep energy and morale high and make your team a great place to be.

To your success!

 

Image courtesy of basketman | freedigitalphotos.net

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Patience is a Virtue in On-Boarding New Sales Hires

On-Boarding New Sales HiresThere aren’t too many instances when a new sales hire produces sales immediately upon joining a new company. I wish this weren’t the case, but with the exception of short sales cycles and call centers, most new sales people need time to learn how to sell a new offering and to start building and converting a pipeline of new business. But results aren’t guaranteed.

Many years ago, as a young sales manager, I hired a rep and provided them with an annual sales quota, and then foolishly failed to assign the rep any shorter term goals such as a 90 day target. I had no real way of evaluating the progress of the new rep, and was under a lot of pressure to deliver sales results myself. As a result, I simply transferred that pressure to the rep by constantly asking them why we weren’t seeing results a few weeks into their time with us. I wanted to be patient, but I hadn’t thought through how long it would take to develop a pipeline and realistic forecast. I created a ton of needless stress for the rep and myself. 

One of my mentors at the time took me aside and suggested that I cool my jets. “Give the new rep time to develop” he said. “Pressure is not a bad thing, but it has to be the right kind of pressure and if you keep busting his chops, he won’t be in the right frame of mind to deliver what you want.” Very important words indeed.

Things would have been easier had I had the forethought to map out how long it would take the rep to make sales after making the first calls or had I planned out the first 90 days in terms of exposure to our products, sales training, customer visits, calls, and check ins with me. I did not do these things but as luck would have it the rep was experienced enough to figure some things out on their own and produce sales in time, but I was not in control.

Actively Patient

Hope is not a good strategy and it is always better to be in control of your sales force. Therefore, the moral of this story is to have a plan for on-boarding a new rep that is just as comprehensive as the plan you have a plan for managing existing reps. Map out the first 90 days (at least) with a new sales rep in day by day detail, determine the right level of support over the course of this timeframe, provide this support and know you are doing everything you can to make a new rep successful so that you can patiently let the right results unfold.

To your success!

Image courtesy of  digitalart | freedigitalphotos.net

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

How Valuable is a Book of Business in Sales?

Book of BusinessOften prospective employers will call us seeking to hire a candidate that has a “solid book of business”, or a list of former and/or current clients in which the candidate has key contacts. As the thinking goes, this will allow the rep to quickly generate considerable sales upon joining the new employer. I like the optimism and I can’t blame any sales manager for trying to get a leg up on the competition in acquiring and developing new accounts….unless the requirement to hire someone with a book of business means putting little or no emphasis on hiring someone with the experience and DNA required to be successful in the new role.

Reasons Why a “Book of Business” is Less Important Than it Might Seem

1. Expiration Date – In many sectors, people change jobs regularly, so having a handful of buying contacts today might be completely value-less in 6 or 12 months. Once a buyer moves to a new role or employer, there may be other existing vendor relationships already in place, or their purchase requirements may have changed.

2. Company Loyalty – Often times, a buyer is equally loyal to the vendor and the salesperson, so the buyer-salesperson relationship is effectively compromised once the sales person switches employers.

3. Difficult to Quantify – When interviewing, candidates will often drop names and tout the value of their “extensive rolodex”, but in a lot of cases, the past business volume has more to do with being in the right place at the right time and filling orders than actively generating business. How much business will come their way this year. In most sectors where demand is unpredictable, forecasting sales based on relationships is virtually impossible.

4. Non-Competes – When a rep departs from one employer, there may be residual obligations in their employment contract which prevent them from being able to pursue opportunities and contacts that they were exposed to in their previous employment, which obviously diminishes the value of these contacts and associated opportunities.

5. Old School – Sales has changed a lot since the Mad Men days when a salesperson could call a customer and lean on their relationship or twist an arm with an old “friend” to close a sale. Nowadays customers perform more research before making each purchase – even repetitive purchases – and they want the best deal each time. They are more inclined than ever to try new vendors to get what they want. This is particularly true with business buyers who may be required by company policy to hold a fair and transparent competition for every purchase. Prior relationships may matter very little in such cases.

You Can Bank on the Abilities and Traits

Perhaps the most risky aspect of hiring someone based primarily on their relationships is that they won’t actually have the right DNA to actually sell in the new role (See the The Pitfalls of Hiring Sales People Based on Experience). Sales people who are perennially successful, have sold at the right volume in an environment similar to yours, and possess all the other requisite abilities will develop the right relationships and locate the opportunities required to meet or exceed sales goals. To exclude these candidates from your sales recruiting efforts would be a risky strategy, but chances are your competitors are doing just this.

The most successful sales managers don’t fall into this trap.

To your success!

Image Courtesy of  digitalart | freedigitalphotos.net

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Why Market Sales Compensation May Not Be Useful in Your Hiring Efforts

It is well known that you have to pay at, or more likely a bit above market levels in order to attract the best sales talent in the business. There are numerous surveys that indicate what sales reps are getting paid and there is always anecdotal feedback that comes to an employer either via its own sales reps or through candidates in the interviewing process.

But all this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. There are several reasons why the market may be wrong and why your compensation plan may need to be different. We take a brief look at each of these reasons.

The Numbers are Inflated – Reps have a tendency and, when making a career change, a direct incentive, to overstate earnings. So often there is lot of misinformation about who is making what compensation in any sector.

Different Compensation Models – There is the concept of total target income (the amount a rep will earn in base and commissions at target), but without holding a competitor’s compensation plan in your hand, it can be tricky to reverse engineer to know how total compensation is earned. Different companies pay different ratios of base vs commission, the commission rates may be different for different types of deals and there may also be achievement accelerators and spiffs. All of which have varying levels of attainment difficulty. The skill set and effort required to earn $X in one company may be completely different in another.

Different Business Models – While the compensation plans are different across different companies, so too are the business models which ultimately dictate the selling activities and abilities and traits that reps must possess in order to be successful.  One company may sell direct while another may sell primarily through channels. Even small differences in business model can have a huge impact on the profile of the successful rep and the compensation model.

Non-Monetary Incentives Matter – Sales people value various rewards besides the cash compensation. Career growth, company culture, vacation and flexible hours, for instance can offset a lower compensation.  Even the culture or values of the company can play as significant factor as compensation in the career choices of sales people. Just as much as sales people want to optimize earnings, they want to work in jobs they like for companies they admire.

Company size – In most sectors, the largest companies are able to pay more than smaller companies (with some exceptions such as the market leaders who leverage name brand to attract talent while paying slightly less than competitors). While the best sales people in the business gravitate to successful companies that pay more, often it is a different breed of sales person that belongs in a large company versus a small company so it can be like comparing apples to oranges.

Figuring out the meaning of market compensation can be tricky in sales and in the end it often comes down to what you have to pay in order to get the candidates you want.

To your success!

Image courtesy of  jesadaphorn | freedigitalphotos.net

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Interview Tactics that Make or Break Your Sales Hiring and Sales Results

Interview TacticsInterviewing sales people is just like interviewing candidates for any other position in your company. Right? Wrong.

Sales professionals are wired to project a positive image since that is how they succeed – it is a key part of the profession that they chose. They are interviewed everyday by potential customers, and the good ones, at least, are quick on their feet. Candidates have their brain picked and grilled by customers, and are either intrinsically immune to the pressure associated with tough questions or trained to be so. As a result, they are prepared for the run-of-the-mill questions your HR department will probably ask and are ready to respond with a clever or witty responses.

Organizations that are serious about looking for top sales performers know that it is not good enough to approach interviews with a simple approach that involves:

A) taking sales interview answers at face value, and/or

B) relying on common questions in the first place.

The interviewer must elicit meaningful and insightful responses from sales candidates. It is therefore important to identify some of the best questions to ask candidates since it could save your organization .

The selection of top sales performers is largely determined by the types of interview questions asked and one of the main tactics that Peak promotes to its clients is to have the candidate interviewed by multiple people who will be overseeing and working with the candidate. That’s often the easy part – the hard part is deciding on what to ask the candidate. Many hiring departments will rely on these basic questions: Are you comfortable making cold calls? Are you comfortable presenting in front of target accounts? Do you prefer a long or short sales cycle? What are some of your strengths and weaknesses? What type of company do you want to work for? What is your Ideal work environment? All of these types of questions are easy for all candidates to answer positively. “Am I comfortable with making cold calls? Yes absolutely.” “What kind of company do I want to work for? Yours.” These questions will not separate good from bad candidates, let alone the good from great.

Peak recommends several tactics for effective interviewing and assessments:

  • Structured interview process – Well scripted set of steps that throughly and objectively assess each candidate’s ability to perform against a set of performance objectives.
  • Behavioral interviewing – Ask candidates not would they would do, but what they have done in relevant sales environments and customer situations. Ask a mix of open and closed ended questions and the same questions in different ways so it is less easy to predict the answer required to secure the role.
  • Interviews with multiple stakeholders – have the candidate meet with several members of the management and sales team that they will be working with. Collect detailed notes and make a committee decision on the candidate’s score against the criteria.
  • Reference and background checks – Conduct through, scripted, behaviorally oriented  references calls with former managers and background checks to cross-reference the claims of the candidate and the observations of your own assessment team.
  • Third Party Testing – Psychometric testing and other types of benchmarked sales competency tests can provide valuable insight to augment your own observations and assessments.

No two sales roles are identical, so the ideal set of interview questions must be tailored to the unique position you are hiring for and the specific situations the rep will be in if employed by your organization. If you decide on asking a list of static, predictable questions, they must be framed in a way that the candidate cannot provide one word answers.

For instance if you are hiring for a new business development role, you might be inclined to ask questions such as: Are you comfortable making cold calls? To get a better assessment of the candidate rephrase the interview question so that you get the information you are really looking for: Describe your most difficult type of cold calls in your last role? How did you structure your day so that you were able to make all the calls required? How did you ensure the effectiveness of each cold call? How did you deal with the high level of rejection associated with cold calling?

Posing the question as open ended where the onus is on the interviewee to demonstrate the degree to which they are familiar and comfortable with cold calling will allow you to determine if they have the ability to fulfill one of the most basic requirements of the position for which you are hiring. In order to dig even deeper, ask for specific instances where cold calling opened a door to a large deal – and ask the candidate to demonstrate how they approach a cold call. By mixing in situational and behavioural based interview questions that are tailored to your unique hiring requirements, you give your organization the best opportunity to avoid costly hiring mistakes and hire a candidate who will meet or exceed your sales targets.

Here are other examples of behavioral type questions you may want to ask:

  • Tell me about a time when you had to adapt to a complex customer strategy?
  • Have you ever had to make a sale based on analysis of data? Describe the process in detail.
  • Give an example of a situation in which you had to make a decision when you didn’t have all facts available. What process do you follow for making decisions for these different circumstances and were you satisfied with the results?
  • How do you go about opening doors in the C-suite? Is there a specific process you follow? How heavily do you rely on your ability to develop relationships?

To your success!

Image courtesy of artur84 | freedigitalphotos.net

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

The value of IQ tests in sales hiring

We don’t use IQ tests to evaluate sales people (we are more interested in predicting how they will behave and produce in certain situations), but we know that being smart usually is not a liability if a sales person has good sales DNA.

I was curious to see who is using IQ tests in sales hiring so I jumped on google and and didn’t find much. If anyone is using IQ in sales, they are not publishing their results.

IQ tests have been a popular way of testing intelligence since they were first introduced in the early 1900’s, in spite of the criticisms that they are not accurate. According to the American Psychological Association: “intelligence testing has also been accused of unfairly stratifying test-takers by race, gender, class and culture; of minimizing the importance of creativity, character and practical know-how; and of propagating the idea that people are born with an unchangeable endowment of intellectual potential that determines their success in life.” According to the Association, although the tests have evolved over the years, the consensus is that IQ tests should not be relied upon and while it may be logical to assume that people with higher IQ’s earn more, the research to support this theory is cloudy. Research scientist Jay Zagorsky has shown there does seem to be a correlation between IQ and income, but there seems to be no correlation between IQ and wealth – as if to say smart people can earn more, but don’t know what to do with their money.

According to wikipedia a 2002 study by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis concluded that an individual’s location, inherited wealth, race, and schooling are more important as factors in determining income than IQ. That said many companies still use IQ tests and there are literally hundreds of tests available online.

Anyone thinking about using any of these online tests may want to take a look at this article in the Guardian about one person’s own experiences using online IQ tests. To make a long story short, blogger Dean Burnett took several tests which all indicated that he had very high or genius level intelligence which makes sense since he has a Phd in neuroscience. This would be a good endorsement for the ability of these tests to measure intelligence except for the fact that when he took the tests (all multiple choice), he selected answers entirely at random and very quickly (which triggers bonus points), so either his random responses were either surprisingly correct or the tests are probably useless in predicting anything.

To your success!

Sources:

Online IQ tests: are they valid?

American Psychological Association – Intelligent intelligence testing

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Build a Sales Team vs. Outsource the Sales Function – Which is Right for You?

Build a Sales Team vs. Outsourcing the Sales Function

We continue to get a fair number of companies asking for our perspective on outsourcing the sales function and whether we are talking about independent reps or outsourced call centers, our answer remains the same and it is based upon experience. It make sense if:

Your product is well known – If the market knows your product and will be asking the reps for your product, there is a higher chance of success since the reps don’t know your product that well, they tend to sell what is being asked for, particularly in the case of reps that carry other products.

Your product is not complex – When a product requires strong domain knowledge or there is a long sales cycle associated with closing new business, then the outsourced model is problematic, because it is difficult to transfer that type of knowledge to a third party, with VAR’s being the exception.

You don’t need to be close to your customers – If the product is mature and detailed feedback from customers is not required, then the outsourced model might work, however this is not the case for many start-ups where the product management team needs to be in very close contact with customers to gather feedback critical to the evolution and improvement of the product.

You don’t need to own the customer relationship – If follow on business is a big part of your business and this requires relationship development with customers, then it serves to have that in-house where you can control the development of the relationship and handle matters like staff turnover. Conversely, if most of the sales are one-off, then an outsourced model can work.

When branding is less important – It can be difficult to control the brand and reputation of the third party selling your product, and your message may get watered down, particularly if the third party seller is representing other brands. Plus in many cases, particularly call center type sales models, you don’t actually know who will be selling your product. This may or may not be an issue depending on your business.

You don’t need complete visibility on activity – Depending on the outsourcer, you may or may not get detailed or timely insight into sales activity and calls. If you want that market data, it needs to be part of your arrangement with the third party seller.

You need trained salespeople quickly – Notwithstanding any of the issues mentioned above, going with an outsourced sales model can be attractive because they take care of hiring, training and managing the sales reps so you can focus on your business.

I have seen a lot of disappointment with outsourced sales models, but I have also seen it work well. Your business and sales plan dictates whether it will work for your organization.

To your success!

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Words We Would Rather Not See on Sales Resumes

For a lot of people hoping to land a new sales job, it is a priority to create a resume that is search engine friendly. Unfortunately, this often leads to resumes that are less succinct and are jammed with keywords which distract from the accomplishments and abilities of a salesperson.

To those of us that make a living separating good from great salespeople, a poorly written or confusing resume can be a signal that someone is not all that capable. And, by the way, we are pretty strong when it comes to separating the good from the great (96% success ratio in picking salespeople over the last several years).

Here are some of the worst words and phrases that find their way into sales resumes with a tongue in cheek explanation of why we’d rather not see them:

Responsible for …

– Hiring managers aren’t as much interested in what a salesperson was supposed to do versus what the salesperson did do.

Results-driven

– Kind of like saying motivated….I think. Maybe? Wait it might mean that they want to achieve results but can’t. Not sure. Why not just identify the results that have been delivered which implies a familiarity and comfort with driving for results?

Well rounded

– Hiring managers care about hiring someone who can sell. They don’t care what shape the person is.

Experienced

– Everyone who has worked one day in their life has experience so using this word doesn’t say anything about what makes the resume’s owner unique. Superfluous.

Seasoned veteran

– Does this mean the sales rep comes with pepper and cajun spice? I would rather see years served which tells me a bit about maturity.

Team-player

– One of the most overused words and least understood. In my career, I have heard about 500 different perspectives of what constitutes a team player (some of them contradictory) and if I saw that on a resume, I would have no idea which of the 500 definitions was being referenced.

Solid

– We see this a lot in conversation, but the adjective means not having the form of gas or liquid, which is good I suppose, but usually doesn’t give us much insight about sales capabilities.

Dynamic

– Ever changing? Energetic? Not quantifiable and will be measured subjectively depending on who is measuring.

Motivated

– Everyone is motivated or at least they should be. But can the rep sell better than the rest?

Objective

– Opening a resume with the career objective of the job seeker is like starting a conversation with a prospect with how much commission you want to make. How about a summary of what the rep does well and the tangible results delivered to employers?

Contentious and hard worker

– This one is more of a typo. Sales reps that want to make a good impression proof read their documents before sending them to a prospect.

We

– A hiring manager is looking at a resume and seeking to hire an individual so they are interested in what the sales person did, not what the sales person did with their friends.

Creative

– When someone describes themselves as a creative sales professional, I wonder if the person is trying to tell me they like to paint and do artwork on the side? And then I wonder if they can sell, because they haven’t yet answered that question.

What We Like To See

It’s simple. We look for results and examples to support claims of talent. The best salespeople let their accomplishments do the talking and as we have said before, the best resumes say a lot by saying a little, so if you are reviewing a group of candidates for your open sales position, watch for candidates who use superfluous words and resume filler that distract from what really matters.

To your success!

image courtesy of nuttakit | freedigitalphotos.net

To those of us that make a living separating good from great salespeople, a poorly written or confusing resume can be a signal that someone is not all that capable. And, by the way, we are pretty strong when it comes to separating the good from the great (96% success ratio in picking salespeople over the last several years).

Here are some of the worst words and phrases that find their way into sales resumes with a tongue in cheek explanation of why we’d rather not see them:

Responsible for …

– Hiring managers aren’t as much interested in what a salesperson was supposed to do versus what the salesperson did do.

Results-driven

– Kind of like saying motivated….I think. Maybe? Wait it might mean that they want to achieve results but can’t. Not sure. Why not just identify the results that have been delivered which implies a familiarity and comfort with driving for results?

Well rounded

– Hiring managers care about hiring someone who can sell. They don’t care what shape the person is.

Experienced

– Everyone who has worked one day in their life has experience so using this word doesn’t say anything about what makes the resume’s owner unique. Superfluous.

Seasoned veteran

– Does this mean the sales rep comes with pepper and cajun spice? I would rather see years served which tells me a bit about maturity.

Team-player

– One of the most overused words and least understood. In my career, I have heard about 500 different perspectives of what constitutes a team player (some of them contradictory) and if I saw that on a resume, I would have no idea which of the 500 definitions was being referenced.

Solid

– We see this a lot in conversation, but the adjective means not having the form of gas or liquid, which is good I suppose, but usually doesn’t give us much insight about sales capabilities.

Dynamic

– Ever changing? Energetic? Not quantifiable and will be measured subjectively depending on who is measuring.

Motivated

– Everyone is motivated or at least they should be. But can the rep sell better than the rest?

Objective

– Opening a resume with the career objective of the job seeker is like starting a conversation with a prospect with how much commission you want to make. How about a summary of what the rep does well and the tangible results delivered to employers?

Contentious and hard worker

– This one is more of a typo. Sales reps that want to make a good impression proof read their documents before sending them to a prospect.

We

– A hiring manager is looking at a resume and seeking to hire an individual so they are interested in what the sales person did, not what the sales person did with their friends.

Creative

– When someone describes themselves as a creative sales professional, I wonder if the person is trying to tell me they like to paint and do artwork on the side? And then I wonder if they can sell, because they haven’t yet answered that question.

What We Like To See

It’s simple. We look for results and examples to support claims of talent. The best salespeople let their accomplishments do the talking and as we have said before, the best resumes say a lot by saying a little, so if you are reviewing a group of candidates for your open sales position, watch for candidates who use superfluous words and resume filler that distract from what really matters.

To your success!

image courtesy of nuttakit | freedigitalphotos.net

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

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Keys to Getting Sales Hiring Right – from Miller Heiman

Miller HeimanThis year, sales training company Miller Heiman, published Best Practices in Sales Management: A Resource Guide for Sales Managers. In the guide, Miller Heiman shares its three keys to getting sales hiring right and looks at common missteps in sales hiring, long-term impact on sales, qualities of top sales people and revealing interview questions.

All Sales Roles Are Different

The guide begins by pointing out that different sales positions call for a different skills and experience and more importantly, different cultural and attitudinal traits. We couldn’t agree more and it is safe to say that many organizations have poor clarity where these last two intangible traits are concerned. It is simply much easier for organizations to use sector experience or years of selling as the basis for selecting a sales person.

The Cost of Failure in Sales Hiring

According to research firm Leadership IQ, 46% of all new hires fail within 18 months of being hired, primarily due to attitudinal factors. On the other hand, employees that fit their position and company produce 250% compared to those who do not, tend to stay longer, and contribute to more of a positive environment.

Ramifications of getting it wrong spread beyond lost revenue. Your company’s credibility and your personal reputation are on the line. The monetary impact of getting it wrong includes actual losses in revenue generation, wasted salary for the salesperson, plus the loss of production during ramp up. Sales force churn also creates customer uncertainty, potentially lowering customer confidence, and can impinge upon your company’s overall reputation and credibility.

Miller Heiman asserts that “World-Class Sales Organizations” exercise discipline in their sales hiring efforts. They first benchmark their successful sales people to identify critical traits, they use psychometric assessments to assess candidates rather than depending upon unreliable gut feelings about candidates and they exercise patience in waiting for the right mix of traits before making a hire. Again we couldn’t agree more. We know from direct experience that the more structure in the sales hiring process, the better the hiring record.

“Not everybody who is fantastic at selling is right for your company,” said Chris Ainslie, a Miller Heiman Sales Consultant and ex-VP for a global company

Common Errors in Sales Hiring

The guide identified several common sales hiring errors made by sales organizations:

1. Hiring from only one source – Many companies favor candidates with industry experience and/or contacts over candidates who have the right traits for success.

2. Corporate neglect – Requiring new sales people to “figure it out” on their own.

3. Lack of clarity on salesperson attributes – Many organizations focus on skills or experience versus the more critical and intangible traits of successful sales people.

Qualities of Top Salespeople 

According to Miller Heiman the basic traits of top performers include persistence, curiosity and empathy. While we agree that these are important factors, this is by no means an exhaustive list and these alone will not guarantee success. Peak’s own recruiting experience over the years indicates that  sense of urgency, ambition, competitiveness, optimism, and confidence are also critical traits.

The long term upside.

Experienced, tenured salespeople are a vital asset of any enterprise, clearly outperforming those with less experience.

Turnover is not only costly, it hurts sales production in many ways. “World Class Sales Organizations” take sales hiring very seriously and invest as much in the hiring effort and strategy as other critical company functions, and consequently when combined with other important factors such as sales on-boarding, sales process and strong management, these organizations reap the rewards in terms of higher sales.

To read the full report, click here.

To your success!

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.

Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)

Sales Hiring Statistics – De Paul Center for Sales Leadership

The De Paul Center for Sales Leadership is one of the leading sales learning institutions in the country. Every few years the University publishes the Sales Effectiveness survey which observes the sales practices and results of over 435 organizations across 10 business sectors.  Some useful insight is shared in this report:

Age profile – % by age
– 14% 18-25
– 27% 26-35
– 27% 36-45
– 20% 46-55
– 12% 56 and over

Annual Hiring Levels
– Less than 50 hires per annum – 68%
– 50-249 hires pre annum – 21%
– more than 250 hires – 11%

Value of Education in Sales Hiring – Percentage of sales managers that considered the education levels below very important
– Some prior training – 50%
– College 48% (37% for business college)
– Graduate 22%
* 30 of new hires did not have a college degree.

Number of Face to Face Interviews Prior to Hire
– 2 interviews or less – 31%
– 3 interviews – 39%
– 4 or more interviews – 30%

Interview Time with New Hires
– less than 1 hour – 14%
– 2-3 hours – 43%
– 4-5 hours – 26%
– 6 or more hours – 17%

Cost of Entry Level Sales Hires
– Less than 20k – 43%
– 20k-40k – 23%
– 40k or more – 34%

Time to Turnover for Entry Level Sales Hires
– Less than 12 months – 33%
– 13-24 months – 29%
– 25 months and onwards – 38%
* The number one reason for leaving was unmet expectations

Cost of Turnover
– Average cost of turnover approximately $49,508
* When acquisition, training, lost time and replacement were factored in, the average cost of turnover rose to approx. $115k

On-Boarding and Development
– organizations that had some sort of on-boarding process – 73%
– firms with an on-boarding program of 30 days or less – 60%
– primary method of determining success of training – informal management appraisal – 72%

Average Earnings by Performance
– top third of reps – $188k
– middle third of reps – $107k
– bottom third of reps – $65k

Sales Process
– value selling – 47%
– strategic selling – 38%
– conceptual selling – 28%
– spin selling – 25%
– proprietary model – 19%
* 54% of firms claimed to use the sales process always or frequently.

photo courtesy of Salvatore Vuono | freedigitalphotos.net

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Connect:

Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)