Let’s face it—hiring can be one of the most difficult aspects of business. Couple this with the fact that you are hiring salespeople, and you just added another layer of complexity.
Sadly, for many sales professionals the best sale they have made to date is their current position. You know the one: they look like Brad Pitt on paper and in the interview, but turn into Rodney Dangerfield by month six!
Mistakes when hiring can be extremely costly. Here are five common, deadly hiring mistakes. Do any of them resonate with you?
1. “Bring over a book of business.” This rarely happens. If you are banking on the business a sales rep can bring over, you are setting yourself up for failure. Sure, there are reps that have brought over business, but it is rare.
2. “I look for athletes.” No, people aren’t looking for athletes. They are looking for people who are trainable/coachable and competitive in nature. There are a lot of people who were not athletes but have the characteristics mentioned above, and they can sell like crazy. Playing sports and being in sales does not mean success.
3. “They were really successful in their previous position.” I’m blown away with the amount of companies who are shocked when a rep doesn’t work out, but they were successful somewhere else. How were they managed? Where did their leads come from? Were they working for the market leader? Did they take over a book of business or top territory? Was it mostly referral based and they actually have to prospect at your company? Previous success does not always correlate to your specific opportunity.
4. “They interviewed well.” I’ve yet to conduct an interview for a client when a candidate shares how lazy they are, why they will struggle with rejection, and how they make inappropriate quotes. 99% of candidates have high desire and commitment on an interview, which is not a surprise. What does surprise companies is when they don’t back it up with results.
5. Not assessing their Sales DNA before interviewing. The first four deadly mistakes continue to happen when a company does not assess upfront. Too often companies invest precious time and resources sifting through resumes, phone screens and face to face interviews, only to discover they aren’t a good fit, or they hire the sales rep and 12 months later they are gone.
Special bonus: #6 deadly hiring mistake: Not understanding how much a bad hire truly costs your organization. How much money does a bad hire cost your company? Click here to take away the guesswork and gain a true understanding of how much it costs your organization.
Once you have identified the cost, what changes are you going to make to greatly reduce your number?
