Even after nearly 40 years in sales at various levels, I still fail to realise why sales, as a profession, is inundated with ineffective salespeople. Based on the data available worldwide, only 50% of salesmen become effective and successful. The rest of the group falls behind as total failures or performs at mediocre levels.
Basically, all senior managers experience the agony of hiring bad salespeople. Whether it is bad judgment, lack of knowledge about the real requirements, inadequate attention to detail, or any other criteria, almost every sales manager makes bad decisions on hiring the wrong people for sales.
It is common knowledge among those with sales management experience that wrong and bad hiring of sales team members is a financially costly affair. Nevertheless, throughout history, sales managers learn bitter lessons, often repeatedly, by hiring ineffective salesmen. A sales team is only as good as its members. Hence, the performance of a sales team is completely dependent on the good members. Usually, it is an accepted fact that salespeople are good communicators with strong personalities. When they face an interview, they can be quite convincing. However, in real situations, they simply can be incompetent, lazy, unenthusiastic, or can even be trouble makers.
None of these characteristics can be identified in one or two brief interviews. Also, behaviour cannot be changed easily through training or enforced rules. People with such qualities can irritate superiors and colleagues which can create unpleasant situations in the workplace or even change team dynamics.
A bad hire can cause problems for a sales manager in several ways. The possible termination of a bad salesman always wastes precious time. It may create a void, possible reassignments of tasks, and restarting a costly and tedious process of hiring again. Not only the time taken to identify the failures of the recruit that may take a few months but also the time taken to hire a new recruit is wasted time.
Expensive
A bad salesman can be expensive in many ways. Apart from the possible opportunities missed due to the ineffectiveness, expenditures such as outlay of recruiting, advertising, lengthy interview processes, and costs incurred for welfare have to be incurred.
Traditional hiring methods mostly rely on well-prepared resumes to start the selection process. The sales manager may find beautifully laid out job applications where the candidates promote themselves with catchy information and compilations. During face-to-face interviews, the applicants may appear charming and well-spoken and properly groomed. The major setback occurs when recruiters mistake the feel-good experience for skill and talent.
Often, these friendly and pleasant candidates simply do not have the proper instinctive talent to be successful in sales in the long run. Although they impress the recruiter at the interview at the start, they may lose interest due to the many complexities they confront in the field. Also, some of them lack the competitive spirit needed to drive away their counterparts.
Sales managers often make hiring decisions on their gut feelings based on their own sales experiences, rather than impressive resumes or attentive interviews. In my long career as a sales manager, I have interviewed many candidates who impressed the entire panel of interviewers but miserably failed when thrown into the deep end. Hence, recruiters need an unbiased form of measurement to make hiring decisions.
Strategy
To avoid wrong recruitment, the sales managers must devise a comprehensive recruiting strategy for their sales team selections. Jobs is perhaps the most advertised category in the market, simply because of the heavy turnover.
Customarily, good salesmen are called in by competitors with promises of better offers while bad ones leave because of inadequate or poor performance. In addition, there are others who abandon selling jobs because of their inability to withstand the omnipresent job-related pressure.
Today, instead of traditional press advertisements, there are hundreds of recruitment websites available for candidates to apply for jobs conveniently. Online advertisements for entry-level and senior-level selling jobs exist in the market. Nevertheless, in Sri Lanka, finding a suitable candidate for selling is rapidly becoming extremely hard, especially at entry levels.
Identifying candidates who have an aptitude for selling is currently a complex exercise. So, what does a great salesman look like and what should a sales manager spot? It is not always the most charismatic or the most experienced candidate who ultimately brings sales. Therefore, recruiters are required to dig deeper before the actual selection of candidates.
The first thing I have searched in the hundreds of interviews I have conducted during my long career was whether the applicants have an overwhelming desire to succeed, not only in their careers but also in everything else in life. Although controlling such personalities is usually difficult they are the people who perform at the highest level.
Candidates with such a quality possess the natural drive required to sell. Of many other positive qualities, competitiveness and optimism in the face of rejection are extremely important aspects that a salesman should possess. These are the main criteria the sales manager should identify in interviews.
Research reveals that of every ten companies, only three meet or exceed revenue targets. This means approximately 70% miss out due to an array of reasons. As discussed, sales staff turnover rates are a notorious issue for companies around the world. Ambition, high mobility, fatigue, dissatisfaction, and job mismatch are some of the reasons for the high turnover.
Tough job
Selling has always been a tough job where performance can be identified easily at any given time. Everyone cannot embrace it as a career although the benefits are unmatchable and perhaps if it fits in right, the best job with unlimited opportunities. Hence, usually, salesmen are edgy throughout their careers.
There are many books, articles, seminars, and training stints detailing the skills, habits, attitudes, and traits.
Nevertheless, in reality, on the field, all above takes a different route. Hence, losing a good salesman is as bad as or worse than recruiting a wrong salesman. Hiring a salesman, therefore, for a sales team is perhaps much more daunting than recruiting an employee for any other function in an organisation.
Invariably, sales job vacancies are filled in hastily due to the customary urgency for revenue generation. Most often, rather than spending adequate time due to the fear of losing a good candidate, recruiters rush through the process. Therefore, as the goal is to find the best-suited talent, the sales vacancy must be filled carefully and with patience.
As a rule, I have always followed up with references of the candidate as I have considered it as another important criterion in hiring salespeople. Referrals not only verify information but are also a good follow up on the substances discussed in interviews.
I have also, as a recruiter, insisted on referring to the candidate’s immediate past employee unless there is a specific reason not to do so.
The important fact is that I have done that only after a decision was made to hire the candidate. Unless for vindictive personal reasons, 95% of the time employers provide accurate information on a past employee, according to my experience.
Finally, hiring mistakes can initiate a negative chain reaction. It can lead to lower levels of worker engagement, less productivity, and poor team performance. It even can influence badly on other team members who may be manipulated by the bad recruit.
No sales manager or recruiter wishes to make mistakes in hiring. Nevertheless, it is part and partial of the job. Companies across all business lines make hiring mistakes resulting in negative short-term or long-term impacts, including the bottom line eventually. Hence, companies must devise the most effective recruitment strategies to hire while making the best effort to retain good salespeople.