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The Ten Most
Costly Sales
Hiring MistakesAnd How to Avoid Them
Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes
Copyright © 2014 by Peak Sales Recruiting Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced or copied, published, distributed,
downloaded or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or converted, in any form or by any
means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
Peak Sales Recruiting Inc.
340 March Rd, Suite 100
Kanata, ON K2K 2E4
Canada
www.peaksalesrecruiting.com
Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
WANT TO KNOW HOW TO GET ALL
OF YOUR REPS AT TARGET?
WANT TO KNOW HOW TO
VIRTUALLY ELIMINATE TURNOVER
ON YOUR SALES TEAM?
Just read on.
The hiring manager for sales in any
organization is in a unique position and
a difficult one because there is no
degree or accreditation for sales stars.
Compare your position to others in your
company. If a production manager
needs an engineer, he looks for
someone with an engineering degree.
There are no degrees in sales. The
controller can weed out people that
aren’t CPAs. Sales people don’t take
three-day exams. R&D managers can
find somebody in a lab. There are no
labs for sales people.
Hiring for sales is uncharted
territory—or so it seems.
But you don’t have to go it alone.
Over the course of 20 years of growing
companies, managing sales teams and
successfully recruiting top performers for
other companies, we have developed a
keen sense of what it takes to build high
performing sales teams. We are
fascinated with the characteristics that
separate sales winners from losers in
any sector, any industry, any company.
Foreword
1
Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
But first, a few questions to
determine your profile--
Are you managing a team and
constantly dealing with turnover?
Do you have hard-to-manage reps?
Are you getting average-to-poor
results from a highly-paid staff?
Feel like you are pushing the bus up
a hill, alone?
If so, you are probably making some of
the basic mistakes that kill sales teams.
Avoiding these common mistakes is
what separates the winners from the
losers.
Avoiding these hiring mistakes is the
vital first step to:
1) making managing a whole lot
easier
2) paving the way to success on more
levels; and
3) increasing and achieving more
predictable, and increasing, revenue
and results.
This eBook is a roadmap for sales
hiring success by giving you, the
hiring manager, a Don’t Do list.
Building on that fascination, we studied,
dissected, and quantified those
characteristics. After seeing many
companies make simple but deadly
hiring mistakes that were killing sales
productivity, profits and ultimately killing
the company itself, we launched Peak
Sales Recruiting to help companies get
it right.
We partner with our clients and their
success is our success. Only by
making you successful can we thrive
as well.
Now after years of helping companies
build their sales through completing
thousands of sales search projects, we
are in the unique position to share the
most common mistakes we see CEOs
and sales managers making when
recruiting and building sales teams.
We gained our knowledge by being part
of the action because, in the process of
doing thousands of searches for
hundreds of companies, we quickly
learned what the good companies do to
succeed and the bad companies do to
fail. Patterns and behavior quickly
emerged.
One thing we learned early was
to not make the most common
mistakes and we identified
those mistakes. And formulated
ways and means to avoid those
costly mistakes.
2
Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
The current economic turbulence means
that:
1) there is more competition for sales
professionals who can produce on a
consistent basis
2) these reps are reluctant to take risks
by leaving developed pipelines, and
3) these successful reps are reluctant to
leave dependable, established
companies to join a new company with
all its risks and unknowns.
The old model of hiring says you place
an ad and pick off the best applicants.
This is a recipe for spending a lot of time
going through C resumes and hopefully
hiring some B players-the needle in the
haystack approach.
This is not how the successful
companies do it today.
Industry leaders can leverage their high
profile brand, but this really only applies
to one or two players in any industry.
Successful companies know that the
best sales talent isn’t watching the
job boards; they are busy selling and
entertaining regular calls from
recruiters. And the technology
makes it easier.
‘Don’t’s’ are usually negative but not in
this case. They are actually the
necessary steps you take to ensure you
don’t make a bad mistake—a mistake
that will most probably result in missed
sales goals, a potentially messy
termination, and you having to explain a
lot of bad news to your boss rather than
telling him about your sales successes.
As you read, stop often and think about
whether you are making any of these
mistakes in the hiring process.
Make the small adjustments we
suggest and watch the results flow
in, the positive results.
The Challenge of Recruiting
Top sales Talent is Evolving
You are managing a sales team and one
of the most critical parts, if not the most
critical, of your job is finding the right
talent. No amount of training, coaching,
managing, rewards or incentivizing is
going to get results from your team if
you don’t have the right team in the first
place.
And guess what?
At the same time as buyers have
become smarter and selling has
evolved into both a science and an
art, the war for talent has gotten
tougher.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Now that everyone has access to social
business networks such as LinkedIn,
Plaxo and other research tools, your
competitors can easily pick through your
team to see your best reps, then actively
chase them.
The smartest companies have a
structured process for marketing to
candidates to attract the best in addition
to sophisticated mechanisms for
evaluating and selecting talent that
belongs in their company and will
become reliable producers.
You have to make your
recruiting efforts pay.
The vital first step in successful
recruiting is to not make mistakes—
mistakes mean you are going
backwards, not forwards.
Avoid the top ten recruiting mistakes and
you will soon have a team full of
productive sales reps who are happy to
be part of your team.
Avoid these mistakes and you will
spend less time recruiting and more
time selling. You, and your company,
will be moving forward, not
backward.
These aren’t revolutionary changes, just
simple, common sense adjustments to
the way you look at and go about hiring
and building successful teams.
4
Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
The Inconvenient TruthsThere are three major obstacles to
building high performing sales teams:
1. Reliable producers are rare -
Numerous studies show that 20% of the
sales professionals in any industry close
80% of the sales.
2. Successful candidates are hard to get
at - They are too busy selling and being
successful to listen to you.
3. Sales people are hard to evaluate
because they excel at …selling!
Finally, combine this with the fact that most
companies don’t know what they are
looking for in the first place.
Your CommitmentBuilding high performance teams, requires
you to commit to some basic philosophies.
1. Settle for nothing but the best.
2. Put in place a comprehensive system
for attracting the best including
marketing, networking, and
headhunting.
3. Become very thorough in evaluating
talent
4. Keep score. It is not about filling
seats, it is about delivering sales.
To overcome the three major obstacles and
to build a high performance team, you must
start by not doing something.
You have to quit making the Ten Most
Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes.
Which are---
Introduction
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
While a person may feel right sitting
across the desk from you and answering
easy questions, your gut alone is not
skilled enough to always make the right
choice.
A firm handshake, an engaging smile
and easy patter will often put our
‘golden gut’ at ease.
But nine times out of ten, the hard truth
is: the hire that performs the best 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. Uniformity of
approach may seem boring, and it often
is, but uniformity is critical in evaluating
all candidates using the same scorecard
and same rulebook.
Your gut is important but only if it is backed up by careful review.
Mistake
Number 10:
Hiring
based on
gut feel.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
In the hiring process, urgency is your worst
enemy.
The pressure to hit targets is immense.
Very often a sales manager succumbs to
the pressure and quickly jumps to hire
the first person that looks good or, in
most cases, just good enough.
But getting sales hiring right takes patience
and in the end the hiring manager that
makes a quick, but wrong, decision usually
ends up wasting more money and time
investing in someone that is not the right fit.
However, this is not a license to
procrastinate. It is a building block on the
solution to Mistake Number 10—take the
time to map out exactly what you need.
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.
This solution requires you, the hiring
manager, to do a fair amount of work.
Defining the sales competencies your reps
require is no easy task but the hard, upfront
work will be easier and more transparent,
and evaluating existing members against
these competencies is an added bonus of
your hard work.
And you only do the hard work once.
Once you have the definitions in place, you
don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time
you do a new hire. The wheel is finished,
ready to roll.
Mistake
Number 9:
Hiring who’s
available
instead of
who you
need.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
The selling activity and skills required to
sell solutions is completely different than
for products. The kid at Starbucks sells
products, most people can do it.
Solutions are completely different—
selling solutions requires a
professional who can get in your
clients head, figure out how their
company works (or doesn’t work)
and match your solution exactly to
their problem.
Solution:
Your best bet is to know the sales
competencies your reps require and look
for them when interviewing.
Past success in selling solutions is
the best proof of ability.
Mistake
Number 8:
Hiring a
product
sales
person to
sell
solutions.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
In a small company there is typically less
infrastructure and support, less stability in
direction and less brand recognition.
It is tougher. Most professionals want
that stability and support.
You have to find that unique person—the
professional that can work on a team but
at the same time is willing to put up with,
even thrive on, the entrepreneurial
environment. No small task.
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 it.
A good test is to confront the candidate
with the truth—we are not a big company,
we don’t have assistants, no company
cars and no executive dining room.
See how they react to those truths.
Assuming you haven’t run them off, then
give them the good news— no
bureaucracy, quick decision making, the
potential, the ground floor opportunity,
getting in on something that will be big,
and the rewards, both monetary and
career wise, that offset the risk of your
small, but soon to be big, venture.
You’ll find out quickly who really
wants to come along on the ride and
contribute to the success of your
company.
Mistake
Number 7:
Hiring
someone
from a big
company
into a small
company.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
It is an industry truth that the best reps
spend a lot more time selling than
polishing their resume. And vice versa.
Solution:
Focus on results and don’t be fooled by
someone whose resume overstates
limited accomplishments.
The key to success here is to pick the
accomplishments apart. Drill down
to determine if an accomplishment is
real or a fabrication.
The process is not hard—just ask the
candidate to walk you through the scope
of a project, the problems and
challenges they faced, the quantifiable
results. You have been around long
enough and seen enough to quickly
differentiate real results from fiction.
You have to defend your actions to
your boss so asking a candidate to
do the same is fair and justifiable—
both to you and the candidate.
Mistake
Number 6:
Hiring the
person with
the best
résumé.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
Sales people are often at their best in
interviews and accomplishments may be
embellished. And nobody likes to do
detective work.
Being in sales, we are by nature
positive and optimistic. We want to
believe. But our optimism has to be
justified.
Solution:
To the best of your abilities and within
the law, validate all stated claims and
accomplishments.
Check and confirm employment
dates. Verify education claims.
Place a priority on what former
employers say and how they react to
your questions. Put a premium on
their responses over colleagues and
even customers.
Sound elementary? It is, but many
employers do not do a comprehensive
job and end up regretting it.
A person who lies on a resume is not
someone you want around your
company.
Mistake
Number 5:
Hiring
without
doing
thorough
reference
checks.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
Many companies, and a majority of Human Resource Departments, believe that a new hire needs to come from the industry, have the right Rolodex and domain knowledge in order to be successful.
In reality, the top performers are typically successful because of DNA,
not sector experience.
Solution:
Be open. Look past the industry experience, or lack thereof, and give the person a chance to perform.
An industry outsider may not have the industry insight but they don’t
have the baggage either; they don’t have the NIH (Not Invented Here)
disorder.
Somebody looking from the outside may very well see something different, and profitable, that an insider will miss.
Give the job applicants tests and role-plays that demonstrate their
ability to learn and sell your offering. Top performers are usually fast learners, regardless of industry.
Mistake
Number 4:
Hiring
based on
industry
experience -rather than
on sales competencies
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
Two head to head competitors can, and usually do, have vastly different offerings, cultures and selling environments.
These huge differences will dictate different characteristics in successful
reps which means they may not be suited to your company and may in
fact, bring industry baggage.
Furthermore, hiring from the competition only reduces the available pool of people you can choose from and raises the price you will have to pay. And raiding the competition may alert them to your moves and your strategy allowing them a head start in countering your offensive.
Finally, and most importantly, they may decide to raid you.
Solution:
Model your selling environment.
Put effort into this modeling exercise to determine what makes you successful, what about you makes your company attractive (or unattractive) to a candidate, and to really know who you are—in all things, know thyself.
When you really know and understand your selling model you can easily size up your competition and cherry pick their best people for your team. Or the best people from
outside the industry.
Mistake
Number 3:
Hiring reps
from the competition.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
An established organization needs farmers to cultivate and grow the crops.
A company like yours needs to put meat on the table—now. You need a
hunter.
It is a truth that 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—tests for immediacy, urgency, get it done, get it done right the first time--to make sure you select
the right DNA for the hunter role.
Having already modeled your needs, the identification of a good hunter should not be hard.
Mistake
Number 2:
Hiring a
farmer when
you need a hunter.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Problem:
Sales is a confidence sport and being likable is a good attribute to have—customers like and want to be liked.
But likeability is only part of the equation.
Winning in sales takes hard work, persistence, optimism, ability to handle adversity and luck.
Past performance is no guarantee of future performance—but it is the best key and leading indicator so rely on it rather than just falling for a smile and
happy disposition.
Solution:
Look at past successes and references to ensure you are picking a great performer along with a great disposition.
The candidate that passes your tests, references, role playing and can still
put on a smile is very likely the person you want for your team.
Mistake
Number 1:
Falling for a
smile and a
happy disposition.
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Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Peak is here to help. If you
decide to use us, great. If you
want to try going it alone, we
understand. But either way, make
sure to do the groundwork and
preparation needed so you
don’t commit the Ten Deadly
Sales Hiring Mistakes.
There are the Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes and what you have to do to avoid them.
So, at the end of the day, 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. You need to build the right team to be a sales powerhouse.
The sales team is the foundation of the company.A weak foundation will bring the whole structure down.
Not making the Ten Deadly Sales Hiring Mistakes is hard work. But you don’t have to go it alone. We are here to help with the hard work of modeling your sales force needs and setting performance goals for potential hires.
Peak Sales Recruiting was founded by sales leaders who understand the critical importance of building high performance sales teams.
Since we started, we have worked non-stop to deliver real solutions that help grow businesses across the US and Canada. Our management and team has extensive sales, leadership, recruiting and sales team building expertise.
19
Copyright 2010 – Peak Sales Recruiting Inc. Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes ‹#›
Peak Sales Recruiting specializes
in B2B sales recruiting services.
Our rigorous and proven
methodology combines role
profiling, headhunting and
candidate assessment,
augmented with our advisory
services. We deliver guaranteed
results, and our unrivaled success
rate helps accelerate sales,
reduce operating costs, and
enhance HR effectiveness,
company valuations and investor
confidence. Please visit:
www.peaksalesrecruiting.com
or call 800-964-0946.
About Peak
Sales
Recruiting
20
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