Two Golden Rules of Sales Recruiting
- Past performance is the best predictor of future behavior, not personality traits. The average sales manager categories salespeople by their traits.
- Embrace the fact that you will have to work twice as hard to get rainmakers on your team.
Properly recruiting sales professionals should starts with science and end with art. In the beginning, sales trainers, consultants, personality test makers, Harvard MBAs and former sales executives are consulted behind closed doors, benchmarks are set, and job descriptions are dashed off with vigor to formulate the sales hiring profile. The words drive, extrovert, charisma and exceptional communication skills frequently appear in carefully crafted job descriptions for salespeople. With this information in hand, sales recruiting campaigns are launched in full force with the hopes of capturing a few rainmakers. There are two golden rules of sales recruiting that should be heeded in the midst of sales hiring frenzies.
First, when interviewing applicants to fill a sales position, the predominant sign of a top performer is a track record of sale success. This is the single most important element in hiring a top salesperson. Most sales managers focus too much on personality traits when they should be focusing on past successes. Personality traits are diluted in formal organizations because companies have rules and policies that define acceptable behavior and prohibit less acceptable behavior. These norms and cultural constrains minimize personality traits that effect behavior. Personality traits although generally constant over time, are altered, shaped, expressed or not expressed by the individual salesperson depending on company rules, regulations and culture. Past behavior, not personality traits, has been repeatedly correlated to the leading predictor of a person’s future behavior. *
Second, recruiting a rainmaker will take twice the amount of time, resources, effort and expense as opposed to recruiting an average sales person, yet the effort is paid back in spades. You will have to employ more sales recruiting channels to hire a rainmaker, you will have to make more phone calls; even the interview process will require more effort. A top salesperson will have many options and most likely won’t move for another opportunity again for at least four or five years, so it will take a little art to close the deal. Top sales people will need to feel that the prospective employer’s services or products are exceptional, the company is financially sound and most importantly, the compensation plan rewards overachievement.
When hiring sales professionals, managing risk and getting the best team in place will make a direct impact on top line growth. If you can minimize emotional hiring to some extent and focus on past performance, a track record of success and job stability, you will increase your odds of hiring sales champions. Getting higher caliber sales talent does take more work, time and energy, but the payoffs are evergreen and worth the extra effort.
*The Truth About Managing People, Second Edition by Stephen P. Robbins, Ph.D.
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