I come across this often – a company wants to hire a superstar salesperson and the hiring manager’s first instinct is to find a loquacious talker.  Perhaps you have seen this approach too?  Clearly no readers of the Hire Sense would administer this approach in their hiring.

Right?

Ok, maybe not.  The point is that smooth talkers are not categorically the best salespeople.  I am appreciative of good communicators, but being good at talking is the lesser part of communication.  Being an active listener is more important.  This fact is often overlooked in sales hiring.

The reason this ability is important is that is supports the foundation of successful selling – qualifying.  Salesopedia.com is featuring an article this week by Kelley Robertson that addresses this point (my bold):

The most common mistake sales people make is to immediately launch into a product presentation or “pitch” when they first meet their prospect. They extol the virtues of what they sell and tell the prospective buyer how good, fast, reliable, inexpensive or easy to use their product is. They talk, talk, and talk hoping they’ll convince the buyer that their product or service is of value.

The problem with this approach is that the “pitch” seldom addresses the issues or concerns of the buyer. Because their needs have not been addressed, there is no compelling reason for them to consider using your machines or to change vendors. If you really want to give prospects a reason to buy from you, you need to give them a reason. One of the most effective ways to do this is to ask a few well thought-out questions to uncover what is important to the prospect.

Exactly right.  One of the more overlooked aspects of a sales interview is to pay attention to a candidate’s questions, both the content and the sequence.  I try to write all of them down in an interview to review them afterwards.  The candidate’s questions in the interview provides a glimpse into their qualifying ability without asking the candidate about it.  It is most important that you, the hiring manager, observe this ability closely both on a phone screen and during a face-to-face interview.

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