From Sales & Marketing Management:

Of the 1,275 companies surveyed nationwide recently, less than half have a formal sales process; of the 45 percent that do, only 45 percent of those actually monitor the processes in place to make sure they are helping the company sell better.

Our first step in running a sales hiring process is to have our customer fill in this graph:

This information tells us 2 things – the basic level of prospecting activity required and the company’s grasp of their current sales process. If a company cannot define what it takes to close one deal, how can they expect a new salesperson to do it 10, 15 or 20 times on their own?

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Rewarding salespeople is a tricky endeavor. Yes, most salespeople are motivated by money, but what rewards do they seek? This seems like a fine point, but motivations are different than rewards. This Selling Power article provides some examples of misaligned rewards, or incentives, that companies have thrust upon their sales force. An example:

One high achieving rep at an insurance company, who had won every award the company had to offer, including salesperson of the year, eventually stopped bothering to attend the annual award ceremony. Noting the rep’s absence, one manager decided to find out what was truly important to this particular salesperson. The manager discovered that the rep centered his life around his wife and three daughters, so the next year gave him a framed portrait of his family. The salesman was elated, and the company earned a great deal of goodwill with a key performer.

As this last example shows, a little legwork and diligence can do wonders for a company’s motivational efforts.

A quick point – motivations, rewards and selling style all work together to define the salesperson. I suspect the high achieving rep in the example above has a Traditional motivation, Personal Relationship reward and High S selling style. That combination typically will be rewarded and motivated by their family. The manager could have known this important combination had they assessed the salesperson.

The lesson here is that many companies attempt to use only a monetary-based reward to motivate their entire sales team. First, rewards, or incentives, need to be separated from motivations. They are different aspects of a person’s overall make-up. Second, an all-inclusive reward package will not reward every salesperson on the team. Some value recognition, others value team success and still others value personal time with the team.

Understanding an salesperson’s rewards, motivations and selling style allows the sales manager to craft a plan that connects with that particular salesperson on a deeper level than a broad-based, stereotypical incentive plan. This fine-tuned reward structure will reinforce the salesperson’s motivations and lead to an engaged employee.

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Jill Konrath has a great post about salespeople who come on “like a bull in a china shop” when trying to sell to prospects. Her cure for these salespeople:

You need to create conversations with decision makers. And, there’s only one way to do this. You need to ask questions to engage prospects in a dialogue, then shut up and listen.

I couldn’t agree more. I want to take that point and apply them to sales hiring. We use the entire hiring process to observe the salesperson in action. We particularly observe their question pattern – are they trying to determine how they would sell the company’s value proposition if they were in the role? Or are they simply trying to sell themselves to get on the company payroll?

We value sales candidates who attempt to discover the hiring company’s value proposition, how they go to market and what are the parameters of a typical sale. Pay attention to the dialogue a sales candidate attempts to create with you in the hiring process. Questions, especially sales-focused ones, help to reveal the candidate’s abilities and selling strategy.

Finally, she wraps up her post with this:

If you don’t plan questions ahead of time, you’ll get caught in “premature elaboration.” Before you know it, you can’t stop talking – even though you know better. Your prospects will slowly start backing away to protect themselves from your onslaught.

Now that is the way to turn a phrase . . . I’m still laughing at it.

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