There is a security blanket in hiring salespeople and it is this – experience. Experience is the balm to bad sales hiring. Companies start with a desire to hire primarily from their industry. If someone has multiple years selling in the industry, skill and talent are assumed to be sufficient and transferrable.
But this approach works far less often than you think. We see it play out almost on a weekly basis.
There is no truer example than one of our customers who sells in a distribution market. They sell electronic parts that are integrated into larger machines. These parts can be purchased at numerous other companies in the Twin Cities, let alone the rest of the US. Their value proposition is far different than their competitor’s even though the product is the same.
This company has hired salespeople from their industry in the past and have not found one who has lasted more than 12 months. Now they are ready to forego the experience security blanket at look at skills and talent first. The critical shift here is to understand that skills and talent are far more transferrable than experience in terms of selling.
This approach is a complete paradigm shift for many companies. Most managers believe that hiring someone from the industry is the safest move. If the salesperson fails, the hiring manager can be surprised by the failure since “on their resume they had a ton of experience.”
Safe doesn’t always equal success. Reward always comes at a risk.