I’m still a LinkedIn neophyte, but I like the development they are pursuing.  From Online Media Daily comes this story - LinkedIn Opens ‘Back End’ To BusinessWeek, Other Web Publishers:

LINKEDIN, A SOCIAL NETWORK TARGETING business professionals, is living up to its name. It’s opening its “back end” to Web publishers that want to bring the network’s functions to their sites. The first publisher to get the LinkedIn invitation, BusinessWeek, wants to use its networking function to make BW’s Web site a place where business types can connect and maybe even make deals–in other words, a place to do business, rather than just read about it.

In one feature, LinkedIn will create links in the text of BusinessWeek editorial content for the proper names of businesses and people. By mousing over the links, the reader can determine how they are connected to the individual or entity in question, including how many of their own contacts are connected.

I often tell candidates that I can’t imagine being in sales and not using LinkedIn.

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ManageSmarter.com offers up this article - Cubicle Conniptions - that discusses office behavior that mirrors road rage (emphasis mine):

Workplace violence is increasingly common in offices, and it isn’t limited to physical injury or assault, but includes any act in which a person is abused, threatened, intimidated or assaulted at his or her place of employment. Thirty-three thousand workers are assaulted on the job each week in the U.S., and 17 employees are murdered, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

I’m speechless.

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Hiring salespeople is the difficult combination of science and art weighted perfectly to select the right person for the position’s requirements.  Obviously, knowing the position’s requirements is the preeminent step.  Many sales managers believe they know what it takes to be successful in the position and they do to a certain extent.  Yet, their knowledge often consists of themes as opposed to specifics.  This reason drives us to profile the sale as the very first step in our sales hiring process.

ManageSmarter.com’s Is Hiring Mediocre Good Enough? approaches a hiring process with some valuable insight and other items I wouldn’t recommend.  First, the reason astute hiring is mission-critical to corporate success (my emphasis):

According to a 2004 study by HR Hub.com, more than 1 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP) or $105 billion is lost every year to “poor hiring and management practices.” The Society for HR Management found the cost of a poor hire can range from $20,000 to more than $300,000—as much as 15 times the employee’s base salary.

Of course the hidden cost of a bad sales hire - the opportunity cost of losing good prospects to your competition - is immeasurable.

This approach from the article is one we don’t use:

“We evaluated each of the most successful ‘A’ performers in a particular position according to intellectual, behavioral and occupational interests,” says Vancini. “Using that as the standard, as candidates were interviewed, they were screened and matched against those known ‘A’ performers. It made the decision process easy and fact-based.”

Cloning may work for other positions, but I do not recommend it for sales positions.  The strongest sales teams have a variety of styles and abilities.  That variety is what gives the team strength.  There are core sales abilities that transcend positions and companies (e.g. handling rejection, qualifying skills, Utilitarian motivation, etc.), but most cloning involves behavioral styles which is not a predictor of success in a given sales position.  Don’t fall for this conventional wisdom.

Companies like to be inclusive, inviting as many peers and associates into the process as possible. Yet these interviews are not well thought through, and do not dig in and measure critical skills, which results in marginal feedback. This can stall the hiring process for weeks or months. Feedback from the myriad of interviews needs to be collected and easily available to provide detailed but focused feedback.

Drilling down on candidate responses; having clarity about their answers is the essence of good interviewing.  Yet, most prospects that we encounter over-rely upon the interview.  Using bad interview techniques as the backbone of your hiring process is the ultimate recipe for disaster.

If you are facing many challenges when it comes to hiring successful salespeople, we can help.

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The Herman Trend Alert offers up their 2008 forecast in this week’s electronic newsletter.  Since I do not have a link, here is the forecast in it’s entirety:

This year, once more, we offer you our full forecast for the coming year:

1. Recruitment in a Tightening Labor Market
Even the coming economic slowdown will not completely stop the creation of jobs. Moreover, stimulated by job creation and the fact that skilled workers in many occupations are in short supply, time-to-fill openings will also continue to increase as will the costs.

2. More Employers Turning to Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)
In an effort to reduce costs, more large employers will turn to companies like The Right Thing, Inc. and others will step in to provide a wide variety of recruitment services on an outsourced or insourced basis, including providing customized services for clients, based on specific needs.

3. Retention in the Face of Increasing Choices for Employees
Recent studies reflect that employee turnover is accelerating. With increasing choices we will see more attrition, especially from the ranks of long-term employees. Wise employers will conduct “stay interviews” and provide re-orientation to their seasoned employees. More employers will begin to be aware of the value of contingent employees and address the issues of retaining them.

4. More Employers will focus on Metrics
Following the lead of large employers, more medium-size employers will embrace technology to manage the employee life-cycle and operate more efficiently. This increased efficiency will drive more profit to the bottom line.

5. Leadership Deficit Becomes More Apparent
As companies experience the re-careering of Baby Boomer executives, they will become more aware of the lack of qualified supervisors and managers to move up into higher positions. The organizations’ previous lack of training for would-be leaders is to blame.

6. Lack of Succession Preparation
Organizations will become more acutely aware of their lack of succession preparation. They have simply not invested in leadership training so that their supervisors, managers, and executives are not ready to move into the positions.

7. More Employers Accommodate Older Workers to Maintain Intellectual Capital
The drive to retain older workers will cause companies to work harder to accommodate the wants and needs of older workers. AARP will support employers’ drives to hold onto these valuable employees. More employers will embrace flexibility in all aspects of work to adapt to the wants and needs of their retirement-age associates.

8. More Awareness of the Link between Economic- and Workforce Development
Workforce development issues move to top-of-mind for communities, as they become more aware of the workforce imperative—that business and industry will only locate where there are the skilled workers to fill their open positions. This awareness will lead organizations to focus more on middle- and high-school students to begin to expose them early to the careers available in their communities.

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Older article here from our local StarTribune paper - Sales Skills Hiring Managers Seek.  There are some interesting points from the quotes in the article, but one thing that stands out to me are these quotes from different recruiters:

…and have achieved in athletics.

and

A sports background also helps.

This background is couched around the competitive nature of sports transferring to successful selling.  I’m not sure I buy into that correlation, but it does intrigue me.  I played sports throughout high school and college and can envision many self-centered teammates I would not recommend for any sales position.  Still, I am probably over-focused on the exceptions.

However, I do find these pieces of information far more valuable:

“In general, however, companies are seeking salespeople who listen well, ask pertinent questions and bring creativity to the sales process.”

He also seeks people with a good emotional quotient or EQ. “You need to understand your personality style and that of others to be successful in sales,” he adds.

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I heard a radio commercial this morning for one of these credit card debt consolidation companies.  The closing line from the commercial:

Must have over $10,000 of credit card debt to qualify.

Qualify?  Exclusivity in a club for which most people would not want to qualify.  Excellent spin.

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I recently read an excellent Career Journal article - Speed Date a Potential Employer And Get an Offer That Same Day.  A point made in the article is to include a response deadline when extending an offer to a candidate.

The author puts in the following quote:

“Time kills all deals,” he says. “I’ve had clients that lost out on candidates because they went the traditional way and dragged their feet for three or four weeks.”

No one is making you, as an employer, change how you hire.  If you want to take 3, 4 or even more weeks to run your hiring process, that is your choice.  Remember, you are looking at a salesperson and they make their living by having multiple deals in the pipeline at various stages in the process.  They are rewarded when they close.  So don’t assume that just because you want to wait a week or two to move a candidate to the next step in the process that the candidate will be idly waiting for you.  More than likely, they are moving forward with other deals.

So my advice is to keep your process moving, make the necessary decisions and move candidates to a conclusion!

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Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are widely employed on corporate websites and by recruiting agencies.  I understand the automated efficiency of a computer program in handling a large number of applicants.  Yet, I don’t find them helpful for hiring salespeople.

When we place an ad for a sales opportunity, we provide the option to email or call for response.  We do not ask respondents to fill out an online form.

First off, if they send a resume (the most common response these days), I get the opportunity to see how they present their experience and abilities.  Formatting, presentation, flow…these are all pieces of information that can be gleaned from their resume.  Are there any errors?  This is their document that they prepared so I expect perfection, or close to it.  If they are entering data into a field, there is a higher probability for error.

Second, we give extra credit to respondents who call.  I simply like the fact that a salesperson would pick up the phone and call me to qualify the opportunity.  I should say qualify it before sending in a resume.  This approach hints at a salesperson who is not afraid of the phone, wants to qualify before completing a task and has confidence in their rapport-building abilities.  Believe me, the strong ones typically stand out from the first minute that you talk to them.

Those two considerations are neutralized by a highly-automated, ATS approach to sourcing.  Perhaps you are thinking that you would be swamped with applicants without the ATS.  My take - if you are being swamped you need to write tighter ads.  Hiring strong salespeople is difficult work, maybe the most difficult position to determine if you have the right person.  Don’t trade two of the most insightful aspects of sourcing for sterilized expediency.

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From a cover email I just received in response to an ad for a regional sales manager:

Hi, Lee. I am _____. I live in __, however, I am international, or regional, or national, or whatever the job calls for.

It gets worse.  The candidate worked in a collection-type role and included 2 pages of collections (amounts, dates, commission, payment type).  He included the first and last names of the people from which he collected the late payments.

Unbelievable.

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Every year we find December to be a fertile time for sourcing salespeople.  One of the biggest reasons - the upcoming year’s compensation plan.  More specifically, new commission plans tied to new quotas.  The salespeople receive the new plan and are, well, disgruntled.  Or ticked off.

Good salespeople tend to look outside for new opportunities when their commission plan gets over-adjusted following a strong year.  Let me speak clearly here - I am all for raising the bar, but you do have to take all factors into account before setting the new targets.

ManageSmarter.com offers up this article - Fast Track Your 2008 Sales Compensation Plans - with 10 tips for streamlining your comp plans.  Point number 1 is crucial (emphasis mine):

1. Keep it simple.
A straightforward plan makes it easy for reps to see how they’ll be paid. Don’t confuse and demotivate your reps with plans that try to do too many things. A plan is considered too complex if there are more than three to four performance metrics in the plan, or 10 or more conditions exist to determine credit allocation and payment release. Complex plans are hard to administer and maintain: They make it difficult to set up plans, to generate accurate results, and to timely respond to inquiries and disputes from sales reps. This can cause significant payee satisfaction issues.

I see that rule broken more times than you can count.  I’ve been a sales rep under a complex plan where we had to have multiple meetings at the end of each quarter to reconcile the amount.  My sales manager and I would spend multiple 30 min. meetings going back and forth on our “interpretation” of the plan and the commission owed.

The adverse side effect was the fact that even though I was making very good money, I was frustrated by the quarterly battle I encountered.  I usually felt like I had been slighted even with the sizeable check.  Talk about demotivating.

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