My father likes to state that your ego is your most expensive business partner.  I’ve seen this firsthand in companies where the leader regularly proclaims their position or superiority.  I’m all for it when it is accurate and not overstated.

I’m thinking of one particular company where the President consistently stated:

Our company does things better than any other company.
We are the best in our industry.
Nobody can do what we do.

Unfortunately, in this instance, these statements were just not accurate.  The outcropping from this situation was painful for us.  We were searching for a regional sales manager for this company.  We lost good candidates because the President wouldn’t provide benefit information – he literally would define how many vacation days the candidate would receive, what the insurance plan was or what his quota would be.

I’m serious.

The candidate asked politely 3 different times.  We begged him to provide it in writing.  He wouldn’t.  Yet, the President added the candidate to his sales team’s email list.  He sent out some marketing material to the group and asked for feedback.  The candidate, who had not signed any agreement, was stunned he was on the list.  The President simply assumed the candidate would sign in spite of not providing the aforementioned information.  He believe his company held that much sway over the candidate.

The candidate passed on the opportunity.

The issue was simple – the President’s perception of his small company and it’s allure to strong candidates was overstated.  His ego cost him more than one good candidate.

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Here’s what we often see from hiring managers or recruiters that focus on a wide variety of positions.  They tend to look for qualifications in their sourcing activities.  Obviously, this approach is warranted and required when sourcing for positions like accountants, medical personnel, IT, engineers and so forth.

But what about sales?  What qualifications determine sales success?  A college degree?  5, 7 or 10 years tenure?  Industry experience?

The difficulty in sales is that there are so few, if any, verifiable qualifications that properly filter applicants out.  The better approach is to list the skills that the sale requires.  Notice I didn’t write “position?”  The typical sale is what needs to drive the skills for the position.  This is why our initial task, before sourcing candidates, is to profile the sale.

I can’t stress this enough, job descriptions typically won’t define the skills needed for a strong sales hire.  They work for other positions, but sales is vastly different.  I think this is where general recruiters get into difficulty.  I’ll go further and say even experienced sales managers get in trouble here.  Many of our customers tell us that they have tried to hire salespeople themselves without any tools or processes and it was just a crap shoot.  All – all – of them have more than one sales hiring nightmare story.

Here is the crux of the problem when it comes to determining what is needed to hire the right salesperson – bachelor’s degrees and time in the industry do not predict success in sales.  “Ability to develop territory,” “strong hunter” and “service existing accounts” are not going to cut it.

You need to understand the sale.  There is a difference in skill sets needed if it takes 5 contacts to close 1 deal versus 55 contacts to close 1 deal.  There is a difference in skills needed to close a 1 year sales cycle versus a 1 week sales cycle.  This information provides the qualifications to determine sales success.

For instance, if the typical sale requires 75 calls (to suspects) that filter down to 1 sale and the average sales cycle is 2 weeks, you have to source candidates that have the ability to build rapport quickly, qualify efficiently and handle rejection easily.

Understanding the critical aspects of a typical sale is the starting point for a successful sales hire.

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Selling Power.com’s Sales Management newsletter provides an excellent article that addresses a common issue in sales management – how do you move from salesperson to sales manager?  One important aspect of this move is becoming a coach for your sales team.

The suggestions in the article are worth the read, but this one is especially remarkable:

Keep questions open. Most managers know they should ask open-ended questions in a coaching situation, but closed questions still crop up far too often. Closed questions can be answered in one or two words – yes, no, good, okay. Open-ended questions, on the other hand, require the responder to think and elaborate and help paint a more complete picture of a situation. Starting questions with “will,” “did,” and “have” will likely lead you into a closed question, warn the authors. Rephrase those questions using words like “what,” “who,” “which,” and “how.” For example, instead of, “Did you check all the requirements?” try, “Which of the requirements most concerns you?”

That advice is applicable to sales qualifying, coaching, candidate screening and more.  Yes/no, or closed questions, lead you into a box where you are forced to ask another question.  Open-ended questions also lead to more detail in the answer.  As a sales manager, this detail is needed to be an effective, efficient coach to your team.

One other piece of advice from the article:

Keep questions forward focused. It’s all too easy for an employee to get caught up in rehashing a meeting or event that went poorly. And while a certain amount of emotional venting may be helpful to that person, your job is to help them avoid getting stuck there. One of the best ways you can keep the conversation forward focused is to avoid asking questions that begin with “why.” If you’re asking, “Why did that happen?” or “Why did you say that?” you put your employee on the defensive and keep the conversation focused on the past. Rephrase your questions in a way that encourages a look to the future. So instead of, “Why didn’t you contact IT?” ask, “What are the things you need to do to bring the project back on track?”

Exactly.  We tell sales managers to avoid using “why” in their questions with their direct reports and with prospects.  As effective as why is, it often carries a negative emotional aspect. Imagine in your youth hearing an upset parent ask, “Why did you do that?”  Or maybe it was, “Why didn’t you…”  Be careful with your use of this adverb, especially with your sales team.

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