I don’t consider myself old, but I am starting to waver on that belief after reading this Selling Power article.  I started selling back in the days before cell phones and Internet, when the fax machine was viewed as such a timesaver.  Frightening by today’s standards.

The article identifies 4 selling skills you need in today’s socially-connected world.  Here are the first 3:

1. Social Listening
2. Social Researching
3. Social Networking

Those 3 are critical and hopefully most salespeople are aware of these needed skills.  However, the 4th point is most interesting:

4. Social Engaging

This is the newest skill for sellers.  Consequently, it holds the biggest competitive advantage for sellers who master it quickly.  There are two types of social-engagement actions:

1. Commenting on someone else’s post
2. Initiating a post

I agree with the Social Engaging activity – the majority of sales that I encounter are relationship-based.  The transactional sales have moved to more automated channels.  The relationship sale is difficult to initiate by phone or email.  But an online conversation…that is a back door to initiate the relationship.  I also appreciate the thought-leader aspect of it.  If you are able to provide some value-add to the conversation, you instantly frame the relationship in a favorable (for the salesperson) light.

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No doubt we live in a technology-based world driven by expedited activities, from instant text messages to YouTube videos on demand.  Communication moves fast.

One area I believe it hurts is applying for sales positions.  I realize an ever-increasing amount of opportunities are found, shared and contacted through LinkedIn, but what of finding opportunities for which you do not have a direct connection.  I think this activity is similar to cold calling/contacting.

When I am sourcing for sales candidates, I receive many resumes forwarded to me through the job boards and LinkedIn.  Resumes.  It is rare that I receive a cover letter anymore.  For me, receiving a resume is similar to receiving a product brochure with no letter…I am left to review the product on my own and make a go/no-go decision.  An accompanying email or letter explaining what this solution offers to me is of value in that it will (hopefully) explain how this solution will help solve a current pain I am experiencing.

Cover letters work in the same manner.  Now, I’m not talking the pre-canned, generic cover letters that state the candidate is a good fit for the role based on the ad.  Rather, a strong cover letter explains how this candidate’s skills and talents are transferrable to this sales role we are advertising.  The cover letter can explain how the hiring company will benefit from acquiring the candidate’s skills.  The cover letter is even stronger when the skills are directly correlated to the desired attributes listed in the ad.

I know, it sounds old-fashioned and overly-simple, but it is still effective.  Unfortunately, the cover letter/email is an under-utilized tool in the strong salesperson’s toolbox.

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Well, that is my paraphrasing of this author’s post.  The Myers-Briggs test is common throughout many business-world assessments and it serves a purpose.  The difficulty I have always had with it is the binary aspect of the assessment.  You are either Extroverted or Introverted…there is no grey area.  I think the author explains it well:

More problematic, though, is that it classifies personalities by a binary preference for a particular trait. In reality, however, most people exist on a spectrum between the two and can vary between them from week to week…

Agreed.  People are the ultimate variable and far from binary.  I think the best use of the Myers-Briggs assessment is to define preferences, but not to make hiring decisions based off of it.

If you are looking for a reliable assessment tool that does provide grayscale depth, I recommend our DISC-based, Selling Style Assessment (more details here).

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Experience is a tricky component to successful sales hiring in that it is often overvalued.  Don’t get me wrong, it is important, but you never want to overvalue it.  The reason is that you can teach new salespeople about your product or service a lot easier than you can teach them how to sell.  A sports analogy (I know, often overused) – it is far easier to teach a football wide receiver what routes to run in your offense than it is to teach them how to run a 4.3 40 yard dash.  Some will simply never run a 4.3.  This is why talent is far more valuable to successful hiring.

This Entrepreneur.com article discusses this point in clear terms:

You’ll notice that I didn’t mention experience, and that is for good reason. When you find a great talent who is passionate about what your organization is doing, experience doesn’t matter. Great people can decipher what they need to learn in order to be successful. Twenty five years in the same industry or with the same company is not necessarily a good thing. It’s much harder to unlearn what you know then learn what you need to know.

Agreed.  The author discusses talent in terms of attitude, competency and mindset in an intriguing manner.  As they say, read the entire thing.

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We run a systematic hiring process for sales positions.  We have refined the process over the past 14 years and have it optimized (even though when we started we were writing newspaper employment ads!).  As part of any hiring process, you have to receive resumes of respondents to the ad.  This is where things are changing.

A new trend I am seeing is resumes with copy and paste information from job descriptions, websites, etc.  What I mean is candidates do not take the time to write about their skills and experience in their current or previous roles.  They simply use web/marketing copy that they paste into their resume.  I have also seen many resumes with the job description information pasted into their experience.

For example:

“You will call on mid-market companies to sell our cloud-based service.”

That is someone’s experience for their current job.  Amazing.  What is worse is that this position is selling marketing services.

I like to remind hiring managers that this is the best the candidate has to offer.  The interview process should reveal the best of what they have to offer, from writing to phone discussions to follow-up.  If their best in this phase isn’t good enough for the role, do not expect improvement if you add them to your sales team.

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