I had an interesting, quick call this morning with a suspect who was interested in our assessment tools.  His question involved cloning, specifically, why not clone his top salespeople for a benchmark.

We don’t benchmark in our hiring process or assessments.  The presumption is that you can find a clone of your top people.  Bad assumption since people are the ultimate variable.  Beyond that, there are other variables that affect this approach.

1. The Ideal Sale.  We start all assessments by profiling your typical sale along with your ideal sale.  The present-day realities of a typical sale must be defined.  However, we also profile what would be ideal in your sale.  Now, we often get the one-call close, triple profit margin requests, but reality sets in and we determine what is attainable with a strong salesperson in the role.  It is of great importance in hiring salespeople to define your ideals.

2. The Market.  The criteria you used to hire your top performers was based on the information you had at that time.  The market has changed since then, sometimes to the point where  your top salespeople would not be good hires in today’s marketplace.  We have a customer whose top salesperson resides in the top territory in corporate’s backyard.  The salesperson has easy entry into local accounts and he is their number 1 revenue generator.  If we used him as a benchmark for a position halfway across the country where their largest competitor resides, we will skew the data in a direction away from what is needed.  Simply put, markets matter.

3. The Team.  We assess sales teams as a whole and look at the aggregate results.  The strongest teams have a variety of salespeople within them.  The principle is simple; a team consisting of clones has the same strengths and weaknesses.  Though the similar strengths may be beneficial in the short term, a change in market conditions can have an adverse effect.  Also, a cloned team will work best with a specific type of customer but will struggle with others due to a lack of variety in sales skills.  Think of a basketball team made up solely of 7′ centers - they would be good at a limited aspect of the game.

I have to confess, we did complete a sales benchmarking project at a previous employer.  Our results (from a sample size of 40 salespeople) identified 2 common traits amongst the top performers - traits we knew were important to success.  Yet, we were not able to identify any specific threads that ran through the top performers.  Each was different in their skills, aptitudes, motivation and style.

Next time, profile your sale to establish the baseline for your sales assessing.

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This week we focus on a unique trait in that it is usually low amongst jobseekers.  They are confused or unclear about their current role and looking to find clarity in their next role.  This fact is the reason why we stress a strong onramping program for all new sales hires.  A clear program immediately sets the parameters of their new role - something that was most likely missing from their previous position.

Role Awareness
The ability of a salesperson to be aware of their role in the world or within a given environment.  This is the ability to understand the expectations placed on a position and to clearly see how those expectations are to be met.

A salesperson with strength in this trait will understand what they are doing, what is expected of them and how they are suppose to be doing it. Having this understanding will allow them to utilize their other personal strengths and abilities to fulfill the role which they are in.

A weakness in this area indicates a lack of understanding for the role someone occupies.  They are either unclear as to what it is they feel they should be doing or they have not been informed adequately as to what the expectations are of their role or duties.

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Much of the filtering that occurs in sales hiring incorporates the all-too-familiar standards of industry experience and college degrees. The interview follows a step-by-step history of their career much like the old TV show This Is Your Life. The candidates have learned the proper rote responses to most of the questions. It is a dull process that leads to marginal results.

But what about creativity? Creativity often gets overlooked or ignored in sales hiring.

“Creativity belongs in marketing.”

“Salespeople should be money-motivated, driven hunters who complete one-call closes.”

Boring and antiquated. Creativity is the overlooked, undervalued aspect of selling that can be the differentiator between an above-average salesperson and a great salesperson.

Here are just a few areas where creativity can have a substantial impact on successful selling.

Cold Calling
The sales training company I used to work for would teach salespeople how to open a cold call:
“This may not be a fit…”
“This is a cold call so let me know if you want to hang up now…”
Nothing earth-shattering here, but the point was to sound different. I often think in sales the worst thing you can sound like is a salesperson. Think features/benefits.

Rapport-Building
I once had a competitor in the computer networking market who would provide one of those miniature baseball bats with his company info on it. He would tell the prospect that the next time they wanted to destroy the network hardware to call him before beating on the equipment with the bat. Different and memorable.

Solution Selling
This may be where creativity is most valuable in selling. Rarely is there a cut and dry solution offered by a salesperson that fits perfectly into a solution for the prospect. The solution is usually a “best fit” solution which means there is give and take. Creative salespeople can use their aptitude to craft a solution that marginalizes the competition and maximizes their own offering. This ability requires much creativity.

Next time you are looking for a new salesperson, pay attention to the candidates who don’t quite fit into your standard expectations. You may be looking at a creative superstar salesperson. And if you are not sure, contact us and we can assess them for you.

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Sales managers need to focus their team on specific objectives.  This requires the manager to gain commitment from each salesperson…on a regular basis.  It is an important aspect of successful coaching and empowering the employee.

Gaining Commitment
This ability develops and invokes a self-starting attitude in employees in their pursuit of goals. It is the capacity to motivate employees to do their best and to provide them with concrete, practical ideas and methods by which they can achieve their goals.

A sales manager with a strength in this trait will be able to effectively use empathetic ability, communication skills and leadership ability to create a sense of personal motivation to be successful in a given task. This motivation is instilled within the employee; therefore, they are acting on their own drive as opposed to simply responding to outside supervision.

A sales manager with a weakness in this area lacks the ability to effectively inspire another with the internal desire to succeed. They might fail to recognize the importance of such inspiration and rely instead on direct supervision to accomplish goals through employees.

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The resume discussion rages on. Today’s ERE article by Dr. Williams is an excellent discussion about why skills are important in hiring. Resumes cannot clearly display a candidate’s skills so you have to do more digging. Here are a couple of excellent excerpts from the article (emphasis mine):

Once you get past an executive’s glowing resume, dig for details. Most important, try to understand the skills and motivations he or she will bring to the job. Often these will not be evident in the resume, nor will they be evident in the interview. Both usually address results, but “results” are often not the same as skills. Think of results as the score at the end of the game and skills as how the game was played. You need to know skills.

And this one:

Always remember first-line managers are cited as employees’ greatest source of stress. And stress can be a significant reason for turnover. Incoming and first-line management promotion decisions are the easiest to tackle. Simply forget about “promotions as a reward” and focus on “promotions based on job skills.”

As they say, read the whole thing.

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Another managerial trait this week that we measure when assessing sales manager candidates.  A critical aspect of successful sales management is the manager’s ability to hold salespeople accountable.  At times that can be like herding cats, but it is still mission critical to developing a top-notch sales team.

Correcting Others
This ability confronts controversial or difficult issues in an objective manner while having non-emotional discussions about disciplinary matters. This trait is directly related to the manager’s balance in their ability to evaluate others and be empathetic.

A manager with strength in this trait can usually provide constructive criticism to another in a way that it is not received as insulting or degrading. The balance they exhibit in weighing the needs of the situation versus the needs of the people involved allows them to address both adequately.

A manager with a low ability in this capacity could either tend to be too insensitive or harsh in such correction, or be too sensitive and not willing to provide the necessary criticism or positive discipline required to develop an employee. As to whether they tend to be too harsh or too sensitive, a correlation can be made based on their score in the empathetic ability trait. Over attention to their empathetic ability may tend to result in someone who is so sensitive to the feelings of others that they place that person€™s emotions over the needs of correcting a problem. Under attention to this same ability can result in a person who views others more as functional work units rather than  individuals. They tend to discount other€™s emotions in comparison to the importance of correcting a problem.

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This week we focus on another important sales leadership trait.  We’ve seen this trait firsthand have the effect of holding a sales team together during turbulent times.

Conveying Role Value
This ability draws upon a variety of traits (empathetic, interpersonal and leadership) to instill in an employee a sense of value for the task at hand. It is the ability to convey to another the value and importance that a given role carries with it. This is not a measurement of a person€™s ability to understand a role€™s value, but to communicate that value to another or group of others.

A sales manager with strength in this capacity will be able to effectively instill in an employee, or employees, a belief that what they are doing has value. They will be able to paint a clear picture of how and why that role is important€¦to themselves, to the company or to others.

A weakness in this area can be indicative of two things: Either the manager attempting to convey this value does not adequately appreciate the value in a role, or their ability to communicate ideas and concepts to others in such a way that they are perceived as valuable is lacking.

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Relying on the interview, benchmarking top performers, cloning yourself…these are all common mistakes that lead to bad sales hires.  These 9 mistakes are provided by ManageSmarter.com’s article:

Mistake 1:Relying only on interviews to evaluate a candidate

Mistake 2: Using successful people as models

Mistake 3: Too many criteria

Mistake 4: Evaluating “personality” instead of job skills

Mistake 5: Using yourself as an example

Mistake 6: Failure to use statistically validated testing to predict job skills most critical to success

Mistake 7: Not researching the reasons that people fail

Mistake 8: Relying on general “good guy” criteria

Mistake 9: Bypassing the reference check

That is a solid list of common mistakes.  You can learn more about each one by reading the entire article.  I want to zero in on Mistake 2.  From the article (emphasis mine):

Duplicating success may seem like a good idea, but the reasons people succeed are not clear from just measuring the characteristics of top performers. More important are the differences between top performers and low achievers. For example, a comprehensive study of more than 1,000 sales superstars from 70 companies showed that the top three characteristics shared by high achievers were (1) the belief that salesmanship required strong objection-answering skills, (2) good grooming habits, and (3) conservative dress€”especially black shoes. Oddly, a study of the weakest performers at those same companies revealed that the same three characteristics were their most common traits as well.

We ran a similar test on a large sales team years ago and found a similar result.  Another factor is a simple one - no two people are the same.  The better bet is to identify top traits, skills and motivations and then hire to those factors.  This means that the salesperson could have a completely different style, approach and experience.  They can still be successful, they will just go about it in a different manner.

Sometimes this difference is too much for hiring managers which leads to this mistake.  I have seen the hiring manager then reduce his or her decision to the salesperson’s style.  That could be Mistake 10 in this list.

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As the unfortunate recipient of some heinously impossible sales quotas in my day, I am most intrigued by this week’s trait as it pertains to Sales Managers (and a few from my past that I would enjoy assessing on this topic).

Realistic Goal Setting For Others
The ability to set goals for others that can be achieved using available resources and operating within a projected timeframe. This trait includes the ability to utilize previous measurable performance in the establishing of goals and/or quotas.

A sales manager with strength in this capacity is adept at understanding the potential of another individual, weighting the requirements of a job against their abilities and setting realistic/attainable goals for them to pursue.

A weakness in this area indicates a sales manager who may not have enough confidence to set goals at the proper level. They may not have the drive to encourage others to achieve established goals. They may not be able to clearly see what is happening to be able to form an accurate view of the situation.

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ManageSmarter.com offers up an article I cannot resist - Find Your Next Sales Star. We’re going to start a 10 part series on this article. No, we’re not (though I would like to).

I’ve written about this topic in the past (emphasis mine):

Chet Bloom isn’t a big believer in tests and intellectual assessments. The president of HFBC Ltd., a staff and recruiting firm based in New York, goes with his instinct. “A test will never show a person’s eagerness and motivation,” he says. For him, it’s all about impression, such as how an interviewee dresses, if he shows up on time, and his confidence level. Education is meaningless to him, but background is crucial. Because a salesperson’s salary is determined by success in the field, Chet looks for someone who truly needs to succeed. “I want someone who is eager and focused,” he says. “Maybe they have a mortgage and kids … I look for someone who is hungry.”

Please don’t do that. I would not recommend hiring based on impression and attire. That subjective data should be factored into your decision, but you are in trouble if those items are the backbone of your decision.

And “tests” can show a salesperson’s motivations with a fine gradient.

Within the company, which has 13 sales divisions, there are different criteria for success. “What makes one sales rep good in one division won’t make them great in another one,” Rude says. Stryker looks at the Gallup assessment of top salespeople within each division to find the right match for every prospect. “It’s incorporated in our day-to-day processes,” Rude says. “It’s truly why we think Stryker is great at identifying talent.”

Ok, we are not fans of “cloning” your top salespeople. It is next to impossible to do since people are far more varied than that. Plus, a team comprised of extremely similar salespeople means the group as a whole has the same strengths and, more importantly, the same weaknesses. Over time, your team’s narrow focus may cost you if your target market moves in a direction opposite of their uniform strengths.

However, that italicized sentence from the excerpt is spot on. This truth affects hiring companies too. Just because a salesperson was successful at your competition does not mean their success will transfer to your company. You approach the market with a different value proposition, customer base, market share, name recognition, etc. Remember, each position requires a specific, unique set of skills, motivations and aptitudes.

My 2 Keys For Hiring Sales Stars
Hiring strong salespeople requires a concerted effort involving many parts of a process. If I had to reduce the process to 2 fundamental keys, I would offer up these:

Design as much objectivity into your process as possible

and

Have your hiring process mirror your typical sale

1. Design
The first example in the referenced article is highly subjective and not repeatable. The approach sounds good if you are a recruiter attempting to secure business from a client - “My finely-tuned gut can sniff out the best salesperson.” Sorry to mix metaphors, but you get my point.

Use assessments. Phone screen them before meeting them. Devalue the resume. Have more than 1 person in the initial interview. All of these approaches help to limit the natural blind spots we all possess. The more objectivity in your process, the more repeatable it becomes. Throw out the approach that uses an HR person to sort resumes and one hiring manager who interviews candidates and decides solely on that criteria.

2. Mirror
A salesperson’s job is to persuade others to make a decision in the salesperson’s favor. Ok, that is overly simplistic. The reason I say it is that a hiring process can closely match a sales process. Therefore you can see a salesperson in action if you use this similarity to your advantage.

If you have a short sales cycle, frequent-rejection sale, use your hiring process the same way. Be short on the phone screen, interrupt the candidate, feed them fuzzy phrases and try to get them off the phone. You will be amazed at what you can observe on this call.

Conversely, if you have a long sales cycle that requires rapport-building, observe how the candidate bonds with you on the phone, use email extensively and extend your hiring cycle (don’t overdo this last one).

When you are in the interview, mirror your typical prospect in your timing, approach, warmth, demeanor, etc. This disarming process will help to reveal the real salesperson leading to the one who is the strongest fit for the position’s needs.

My suggestion is to use your gut at the right time which is as close to the end of your hiring process as possible. By then you will have culled the candidates down using measurable, repeatable techniques. The fruits of your labor will be selecting a strong salesperson who becomes a cornerstone of your sales team.

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