{"id":1373,"date":"2008-01-10T09:55:34","date_gmt":"2008-01-10T15:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/the-subtle-requirements-for-successful-sales-hiring\/"},"modified":"2008-01-18T13:48:08","modified_gmt":"2008-01-18T19:48:08","slug":"the-subtle-requirements-for-successful-sales-hiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/the-subtle-requirements-for-successful-sales-hiring\/","title":{"rendered":"The Subtle Requirements For Successful Sales Hiring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ManageSmarter.com offers up an interesting article titled <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.managesmarter.com\/msg\/content_display\/sales\/e3i54d918476e58a1ebb020e7337c00019d\">Do You Have the Right Talent?<\/a>\u00a0 First off, I love the fact that they advocating the pursuit of\u00a0<strong>talent<\/strong> &#8211; that is the key to a successful sales hire (read:\u00a0 <em>not<\/em> experience).\u00a0 Second, the author strikes a chord that resonates with us:\u00a0 There is no one-size-fits-all salesperson.\u00a0 The right approach is to look at a salesperson&#8217;s abilities and see how well they fit into your sales model.\u00a0 This approach is talent\/skill-based, not experience-based.<\/p>\n<p>Here is an excellent example of this principle in action (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A client of ours is a partner in a construction company specializing in commercial ventilation systems. They have a good reputation and they bid on, and win, many commercial installation jobs.<\/p>\n<p>A few years ago this company took on a new &#8220;product.&#8221; They felt that annual maintenance contracts for commercial building ventilation systems (not unlike an annual maintenance contract for a home furnace or central air conditioning) would be a relevant addition to their offerings. And they were right. But from a &#8220;need&#8221; point of view, these two sales jobs are completely different.<\/p>\n<p>When the salesperson tries to illustrate why her company is the best choice for the construction side of the business, the need is known. That is, we already know that there is a building project going on. Without having to ask, we know there is the need for a ventilation system. The prospect does not have to use my client\u2019s company necessarily, but they do have to have a ventilation system. <strong>The need has already been established before the sale even begins<\/strong>. But this is not true for the maintenance side of the business. Although there may be tremendous value to purchasing a maintenance contract, it is not essential. <strong>The need must first be created<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It is of course very common to have related product lines like this\u2014it&#8217;s just good business. But in this example, the two sale types are very different for the salespeople, and certain things must be structured accordingly. This is why you have heard me say that you may well have several different sale types in one company\u2014requiring different talents\u2014and <strong>why many of you have had experiences where your salespeople just don\u2019t do well with certain products or services that you feel are such &#8220;natural companions&#8221; to your core products<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The fact that the need has already been established is a subtle, but powerful differentiation in the sale.\u00a0 This principle is true when hiring salespeople that have worked for a market leader in your industry.\u00a0 The similarity is that the salesperson&#8217;s company has name recognition\u00a0and market capitalization.\u00a0 This market strength makes prospecting much easier.<\/p>\n<p>Now imagine a smaller competitor hires a salesperson from the larger company.\u00a0 The smaller company thinks they have scored a coup.\u00a0 Yet, they find after a few months that this new salesperson is not getting appointments and, consequently, not closing new deals.\u00a0 The skill set required at the smaller company is different than the larger, market-leading company.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This hiring error occurs often in companies that believe they <em>must<\/em> hire salespeople from their industry.\u00a0 Big, big mistake.\u00a0 Yet, this conventional wisdom is ingrained in many hiring managers.\u00a0 Talent and skill should be the first measuring stick for any sales hire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ManageSmarter.com offers up an interesting article titled Do You Have the Right Talent?\u00a0 First off, I love the fact that they advocating the pursuit of\u00a0talent &#8211; that is the key to a successful sales hire (read:\u00a0 not experience).\u00a0 Second, the author strikes a chord that resonates with us:\u00a0 There is no one-size-fits-all salesperson.\u00a0 The right approach is to look at a salesperson&#8217;s abilities and see how well they fit into your sales model.\u00a0 This approach is talent\/skill-based, not experience-based. Here is an excellent example of this principle in action (emphasis mine): A client of ours is a partner in a construction company specializing in commercial ventilation systems. They have a&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/the-subtle-requirements-for-successful-sales-hiring\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,3],"tags":[1762,212,211,210],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-m9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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