{"id":599,"date":"2007-01-23T15:22:32","date_gmt":"2007-01-23T21:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/the-sales-hiring-security-blanket\/"},"modified":"2007-01-23T15:22:57","modified_gmt":"2007-01-23T21:22:57","slug":"the-sales-hiring-security-blanket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/the-sales-hiring-security-blanket\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sales Hiring Security Blanket"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is a security blanket in hiring salespeople and it is this &#8211; experience. Experience is the balm to bad sales hiring. Companies start with a desire to hire primarily from their industry. If someone has multiple years selling in the industry, skill and talent are assumed to be sufficient and transferrable.<\/p>\n<p>But this approach works far less often than you think. We see it play out almost on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n<p>There is no truer example than one of our customers who sells in a distribution market. They sell electronic parts that are integrated into larger machines. These parts can be purchased at numerous other companies <em>in the Twin Cities<\/em>, let alone the rest of the US. Their value proposition is far different than their competitor&#8217;s even though the product is the same.<\/p>\n<p>This company has hired salespeople from their industry in the past and have not found one who has lasted more than 12 months. Now they are ready to forego the experience security blanket at look at skills and talent first. The critical shift here is to understand that skills and talent are far more transferrable than experience in terms of selling.<\/p>\n<p>This approach is a complete paradigm shift for many companies. Most managers believe that hiring someone from the industry is the safest move. If the salesperson fails, the hiring manager can be surprised by the failure since &#8220;on their resume they had a ton of experience.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Safe doesn&#8217;t always equal success. Reward always comes at a risk.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Recruiting_Main.html\" target=\"_blank\">Our process lowers the risk.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a security blanket in hiring salespeople and it is this &#8211; experience. Experience is the balm to bad sales hiring. Companies start with a desire to hire primarily from their industry. If someone has multiple years selling in the industry, skill and talent are assumed to be sufficient and transferrable. But this approach works far less often than you think. We see it play out almost on a weekly basis. There is no truer example than one of our customers who sells in a distribution market. They sell electronic parts that are integrated into larger machines. These parts can be purchased at numerous other companies in the Twin&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/the-sales-hiring-security-blanket\/\">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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiring-salespeople","category-turnover"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-9F","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":386,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/open-mind-hiring\/","url_meta":{"origin":599,"position":0},"title":"Open-Minded Hiring","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Another good article from the new Selling Power newsletter - Open Minds Open Doors. The topic here is Hiring Salespeople From Outside Your Industry. If you follow that link, you will see that this topic is of great importance in our world. From the article: \"I believe the way the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1402,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/the-demand-for-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":599,"position":1},"title":"The Demand For Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Salespeople, with strong skills, are always in demand in any economy.\u00a0 Certainly some sales opportunities have an ebb and flow tied to the current economic conditions, but those are mainly business-to-consumer positions.\u00a0 From that understanding comes a 2008 sales hiring outlook from Monster.com. First key graph: In 2008 as always,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1006,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/retention-in-a-downsizing-industry\/","url_meta":{"origin":599,"position":2},"title":"Retention In A Downsizing Industry","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We don't do much work in the pharmaceutical market but I do have a couple of friends who sell for the big players. SellingPower.com's article Have You Heard Who\u20ac\u2122s Hiring? discusses a downsizing trend in sales hiring that is occurring in that specific market. \u20ac\u0153The days of armies of sales\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Retention&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Retention","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/retention\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/05\/experience-fact-or-fiction\/","url_meta":{"origin":599,"position":3},"title":"Experience &#8211; Fact or Fiction?","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"May 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In this article from the Minneapolis StarTribune.com, the author discusses the growing demand for salespeople in the medical industry. One quote in particular jumps out: Medical salespeople often tell me it is rewarding to sell things that help people. I bring this topic up because it is of interest in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19691,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2018\/07\/finding-sales-talent-in-tight-markets\/","url_meta":{"origin":599,"position":4},"title":"Finding Sales Talent In Tight Markets","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 20, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The labor market is tight today as you assuredly know if you have been attempting to fill open sales positions.\u00a0 The issue in sales runs deeper than that as you are typically attempting to find strong sales candidates.\u00a0 \"Attempting\" is the key - many hiring managers are unsure of selecting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Compass-on-rocks.png?fit=560%2C315&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Compass-on-rocks.png?fit=560%2C315&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Compass-on-rocks.png?fit=560%2C315&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":377,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/a-good-time-to-be-in-sales\/","url_meta":{"origin":599,"position":5},"title":"A Good Time To Be In Sales","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This article - The Hottest Industries For Sales Jobs - comes from the daily SM&M Magazine enewsletter. The market demand for salespeople is strong right now (we can attest to that fact) and is going to remain high: The trend for hiring shows no signs of stopping, according to Cindy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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