2 crucial keys to a successful sales hire
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Often times I find that the majority of my sales coaching would be even more effective if the company had hired the right salesperson and started them off on the best possible foot. And when I have seen the best results it is when the company had certain crucial keys in their sales hiring process. I absolutely believe that sales is a noble and respectable profession. Salespeople are the connection between a problem and a solution. If you think about it, isn’t that how we make the world a better place? When we start using a data based and scientific process to finding, hiring, and developing salespeople- the rest of the world will start to believe it too.
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2 crucial keys to a successful sales hire
- 1. 2 Crucial Keys to a Successful Sales Hire How to select and set salespeople up for success. @icarolemahoney
- 3. Agenda ➔ Key #1- Sourcing and Selection ◆ Ideal Salesperson profile ◆ Attracting candidates ◆ Data based assessment ◆ Data qualification interviews ➔ Key #2- Onboarding and Development ◆ Buyer centric ◆ Information chunking ◆ Real world application ➔ The problem ◆ Leadership perspective ◆ Front line perspective
- 4. 1 ● Average tenure = 16 months ● Average ramp time = 3.2 months ● Quota attainment =68% Source: The Bridge Group- 2016 Sales Development Metrics @icarolemahoney
- 6. Role SpecificationIdeal Salesperson Profile ● Position, level of difficulty, job requirements ● Market and buyer role ● Resistance and competition ● Pricing, AOV, sales cycle length ● Post sales responsibilities ● Opportunity creation ● Culture and environment @icarolemahoney
- 7. Attracting Candidates ● Describe the applicant, not the job ● Glassdoor review ● Referrals from team ● Universities ● Veterans programs ● Networking events ● LinkedIn jobs & InMail ● Job boards @icarolemahoney
- 8. Data based assessment ● Mindset ● Behaviors ● Skills ● Environment @icarolemahoney
- 9. Data qualification interviews ● Describe a situation where…? ● How did you handle…? ● Can you give me an example of…? ● Intangibles @icarolemahoney
- 11. Buyer Centric ● Their world ● Their business issue ● Their goals ● Their decision making process @icarolemahoney
- 12. Information Chunking ● 15-20 minutes ‘chunks’ ● Simulations and testing ● Online learning ● Easily iterate, scale & measure @icarolemahoney
- 13. Real World Application ● Forgetting Curve ● Adult Learning Theory ● Data Centric ● Customized ● Continuous @icarolemahoney
- 14. Questions & Contact Info Carole Mahoney e@carolemahoney.com Resources: http://bit.ly/saleshiresuccess @icarolemahoney
Hinweis der Redaktion
- ome of the things I’ve observed and learned about successfuSl sales hires.
- Before we get too much further, for those that know me you might be wondering why a sales coach is talking about hiring. I grew up in a family of small business owners and most of my career has been working with sales and marketing startup teams to help them to grow revenue. I saw first hand what happened to companies after too many bad sales hires. I even survived it myself in my own business. It is heartbreaking. It is bank breaking. Often times I find that the majority of my sales coaching would be even more effective if the company had hired the right salesperson and started them off on the best possible foot. And when I have seen the best results it is when the company had certain crucial keys in their sales hiring process. I absolutely believe that sales is a noble and respectable profession. Salespeople are the connection between a problem and a solution. If you think about it, isn’t that how we make the world a better place? When we start using a data based and scientific process to finding, hiring, and developing salespeople- the rest of the world will start to believe it too.
- I will share with you the problem as I have seen and experienced it and 2 crucial keys for to you to find your next, or first- ideal salesperson. First, is finding and attracting the ideal salesperson that's right for your buyer and company. Second, once you have successfully hired them, then what?
- This is my husband Steve. He’s changing a tire in the snow on a below freezing day on i95. If you have ever seen The Christmas Story movie when Ralphie is helping his dad change a flat in the snow, you know poor Steve is also saying ‘fudge’ a lot. We were on our way to a family Christmas party that started in a hour and I hate being late. My first reaction was to call AAA and wait. But when I called them, it would be 90 minutes before they could get someone out. Not acceptable, I needed this fixed and now. And so out Steve goes into the freezing cold. Poor Steve. First, the jack we had didn’t have the handle he needed to pump it, so he had to make do with what he had- a flimsy screwdriver. Plus he forget his gloves, which means he had to borrow mine, ‘cuz there was no way I was doing this- and they didn’t exactly fit his hands. Then because we were off the side of the road, the jack kept slipping in the snow and wouldn’t get to the height needed in order to lift the car to take the bad tire off. Meanwhile, I am opening the door every 10 minutes asking, “How is it going?” with my finger over the call button to AAA wondering if maybe we should just give up and wait it out. I knew we would never get there on time. This is the same kind of situation salespeople find themselves in when they are scrambling to be successful in their new sales positions. Unprepared, in a less than ideal environment, with tools and helps that don’t quite cut it. And like Ralphie, and Steve, they are muttering ‘fudge’, now what? And for leaders tasked with reaching a revenue goal, finding and keeping the best salespeople is a gamble. Like me, they are poking their heads in every so often asking “How is it going?” anxious if we will make it to our destination despite the flat tires and wondering- should I give up these salespeople and replace them? Wait it out to see if they can get it done? By the way, by some miracle Steve got the tire changed and we were only a little late for the party. Unlike Steve and I- the cost of a failed sales hire is too great for you to ignore these 2 crucial keys. By the way, if you aren’t sure what your failed sales hire really cost, there is an app for that. Even if you think you know, I would be willing to bet it’s higher than you think.
- Finding and hiring the ideal sales professionals is different than any other position you will fill in your company. In my first SaaS tech startup, I worked directly with the VP of Sales and also ran the marketing. Sounds a lot more important than I was- there was only 2 of us, though we added more to the team later. But I remember sitting in the interviews with him and at one point someone asked me how I thought I could contribute to the sales effort. And I can’t remember how I responded, but I remember thinking at some point, “I can’t be that bad of a salesperson if I can sell you on the idea of hiring me.” I learned a lot there- not least of all was how to sell myself and my ideas. Salespeople study how to sell themselves in interviews, and if they are a halfway decent salesperson- that is exactly what they will do. That is why the keys I am about to share with you are crucial to finding and hiring the ideal salespeople to grow your company.
- The very first step to our first key is understanding the role, the market and the environment that will define your ideal salesperson profile. There are a minimum of 34 questions I ask sales leaders in order to define the specialized role they are looking for- these questions are designed to understand what behaviors, attitudes, skills and environment they will need to be successful in the role. Position- Outside Sales, Inside Sales, Major Accounts, National Accounts, Account Manager, Telesales, OEM Sales, Channel Manager Difficulty- the more difficult the position, the stronger the salesperson needs to be. Difficulty is determined by the selling environment and who they are selling to. Is is a complex sale selling to multiple C-level stakeholders, or a transaction sale to anyone? Requirements- is this an inbound sales role, a Channel account manager, a call center, an existing account manager? Market- are they selling into the corporate or industrial world, the small business world, residential consumers, or institutions like schools, hospitals, or municipalities? Buyer role- are they selling to owners, C-level, middle management, end users, or consumers? Resistance- from buyers- a lot to a little? Competition- crowded market place, or the only one around? (remember the choice to do nothing is still competition) Pricing, AOV, sales cycle- Higher or lower than the competition? Order value under 1k or over 250k? 1 call close or over 1 year? Post sales responsibilities- what do they need to do after the sale? What is expected? Hi Opportunity creation- do they need to create or are they all assigned? Culture and environment- is it a fast paced, high pressure culture? In constant change? Autonomous?
- The criteria in your profile can then help your write the ad that will attract your ideal candidates. It needs to be about them, not you. Make sure your ad describes the candidate you want to hire, not a job description. Describe their attributes, their attitudes, what a day in the life of the role looks like. And don’t just write one ad and place it everywhere. Customize at least the title for each place you put it to appeal to that audience and gain some inbound traction as well. Even when you are not hiring, keep a full pipeline of possible hires. It will raise the bar internally when you are always on the lookout for the top talent, not just the ones available now. At HubSpot, sales leaders would sit down with new hires after about 6 months and ask about people they are connected to on LinkedIn to ask for referrals.
- Using objective assessment data to determine if the candidate has the right mindset, behaviors, skills to succeed in your selling environment takes the guesswork and bias out of the equation. It is not as easy for them to sell you on hiring them. Using the role criteria and your objective data, you can know with a much higher accuracy who to spend time interviewing and how. If you are the point where you have candidates, there is a free express screen you can use that will be included in your email after this event. I will also have a sample report in the resources for you to look at in detail.
- Data without context is dangerous. But it can guide your interview questions to be specific to each candidate. Your interviews questions can be customized to the objective findings to help you understand who the best fit is for your company. Ask candidates to demonstrate or explain to you how they meet the criteria in your ad posting during the screening interviews. For example, I recently viewed with a client the assessments of 3 possible sales candidates. Because relationship building and account management skills were important to being successful in their role, with their company, and with their buyer, we were able to identify attitudes and mindsets that impact candidates improving those skills and could be asked about during the interview. Because they have the validated data to understand their candidates capabilities (Step 3), they don’t have to ask questions and hope they get real answers about capabilities, but can focus on things like eye contact, self-presentation, curiosity, presence, charisma, sincerity, intelligence, and how they would feel about this candidate representing your company.
- The second crucial key to a successful sales hire is what happens after you hire them. Imagine if your teenager was taught to drive by spending only a week or two watching training videos and sitting in the passenger seat watching you and others drive. Would you want them driving you across the country? Or even just across town in a snow storm? You can probably imagine the white-knuckled ride perfectly. Your teenager is in the driver's seat and you are screaming to slow down and watch out for that car, or saying hurry up, we are never going to get there! Yet that is how most sales onboarding programs work. Typically, there are a few days of orientation to learn how the CRM and how other internal systems work, followed by a week of product/feature/benefit training, memorizing the sales process, and perhaps even listening to live calls or shadowing top performers. After just a few weeks, they are then expected to drive the revenue for your company and produce the numbers needed to keep their job. Not only is this not efficient or productive, you can’t predict the outcomes, or repeat the successes. This isn’t even considering the fact that most onboarding programs don’t even exist in a lot of companies. New hires walk in and are sometimes left on their own for weeks, even months, before they get any kind of formal training or coaching. Just last week, I was talking with a coaching client who shared with me that after six months on the job, she was finally being sent to a training event. This is not the first time I have heard this. Many companies just wait for the next scheduled training event to put new sales hires through. Here are a few of the basics that an onboarding program should have.
- Your program must put the salesperson into the buyer’s world and buying process. Mark Roberge, former CRO at HubSpot, describes in his book “The Sales Acceleration Formula” how he had new hires use the HubSpot product to do what their customers had to do. Create a website, write blogs, use social- all so they could experience firsthand what the world of their buyer was like. If it’s not possible to do that with your team, I have had some clients do recorded interviews with customers asking questions that capture; how they would describe their role, what life what like before they used the company’s solution, why they put up with it for so long, why they finally decided to do something about it, and how they would describe their experience to a peer. Understanding the problem and world of the buyer is one part. Your onboarding program should also be able to teach salespeople how your buyer’s make decisions, otherwise known as the ‘buyer journey’. The introduction of the sales process should be in context of and in alignment with the buyer journey.
- Our brains cannot process large amounts of information at once. Science tells us that we learn best when information is broken up in chunks, otherwise our brains become overwhelmed. Think about the last 45 minute webinar you sat through. How much of it did you remember an hour later, a day later, or a week later? Nearly 3/4 of new information is lost in a week without immediate application and reinforcement. Online training programs that break up learning in short (15-20 minute) interactive modules with quizzes and certifications and are a good first step to getting salespeople to acquire and apply new information. They are also an easy way to continuously iterate, scale, and measure learning.
- According to the Adult Learning model, 70% of learning happens in the application of knowledge. Practice, or role play simulations, will help your new salespeople gain confidence in executing the sales process. Integrating sales coaching from managers, a dedicated internal coach, or an external one is a sure way to help salespeople apply knowledge in the real world with actual conversations with potential buyers. Customizing the process to what the individual salesperson needs to be successful in their role is key. If you have followed a scientific process of selecting the right salespeople, you will already know what specific training and coaching they need. With a module-based online training program, you can match up which modules that salesperson needs based on their specific assessment and role. Onboarding new salespeople must be a process, not an event. If you use an online training program, it will always be available for salesperson to go back and refresh themselves on the material when they face obstacles during the execution of the sales process. An online training program can also be available immediately to new hires, rather than waiting for the next scheduled training event. Combined with a formal coaching cadence from leadership, your onboarding program will set your new sales hire up for success.
- Time for your questions, or if you prefer to ask me 1-1, reach out.