There are many keys to making the the sales hiring process work effectively yet most companies fail to get these keys right.  Some of them are obvious, while some are more subtle.  And most of all, the integrity, or in this case, the outcome of the process is only as strong as the weakest link.  Ignore or fail to complete any one step the way it is designed and the entire outcome will be in jeopardy, as in, another salesperson that fails to launch, doesn't meet expectations, or succeeds at being utterly mediocre.

Here are some keys and comments:

1. You must identify what experiences the new salespeople must have in order to succeed at your company, in this position, calling into your market.
2. You have to nail the posting - get it wrong and the wrong people will apply for the position.  When the wrong people apply, you have a pool that's green and unsuitable for diving in.
3. You must use a customized, sales specific, predictive assessment to identify the candidates who will succeed in your positions and roles.  If the assessment isn't predictive and you can't rely on it, you'll end up wasting your time with the wrong candidates.
4. You must be able to determine, in less than 5 minutes by phone, which of the recommended candidates have the desired experience, sound great, and should be interviewed.
5. You must be able to firmly but nicely cross-examine your candidates in a face-to-face interview to determine whether they are the person described on their resume or an imposter, meaning the resume was a work of fiction.
6. You must have realistic expectations on your timeline.  30-60 days to fill an ordinary territory sales position, 90 days or more to fill a niche sales position, and even longer for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
7. You must be patient enough to do it all over again if you don't find the candidate(s) that make you happy.  Once you have reached the interview stage, candidates will come in 6 and possibly 12 flavors: 

• Strong sales skills, perfect background and you like them;
• Strong sales skills, a background that is close and you like them;
• Strong sales skills, wrong background and you like them;
• Strong sales skills, perfect background and you don't like them;
• Strong sales skills, a background that is close and you don't like them;
• Strong sales skills, wrong background and you don't like them;

Hiring salespeople is not for the faint of heart, should not be performed without the right tools, and cannot be conducted without the right process.  Most importantly, gut instinct is not a part of this process!

A company wants to hire 5000 salespeople - but why?

2000 drop out before completing training, and another 2000 drop out during the first 90 days in the field. Another 500 drop out during the first 6 months, and at the end of the year they only have 500 of the original 5000 standing.  What would it be worth to them from a cost, time, resources and practicality standpoint for us to simply identify, in advance, the final 500, before anyone is hired?

Can we do that?  Yes.

Are they likely to do that?  No.

Why?  Because that's the way it's always been done in their industry.  The Status Quo prevents improved outcomes and nobody wants to make a change that might not work.  Well what about the way they're doing it now?  Does anybody really believe that it works the way it is?  They do!

Let's take a closer look at why their turnover - at 90% the first year - is so high?  Let's look at how they select salespeople since that's one of the things that we could change.

They use a behavioral styles assessment.  They're OK, but (obviously!!) not predictive of sales success.

This particular assessment is marketed as a sales assessment but it's the same old story.  Behavioral Styles assessment that uses some sales terminology and marketing but under the hood it's a behavioral styles assessment.  Here are some examples:

The Assessment reports "Prospecting Ability" but they can't actually measure that.  They can only measure how extroverted, social and persistent the individual is - in a social context!  It has nothing to do with prospecting ability!

The Assessment reports "Closing Style/Ability" but they can't actually measure that.  They can only measure assertiveness and sensitivity to rejection - in  a social context!  It has nothing to do with closing ability!

The Assessment report "Commitment to Sales" but they can't actually measure that.  They can only measure self-esteem and how favorable the individual is to a sales profession.  It has nothing to do with Commitment to Sales!

And on and on and on it goes...

What would you do?

It's true.  Executives brag about their processes.  "Oh, yes, we spent the last 15 years developing our process and it's wonderful - wait until you see it!"  It never matters whether they're talking about a recruiting process or a sales process, the common denominator is the pride they take in what they created.

It reminds me of the very first house my wife and I lived in nearly 20 years ago.  We had designed and planted gardens and the next project was a large perennial garden we wanted to plant. We were quite proud of what we had already done but were unsure of what plants to include and how to arrange them for a spectacular look.  So we invited a professional landscape designer to come by and his first words were, "Oh yeah, typical homeowner landscaping", loud enough for the entire town to know we were incompetent.  Thanks to my wife's great vision, we've gotten much better at landscape design (read - she designs quite impressively and I can dig holes).  But I try to keep this incident in mind whenever an executive begins to brag about their process(es).

Invariably, these home-grown processes are primitive.  Yes, they can put the process label on them, but only because there is more than one step.  But steps don't make a good or effective process.  Whether it's a recruiting process or a sales process, it should always include a combination of best practices, milestones, steps and stages conducted in the proper sequence, with the proper expectations, in an appropriate time frame.

So what makes you think you have a sales or recruiting process?

Speaking of processes, I'll be featured on a webinar, How Not to Screw up Your Sales Hiring in 2010, hosted by the EcSell Institute on Monday, January 25, at 1 PM ET, when I'll be discussing the Sales Recruiting Processes with founder, Bill Eckstrom. More information and to register.

(c) Copyright 2010 Dave Kurlan

It was quite the claim.  I remember telling my client that the next candidate we were to interview was the best sounding candidate I had ever spoken with on the phone. Robert, the sales manager, went to the lobby to get the candidate and returned, an ashen look on his face.  Ray, the candidate, followed Robert into the conference room and suddenly, I had the same ashen look on my face.  It seemed that the best candidate I had ever spoken with by phone was, well, a bum!

They say you make an impression in the first 5 seconds and if the first impression was horrible, it was a huge understatement.  Here are just some of the things we noticed:

• he had a paper bag with a bottle in it
• his white shirt had yellowed
• he was completely wrinkled - not a wrinkled face, but a suit that was wrinkled so bad it could only have occurred from sleeping in it - on a park bench - on multiple nights
  
• he stunk - not like Yankees stink or Red Sox stink, but as if he had urinated on himself
• his hair had not been combed - or washed - for days, maybe weeks
  
• his clothes didn't fit

The funny thing was that when we began to interview him, if you just closed your eyes, you would have heard the most pleasing, helpful, nurturing, lucid, quick, humorous, effective, competent salesperson you could imagine.  And since this was an inside sales position...

Even that was a beyond a stretch.  You couldn't even support the logic for Ray working from home - away from the other salespeople who could find him offensive because, well, he probably didn't have a home.

So outside of this being a great true story, there are some lessons from it.

1. It doesn't matter how good the candidate's resume, track record, assessment results and phone interview are.  There is a reason for a face to face interview and that must go well too.
2. The purpose for a sales recruiting process is to filter candidates out - not the other way around
3. It doesn't matter how much confidence you have in your interviewing, recruiting, and selection skills.  You will still be wrong about people
4. Your gut instinct has its place.  Recruiting and selection isn't the place to rely on it.
5. Your eyes can't be fooled.  Or can they?  What if Ray was just plain ugly instead of repulsive and homeless?  What if he was disabled?  What if he had a disease?
6. Candidates might not be as good as advertised but rarely will they be better than advertised
7. There is a reason for sequenced, multiple steps in the process. Never deviate or take short cuts.
8. Just because the earlier steps in the process did not effectively filter out Ray, you shouldn't assume that the process is flawed because of one miss.  Always practice what works most of the time, not what worked or didn't work once.
9. Be warned about making compromises.  Would you have hired Ray, a great salesperson, if everything was normal - except for the bottle in the bag (could it have been orange juice?), or except for the hair (just a bad hair day), or except for the shirt (the others were at the cleaners), or except for the size of the clothes (lost a ton of weight and still losing)?
10. Never hire anyone that smells like he peed on himself.