If you want more sales, hire better salespeople.
Most salespeople do their best selling at the interview, so make sure you do not fall into the trap of falling in love with the candidate during that interview and buying into their BS.
Gut feel is not a recruitment strategy. Yet, many organisations still rely on it to recruit their salespeople. It is a hit and (mostly) miss strategy, and it can severely impact a company’s ability to grow. Onboarding an ineffective salesperson is not going to help you hit your growth targets. However, a solid sales recruitment strategy will.
Here are 3 tips from our 9 Step Recruitment Pathway, to help you recruit the right salesperson. If you’re looking to revamp your recruitment strategy, these are the must-have elements that you should include:
- Identify the profile of the salesperson i.e Do you need an Account Manager, a Farmer or a Hunter?
You should also get clear on the markets you need them to sell into and whether they have that experience? Here are some examples of what you need to be clear on:
- Do they call on CEOs, managers, technicians or mums and dads?
- Are they selling in a competitive market or are you the only game in town?
- Does your business sell a conceptual service or a product that you can demo?
- Is it a long, complex process or a transactional one?
- Will candidates be expected to sell on value or price?
- Do they have to do their own prospecting? What % of their time should they spend prospecting?
- Do they need to know social selling?
- Are they used to a long sales cycle or short?
Do your candidates have experience and can they demonstrate success in the markets to which you sell?
- Use a pre-hire assessment. If you want to hire the right sales rep, start with
science. It is the key to making good, strategic hiring decisions. Not all salespeople or roles are the same. Science is the first step to assessing whether a candidate suits the type of sales role your company needs.
We have found that the OMG pre-hire sales evaluations are a great way to determine the future success of any candidate. These tools have proven to be 95% accurate at selecting salespeople that can and will sell effectively for your business.
- Ask behavioural-based questions in your interviews. Use behaviour-based questions to encourage a candidate to demonstrate their experience in using a similar sales process to yours, and how they define success.
Questions could include:
- Tell me about a time where you sold successfully in a tough market? How did you set yourself up for success?
- What was the most successful client you brought on board and how did you do it?
- Tell me how you dealt with a client that pushed back on a part of the deal—how did you handle that?
- Tell me a time when the prospect wanted a discount? How did you sell on value?
Watch this 2 min video to get an overview of SalesStar Recruitment process.
