Recruiting Sales Talent Major HR Challenge
Recruiting Sales Talent Major HR Challenge
“Irresistible new forces are reshaping the world of selling. Sales functions everywhere are in the early stages of radical and profound changes comparable to those that began in manufacturing 20 years ago… But one change outweighs all the others. The meaning of selling itself is shifting. The very purpose of sales is being rapidly redefined.”
Neil Rackham “Reinventing the Sales Force”
Dramatic shifts in buyer-seller relationships have seen the balance of power swing back from sellers to buyers. In short, buyers have become better at buying than sellers at selling. Sales organisations face huge challenges because there is no longer any sustainable competitive advantage through product superiority. Author Jerry Stapleton points out that a second problem is that the sales reps customers just do not need them any longer. At least not the way that they used to. Traditionally salespeople brought value to their customers by facilitating transactions and communicating information about their products and services. Almost overnight these two core functions of salespeople have lost their value. These functions, once the life blood of selling, are diminishing in value as a new era of selling is replacing the old. Customers will not pay for them and often will not even tolerate them. They are making that known to their suppliers.
The market today is demanding highly professional and highly specialized salespeople who have a new focus: demand creation, philosophical alignment, in-depth understanding of their customer’s businesses, positioning, executive credibility and the delivery of value. These people are in desperately short supply and sales organisations are increasingly turning to their HR functions for help and guidance in recruiting the new sales talent, and finding that the cupboard is bare.
Research is revealing that the calibre of the salesperson has become the single major determinant of whether customers will buy from your organisation or not. So having the knowledge tools and processes to identify genuine sales talent is vital.
Factors Influencing Customers’ Decision to Buy
• Price 18%
• Quality of product/service 21%
• Offering a total solution 22%
• Calibrid of the salesperson 39%
Key Learning No. 1
Sales is becoming increasingly specialised and there are at least 14 different types of salespeople. So it is absolutely crucial to understand what type of salesperson is most likely to succeed in a specific sales role. There are simple tools available to make this determination.
Key Learning No. 2
Really great salespeople are often not much interested in theory and tend to be intuitive rather than academic. They are definitely not stupid, but they have other priorities. In HR Chally’s database of over 500 000 salespeople there is an inverse correlation between academic achievement and sales success, so many organisations who demand rigorous academic standards, often screen out the best sales talent. This is particularly common in banks and IT companies.
Academic Achievement and Sales Success
Key Learning No. 3
Sales is more a talent based than a learned skill. You can teach anybody to play golf, but you could not turn the average weekend golfer into a Tiger Woods. It is the same with sales and the rule of thumb the 20% rule applies for training salespeople. You can turn a 5% into a 6% (a poor investment) but you can turn an 80% into a 96%.
Key Learning No. 4
Hiring accuracy for sales performance is generally poor – often little better than making decisions based on the flip of a coin, because the most common tools used for recruitment are ineffective.
Hiring success rates aren’t much better than a coin toss*
Selection Method Improvement Over “Chance”
Typical Interview 1% increase
Personality Tests 1% increase
Experience 5% increase
Scorable Interview 7% increase
Criterion validated test 25-35 % increase
*“International Personnel Management Association, Feb. 1999”
Key Learning No. 5
Sales managers and HR departments draw up long laundry lists of desirable attributes for salespeople, with no evidence about which are important and predictors of on-the-job performance.
Statistical research (validity) studies on predictors of job success indicates that the single most important predictor skill or criteria, accounts for almost half the total success prediction. Each additional criteria adds around 50% of the value of the preceding one.
1st Factor 50%
2nd Factor 25%
3rd Factor 12%
4th Factor 6%
5th Factor 3%
More than 6 factors actually dilutes the accuracy of selection.
Key Learning No. 6
Evaluating personality instead of job skills has proved ineffective in predicting in future performance in different job roles. This is especially problematic in the popular “short tests” with 20-30 questions. Some tests that fall into this group are: - MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness), PIP (Personality Interview Profiler), PSI (Personal Style Inventory), OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaire) and many others. Many of these tests are useful but not predictive.
Any truly effective sales recruitment system would contain the following elements or steps: -
1) Clearly understand and define the specific sales role.
2) Understand that you find different types of salespeople in different places.
3) Define your “disqualifiers” and screen out unsuitable candidates.
4) Develop a preliminary short list and utilize role specific, structured scorable interviews to develop a short list.
5) Consult thorough reference checks.
6) Finally, utilize a criterion validated predictive test to determine the candidates suitability for a specific role.
As a guideline, you should achieve 90% or better hiring accuracy and a 20-40% improvement in sales productivity.
Recruiting Sales Talent Major HR Challenge - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Gilbert's Website.
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Our customers have changed. The economics of our businesses have changed. Our markets have changed, and we face new competitors on every front. Is it any surprise that our sales organisations must change to adapt to dramatically changed circumstances? But, in many cases, sales organisations and the HR functions who support them, have failed to respond.
“Irresistible new forces are reshaping the world of selling. Sales functions everywhere are in the early stages of radical and profound changes comparable to those that began in manufacturing 20 years ago… But one change outweighs all the others. The meaning of selling itself is shifting. The very purpose of sales is being rapidly redefined.”
Neil Rackham “Reinventing the Sales Force”
Dramatic shifts in buyer-seller relationships have seen the balance of power swing back from sellers to buyers. In short, buyers have become better at buying than sellers at selling. Sales organisations face huge challenges because there is no longer any sustainable competitive advantage through product superiority. Author Jerry Stapleton points out that a second problem is that the sales reps customers just do not need them any longer. At least not the way that they used to. Traditionally salespeople brought value to their customers by facilitating transactions and communicating information about their products and services. Almost overnight these two core functions of salespeople have lost their value. These functions, once the life blood of selling, are diminishing in value as a new era of selling is replacing the old. Customers will not pay for them and often will not even tolerate them. They are making that known to their suppliers.
The market today is demanding highly professional and highly specialized salespeople who have a new focus: demand creation, philosophical alignment, in-depth understanding of their customer’s businesses, positioning, executive credibility and the delivery of value. These people are in desperately short supply and sales organisations are increasingly turning to their HR functions for help and guidance in recruiting the new sales talent, and finding that the cupboard is bare.
Research is revealing that the calibre of the salesperson has become the single major determinant of whether customers will buy from your organisation or not. So having the knowledge tools and processes to identify genuine sales talent is vital.
Factors Influencing Customers’ Decision to Buy
• Price 18%
• Quality of product/service 21%
• Offering a total solution 22%
• Calibrid of the salesperson 39%
Key Learning No. 1
Sales is becoming increasingly specialised and there are at least 14 different types of salespeople. So it is absolutely crucial to understand what type of salesperson is most likely to succeed in a specific sales role. There are simple tools available to make this determination.
Key Learning No. 2
Really great salespeople are often not much interested in theory and tend to be intuitive rather than academic. They are definitely not stupid, but they have other priorities. In HR Chally’s database of over 500 000 salespeople there is an inverse correlation between academic achievement and sales success, so many organisations who demand rigorous academic standards, often screen out the best sales talent. This is particularly common in banks and IT companies.
Academic Achievement and Sales Success
Key Learning No. 3
Sales is more a talent based than a learned skill. You can teach anybody to play golf, but you could not turn the average weekend golfer into a Tiger Woods. It is the same with sales and the rule of thumb the 20% rule applies for training salespeople. You can turn a 5% into a 6% (a poor investment) but you can turn an 80% into a 96%.
Key Learning No. 4
Hiring accuracy for sales performance is generally poor – often little better than making decisions based on the flip of a coin, because the most common tools used for recruitment are ineffective.
Hiring success rates aren’t much better than a coin toss*
Selection Method Improvement Over “Chance”
Typical Interview 1% increase
Personality Tests 1% increase
Experience 5% increase
Scorable Interview 7% increase
Criterion validated test 25-35 % increase
*“International Personnel Management Association, Feb. 1999”
Key Learning No. 5
Sales managers and HR departments draw up long laundry lists of desirable attributes for salespeople, with no evidence about which are important and predictors of on-the-job performance.
Statistical research (validity) studies on predictors of job success indicates that the single most important predictor skill or criteria, accounts for almost half the total success prediction. Each additional criteria adds around 50% of the value of the preceding one.
1st Factor 50%
2nd Factor 25%
3rd Factor 12%
4th Factor 6%
5th Factor 3%
More than 6 factors actually dilutes the accuracy of selection.
Key Learning No. 6
Evaluating personality instead of job skills has proved ineffective in predicting in future performance in different job roles. This is especially problematic in the popular “short tests” with 20-30 questions. Some tests that fall into this group are: - MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness), PIP (Personality Interview Profiler), PSI (Personal Style Inventory), OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaire) and many others. Many of these tests are useful but not predictive.
Any truly effective sales recruitment system would contain the following elements or steps: -
1) Clearly understand and define the specific sales role.
2) Understand that you find different types of salespeople in different places.
3) Define your “disqualifiers” and screen out unsuitable candidates.
4) Develop a preliminary short list and utilize role specific, structured scorable interviews to develop a short list.
5) Consult thorough reference checks.
6) Finally, utilize a criterion validated predictive test to determine the candidates suitability for a specific role.
As a guideline, you should achieve 90% or better hiring accuracy and a 20-40% improvement in sales productivity.
Recruiting Sales Talent Major HR Challenge - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Gilbert's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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