Hiring the Ideal High Value Sales Person Opportunity No 2

Background
My company, PERFORMAX, has been retained by many software & other technology companies to work with their sales forces to improve their effectiveness, and implement our Opportunity Planning, Creation and Management System to provide the backbone of a repeatable and scalable sales management process.

Even with the best processes in the world, when it comes to selling high $ value solutions (eg: $5+ million software licenses for ERP & CRM Applications etc), some sales professionals just never make it, even though they may have succeeded elsewhere.

Thus, on several occasions we have been asked by our customers to help assess what the ideal, successful sales person "should look like” to help facilitate better hiring.

Objective of this Report
This report documents the findings from several such assessments in a way that is designed to help you find your “ideal” sales people.

The report contents are:
1. Assessment Methodology
2. Answers to the 3 Questions
3. Key Deductions
4. Conclusion

1. Assessment Methodology

In all cases, we surveyed and interviewed:
a. Top Sales People
b. Some Sales People who had failed (but who had succeeded in other sales roles)
c. Several Sales Managers

Based on the structure of our Performance Management System’s Personal Success Checklist (PSC), we asked the following 3 questions:

Question 1: What do you see as the key attributes needed by a Sales Person to succeed in your company, ie:
1a. What Personal Characteristic do they need?
1b. What Key Knowledge and Experience do they need?
1c. What Key Skills do they need?

Question 2: What do the successful ones do that the others do not (ie: what differentiates the winners)?

Question 3: What are the main reasons that you have observed that have caused some Sales people to fail in your company?

2. Answers to the 3 Questions
NB: (N) indicates a large number of respondents stated this point


Question 1: What do you see as the key attributes needed by a Sales Person to succeed in your company, ie:

1a. What Personal Characteristic do they need?
• Need to win and hate losing; Unwilling to hear “No” or take “No” for an answer (N)
• Control Freaks who are very Proactive and Focused (N)
• Able to predict what will happen next and go wrong, plus be prepared to overcome obstacles & objections (N)
• Smart, good brain power, high MIPS, able to work through complex scenarios (N)
• Really care about their Customers/Buyers
• They easily develop a relationship of trust, ie: bond well with the client
• They are very responsive (key to winning large account deals)
• Really cares about delivering Value to help their Customer’s Business
• Try to ensure “No Surprises” for Customers
• Able to “tell it as it is”
• Very Intuitive
• Opportunistic…. Always looking for opportunity
• Laser like focus to succeed
• High work ethic; Force themselves to do the tough stuff
• Personal Drive and Fear of losing!!!
• Likeable Personality & Team Player
• Passion for the kill
• Credible and honest.
• Act as the Quarter Back and the Team Lead to ensure processes are being followed
• Attention to detail and preparation

1b. What Key Knowledge and Experience do they need?
• Need to know all standard facets of selling (presenting your case, questioning, objection handling, closing etc) (N)
• Know all the landmines that might go off in a sales cycle
• Good knowledge of the industry being served and its business problems
• Good knowledge of where the Industry is going, and how your technology solution helps this
• Understand the customer’s business
• Some background in IT & Technology
• Understanding of Competition and how to beat them
• Know when they are being “BS”d
• Be able to tell name drop and tell war stories
• Be convincing
• Understand the selling process for large, mission critical software deals
• Knowledge & contacts in the appropriate Industry or Segment
• Relevant Industry or Segment Knowledge is nice but not mandatory
• Technology plays and how to position your Company in these

1c. What Key Skills do they need?
• Need to know all standard Selling Skills, especially “Killer” and Qualifying Questions (N)
• Able to deal with and sell to Execs and their Issues (N)
• Ability to create Compelling Events that drive Boards to spend big $
• Ability to manipulate situations
• Ability to target and qualify Accounts who might buy
• True Partnering Skills (eg: finding a true Win/Win)
• Know how to solve Business Problems with IT
• Getting out of tactical by doing Business Research and relating value at all levels
• Assemble stories to help address the Big Picture issues of customers
• Anticipate 50-60 objections and know how to handle them
• Addressing large groups and to think on their feet.
• Good Listeners to hear what customers are saying.

Question 2: What do the successful ones do that the others do not (ie: what actions differentiate the winners)?
• Anticipate & strategize around all possible Landmines (N)
• Dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. There’s no room for error (N)
• Good listening and communication skills are essential. (N)
• Proactively try to manage/control the Process (N)
• Don’t take things at face value; drill down and x-check with multiple sources (N)
• Figure out what it will really take to do a deal, and then Strategize and set Milestones Qualify hard on whether we can do business/partner together
• Find out who the real Decision Makers are, where they are from, their background, existing Relationships and Friends
• They don’t react by doing everything the Customer asks; they ask for proof of why they should do something
• Get to know the guy who will sign the (license) agreement
• Empathy and honesty help a great deal.
• Curiosity about business is very helpful
• Industry knowledge and experience certainly help get a fast start, but if you can find someone with the right selling skills and personality traits, the Industry stuff is fairly easy to train in.
• Relentless Follow Up + Doing the things they say they will do
• Reference sell by relaying benefits of your products to other, similar customers and how you help solve their problems
• Sell at a Level 3 Strategic Level ie: Knowing how to assemble compelling Business Cases + Understand Tactics + know how to play the Politics
• Understand & focus on what’s important
• Exhausting the objections; and never take “No”


Question 3: What are the main reasons that you have observed that have caused some sales people to fail in your company?
• Great contacts & relationships, but low skills to describe and communicate business value
• Not good at qualifying; trying to make your Company fit where it doesn’t belong
• Reactive by trying to do everything the Customer asks without question
• Try to Facilitate the process; vs proactive management and participation in it
• Some can’t work for an unstructured company, or don’t like working from home.
• Don’t really understand why your Company has the best solution, thus they cannot convey the right messages with passion
• Over-reliance on a very strong company presales organization
• Unwilling/unable to recruit your Company’s organizational support needed to bring in big sales
• Basic sales skills: very busy but didn’t do the hard thinking; too superficial:
• Not very smart; too touchy / feely; Worked hard but struggled with complexity; not enough depth plus Shotgun approach
• Not very smart from a sales point of view;
• Talked but didn’t do tough stuff; Not one to face and handle any bad news or tough objections
• Too Tactical: Only doing what customer asked with no Strategic Value connection
• Not able to describe or show value to Execs
• Could not face Worst Case thinking to anticipate what can screw up
• Deep questioning and exhausting issues
• They try relationship selling vs value based selling
• Try to they take the easy way out and not really try to understand what a customer needs (versus wants)

4. Key Deductions
As the plethora of software and other technology products increases, and as these products offer more and more strategic value to customers, it is imperative that:
a. Your sales force is able to relay that value,
b. They sell to the audiences that can authorize large expenditures and, in tough economic times, change other company priorities to do this
c. You have a process for defining the Ideal Person, and then both a hiring process to help you find new people, and an evaluation process to find those of your existing force who have the right characteristics.

They are vital to find, or grow in your sales force, if they are to compete successfully in today’s marketplace.

5. Conclusion
It is my hope, this document gives you some assistance in selecting or hiring “the right stuff” for your high value sales teams.

If you have any other inputs for this article, I would be very interested in receiving them.

Peter Michie, Founder,
PERFORMAX (561) 202-8163





Hiring the Ideal High Value Sales Person Opportunity No 2 - To learn more about this author, visit Peter Michie's Website.

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