SALESFORCE SOLUTIONS
Hiring and Training to Get the Most out of Your Sales
Force Sales Hiring the Smart Way
Troy Harrison
1/5/2013
Presented at the ASI Shows, 2013
Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
Slide 1
Hiring and Training to Get the Most Out of
Your Sales Force
Presented by: Troy HarrisonDate: 01/05/2012
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Slide 2
About Me
• Troy Harrison: Author of “Sell Like You Mean It!”
• 20 years of successful selling and sales management
• Specializes in training, consulting, recruiting, turnarounds
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Slide 3
Successfully Hiring
Salespeople is NOT
AN ART –
It is a SCIENCE!
Have You Hired This Guy?
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Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
Slide 4
Most Common Causes of Failed Sales Hire
• “I like this person” – snap judgment that overrides all other data points – 63% within 5 minutes
• “Selling is selling” – failure to fit new hire to job• “Industry experience required” – hiring the
industry‟s lowest performers – bad experience is worse than no experience
• Poor or nonexistent onboarding
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More Common Causes of Failed Sales Hire
• “Availability Hire” – the person is available, hire him!
• “Friend Referrals” of candidates – they have no knowledge of work habits
• Trained Interviewees – packaging and pretending
• Faulty Resumes – exaggeration or outright lying• BUT…..
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IGNORING RED FLAGS!People will show you or tell you how they will fail – are you paying attention?
#1 Cause of Failed Hire
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Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
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What is “Smart Sales Hiring?”
• Establish a Process
• Understand What You Are Recruiting for
• Use Innovative Prospecting
• Prepare and Conduct Winning Interviews
• Do Due Diligence
• Quality Onboarding
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Slide 8
Establish a Process
• Build a Wide Candidate Pool
• Phone Screen
• Resume‟ Focused Interview
• Due Diligence
• Behavioral Interview
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Slide 9
Understand Your Needs
Define the job FIRST
Focus on Activity Patterns and Customer Types
Identify the “Success Characteristics” of your top performers
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Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
Slide 10
Be Realistic!
What can you realistically afford?
What level of salesperson does that “buy” you?
Compensation types – Straight Commission, Straight Salary, Salary + Commission
Understand “step-up” and “step-down” hiring
If it seems too good to be true…it just might be!
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Use Innovative Prospecting
Sales Hiring is a MARKETING project – not an HR project
Use good advertising to compete for candidates
Build a LARGE applicant pool
Build a People Bank
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Building a People Bank
• A “People Bank” is a file of QUALITY salespeople
• Accept appointments from skilled salespeople.
• Become active in networking.• Ask the salesperson‟s
permission to approach them “down the road.”
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Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
Slide 13
Advertising to WIN!
• Who you are – blind ads don‟t work!• What you sell/the new person will sell• MONEY! Money is the #1 qualifier for
both applicants and employers. Putting money in the ad saves surprises later.
• WHY the applicant should want to sell for you
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The Effective Interview
• Every salesperson tells a story with their resume‟..• Ask detailed questions, focus on numbers. • Ask about sales numbers, % of quota, income, salary
vs. commission, etc. Make the numbers MATCH!• The rule: If they can quantify it, if they can explain
how they did it, and if they can prove it, then the accomplishment really happened.
• PEOPLE WILL TELL YOU HOW THEY WILL FAIL!
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More on Interviewing
• Don‟t tell them what YOU seek – have them tell you what THEY are first! (The reverse makes you easy pickings)
• One lie = disqualification!• Allow time for the applicant to ask
questions. Look for questioning skills and inquisitive nature.
• Salesperson should close for next step.
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Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
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Behavioral Interviewing
• Behavioral interviewing seeks to establish job fit by matching past situations and actions to likely future situations
• “Tell me about a time when you….”• Proper answer – STAR: Situation,
Task/Action, Result• Press for DETAILS – “What I did,” not “What
I would do”
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Due Diligence
• A. Reference Checks
• B. Education Credentials
• C. Criminal History
• D. Past Employers
• E. Driving Record Report
• F. Social Security Verification
• G. Credit Reports – CAUTION
• H. Social Networking
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Quality Onboarding
• Onboarding – the process of “just hired” to “on the way to success”
• At least 90 days• More than “go get „em, Tiger”• Product/Process/Sales• Retains salespeople – 70% cite
inadequate training
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Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
Slide 19
Action Steps
• Design Your Process
• Define Your Needs
• FOLLOW the process!
• Use Ongoing Feedback to Update and Improve
• Call if we can help!
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Slide 21
For More:
• Troy Harrison
• www.TroyHarrison.com
• 913-645-3603
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Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
HIRE SMART!
You can’t build a good team without good players; unfortunately, too many business owners/sales
managers saddle themselves with hires that are either ineffective or inappropriate. Speaking as a
trainer and consultant, one of the most difficult (and unfortunately, common) issues that I confront is
the owner who fills the sales team with salespeople that are bad fits for the job. Inevitably, this results
in either too-low sales performance or excessive turnover. Both are costly; both are avoidable.
Part of the problem with sales hiring is that we tend to hire people we like. Salespeople make their
living by being liked (at least, that’s one of the qualifications). Hence, we see owners who hire
salespeople that are hired too quickly with too little forethought. Since this is the hiring season, I’m
here to help. Here are Troy’s Five Keys To Smart Sales Hiring:
Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance: The topic of sales planning isn’t very well understood, but
when it comes to hiring and managing salespeople, it’s vital. “Sales Planning” means working through
the types and quantities of activities to be performed by your salespeople on a week-to-week (or
month-to-month) basis. How many phone calls, how many initial appointments, how many proposals,
do you expect your new salesperson to perform in a given time period? Work backward from a desired
level of sales achievement to create your sales funnel.
This is especially important to do pre-hiring because salespeople are creatures of habit, and if you’re
planning on hiring an experienced salesperson, you’d better make sure that their experience and habits
are a reasonable match for your needs. Forget about “industry experience,” it’s cheap to teach.
Instead, focus on salespeople who have worked in similar activity patterns as your sales force.
Get Your Rear In Gear: I do quite a bit of recruiting for my clients, and the most significant change I’ve
noticed in the last year is the speed required in the hiring process. Hiring salespeople used to be a fairly
leisurely activity; if the hiring process took a month, that was okay. Today, the market for quality
salespeople is so competitive, you’d better figure on working people through the hiring process in 2-3
weeks or you’re going to lose the good ones!
In fact, the old system used to call for placing an ad, then waiting 2 weeks for all the responses to
accumulate before making calls for interviews. Do that now, and you’re going to miss half your
candidates. Today’s gold standard is to call salespeople within 24-48 hours of receiving resume’s. That
means that, when you decide to hire, it should be a priority project and not something that’s worked in
around the edges.
Ask Tough Questions: Our natural impulse to form relationships and work with people can work against
you when you’re interviewing. Too often, sales managers find themselves connecting with their
interviewee and ignoring red flags – or forgetting to ask questions that smoke out red flags. Make sure
to carefully probe employment history, asking detailed questions and drilling down at each stop.
Understand their achievement, compensation, etc. Make them justify short stays.
Troy Harrison www.TroyHarrison.com 913-645-3603
You should have multiple people interviewing, as well as multiple interview formats. Behavioral
interview questions should be part of at least one interview. Remember – good sales talent is rare; bad
sales talent is both common and expensive.
Do Your Due Diligence: Want a scary stat? Here it is. According to a survey I saw a couple of years ago,
over 40% of all references submitted go unchecked, even when the person is hired. In my own
experience, that may even be a bit conservative. In the real world, that means that even if your
applicant has absolutely no one who will say anything positive about him, he has a 2-in-5 shot at being
able to fake it. Those aren’t bad odds.
The way to turn those odds in your favor is to check references, as well as employment history. Yes, it’s
work. But it pays off. Don’t get lazy. One more thought: Typically, past employers aren’t reluctant to
give POSITIVE employment references. If you find that your candidates’ past employers are sticking to
name, rank, and serial number, that tells you what you need to know.
You’re Not Done When The Person is Hired: Even good hires can turn bad. When a good hire (good fit,
strong due diligence and references, etc.) turns bad (results are unmet), you can bet it was due to bad or
lacking management during the first 90 days. That period is the ramp-up period during which the new
hire should be learning their job and establishing good habits. As a manager, if you see the person
slipping off track, do not hesitate to correct them (privately, of course). If you wait until they’ve been on
board for six months, you’ve waited too long. In my experience, it’s rare to see a good hire do the right
things for the first 90 days and then start doing the wrong things later. Start them off right, and they’ll
typically stay right. Again, that’s a management burden.
But, hey, you’re not afraid of doing a little work to do this correctly, right?
Troy Harrison is the author of “Sell Like You Mean It!” and the President of SalesForce Solutions, a sales
training, consulting, and recruiting firm. For information on booking speaking/training engagements,
consulting, or to sign up for his weekly E-zine, call 913-645-3603, e-mail
[email protected], or visit www.SalesForceSolutions.net.
