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Why Previous Sales Experience Proves Nothing

Video Rant #10

Insisting Applicants Have “Sales Experience” Is a Huge Mistake

Most sales managers refuse to hire any applicant who has no sales experience.

Listen. If somebody with TEN YEARS sales experience applies at your company, ask yourself, “WHY?” Anyone with 10 years in sales should have ALREADY found a home where THEY are the most important person on that sales team. They should be an INTEGRAL part of that company’s success. Their sales manager would rather lose his WIFE than lose this star player.

A star salesperson will NEVER look to start all over again with YOUR company. The applicants YOU get who’ve been in sales 10 years, have bounced from job to job. NEVER made the top of the leaderboard. Why? Because they’re B players. They always come up with excuses for not closing deals.

Look. A wide receiver either caught the ball or he didn’t. No excuses from a great athlete. It’s simple. Succeed or fail.

A lousy salesperson tells you, “I don’t know what happened. It was all going great. Then, last minute, the prospect went goofy and didn’t buy.”

But the truth is, that salesperson didn’t qualify the prospect well enough in the first place. So they wasted all that time on somebody who wasn’t a great prospect.

Lousy salespeople don’t listen. They don’t think through WHY people buy their product. They don’t fill the prospect with reasons why. They don’t figure out what motivates each particular prospect. They don’t fill that prospect with answers to their questions. They just never do what they need to do in order to make the prospect feel like this product solves their needs.

If they were money-motivated enough, they’d figure it out. They’d do all this stuff. But they’re not. Ten years of sales experience will NEVER overcome lack of money motivation. That’s why 75% of sales teams just tread water. And 75% of sales managers are just tread water.

Sales experience is a HUGE misdirection. You need people who can REALLY sell. People who are determined to make a bunch of money, come hell or high water. THOSE guys will build your company bottom line. Don’t focus on experience. Get a ton of applicants, test every one of ‘em, and you’ll find your stars.

This is Alan Fendrich. Give me a call.

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Talent Acquisition

AVERAGE SALE IS ONE METRIC THAT CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR BUSINESS SURVIVING OR NOT AFTER CORONAVIRUS SHUT DOWNS. SO WHAT NOW?

It should come as no surprise to anyone that while the “reopening” of the economy is hopefully in its early stages, there are a lot of people who will still be hesitant to go out and shop for anything other than absolute necessities. Some will be flat out scared. Other than doing everything you can to reassure potential customers that your business is doing everything possible to protect their safety, there is little else you can regarding their emotional state before walking into or calling your business. You can, however, do a great deal to control their emotions once in your store or on the phone asking about buying from you.

Part of this will be done in a customer service context which is certainly very important. Equally, if not more important, will be how the reduced number of customers you’ll have the opportunity to sell are managed in a sales context. And a key metric that you are able to influence is average sale. This metric will be key to making up for part of the impact fewer customers will have on your business as you pull out of shut down mode. Pushing higher margin items will amplify the positive impact higher average sales will have on your business.

So, how do I increase average sale you might ask? It’s actually quite simple, though not easy. First and foremost, you need to have the best possible sellers taking on the mission of pushing average sale metric. You will need to make them aware of what products are high margin and/or good upsells related to what the customer is planning to buy. Superstar sellers will rise to the challenge if they are well compensated for achieving the goal.

My first job out of college, somewhat to my parents’ dismay, was as a waiter in a touristy seafood restaurant on the downtown waterfront. I learned a lot from that job! I was not the best waiter in the place, but I consistently had higher tickets than the others because I knew that, for the most part, I was going to earn 10-15 cents on every dollar I sold to the diner. Same thing works no matter what the business. If the seller is a real seller and understand what’s in it for him to push that average sale, you’ll both benefit.

These are anxious times for all of us but one thing I’m sure will help your business crawl out of the shut down more quickly is a team of REAL SELLERS who can take their orders knowing there is a big reward for them once the mission is accomplished. And there are more REAL SELLERS looking for jobs right now that there have been in the last decade or more.

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Uncategorized

Does “Previous Sales Experience” Mean a B Player

Video Rant #3 – Without a Sales Hiring System, You Are Screwed

I’ve seen a lot of successful businesses over the years. One thing they all have in common is, they have systems for EVERYTHING. So they can break every aspect of their business down into steps. And once you can see all the steps, you can pretty quickly analyze what’s working and what’s not. Now … if you’re not overjoyed with your company’s sales production right this moment, then you absolutely need a system for sales hiring.

Have you ever hired somebody you KNEW was the PERFECT salesperson? And then 6 weeks in, you’re thinking, “Uh-oh! THIS does not look good.” Three MONTHS later, they quit. Or you fire them. If you go thru that WITHOUT a system, you have no way of knowing WHERE you screwed it up. And I guarantee you, EVERYBODY who’s hired even just a few salespeople has screwed it up SOMEWHERE along the way.

So creating a system gives you the tool most sales hirers just don’t have. You can identify what’s working, what’s not, where they screwed up, where they got it right. That’s why you NEED a tested, proven sales hiring system.

Many companies only start looking for a salesperson when one of their people fails or quits. All of a sudden, it’s a tight time-frame. Let’s say your rep gives 2 weeks’ notice. Do you really think you can hire an effective salesperson in 2 weeks?

You gotta stop what you’re doing, get ads up, wait for people to call, decide which applicants to interview, do the interviews, make an offer. It’s a tight position. And last-minute sales hires rarely ever work.

You’re on a short road to failure. We know, statistically, 75% to 90% of ALL sales hires fail in their first year. Your odds of success are bad.

Look. I’ve been hiring salespeople for more than 16 years, for my own business and, of course, for clients. In 16 years, I’ve gone thru a QUARTER-MILLION sales applicants. And number one, natural-born salespeople are rare. Number two, hiring people who are NOT natural salespeople and turning them into salespeople is close to impossible. It’s WAY easier and more efficient to hire people who are CLONES of tested, proven, successful salespeople. That’s why you’ve GOT to have a good applicant profiling system.

People tell me, “Well, we train them here.” Yeah, RIGHT! To some degree, training can work. Listen. Let’s say, all of a sudden, you decide you’re gonna be an artist. No proven ability, but you’re gonna be a painter. But your FAMILY depends on YOU to produce art that’ll pay to support them. So my question is, what’s your ramp-up time? You suddenly have to successfully do something that is not at ALL your natural tendency. Over time, maybe it works out, to some degree. But it sure won’t be a quick solution. And it will almost certainly involve a LOT of pain for you and everyone in your family.

Think about a time you were talking to a salesperson. And whatever they were saying, you just wanted to buy. You felt GOOD talking to them. They had an ABILITY to move you in their direction, to make it EASY for you to go along with them. THAT is a rare, rare talent. Can you train THAT talent? Maybe, in some cases. But our data shows it mostly does NOT work. I’ve talked to some of the best sales trainers on the planet. They tell me they’re OFTEN handed salespeople who just CANNOT sell. Their personality does not mesh with sales.

They can’t quickly establish rapport. They can’t think on their feet. Lousy language skills. And more than ANYTHING, they CANNOT take rejection and keep on going. A salesperson has to deal with disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. That’s why only 3% of the population shine at sales. All the rejection just kills them. It takes a very, very, very special person to handle constant rejection. And whatever sales hiring process you’re using right now, you are NOT finding those special people who will stick with it, no matter what. And it’s not easy to find them, because they are so rare.

And THAT is why you need Advanced Hiring System. I’m Alan Fendrich. Give me a call.

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