Selling as a profession suffers from far too many sales hiring failures.

Unlike other professions where an MD, DDS or LLD comes after the name, there’s no “SSM” degree.

Sadly, most sales managers don’t really know what makes a good salesperson. As a result, they persist in hiring people to sell for them for all the wrong reasons.

Sales applicants who “handled themselves well in the interview,” “got past their screener” or “who have years of sales experience” are deemed the best candidates. And, so the cycle continues: bad sales hire after bad sales hire after bad sales hire, all join the ranks of sales teams.

In having studied good salespeople for nearly 16 years, good salespeople have one thing in common – a “sales personality.” No other criteria are common to top sales performers.

What is this “sales personality” of a top sales performer?

It is a combination of the right personal interests, values and personality style.

In 16 years of research we have found top sales performers are “high practicals — where money or power are their highest values. And they are strongly ego driven, confident communicators and rule breakers.

Start looking for salespeople with these personality characteristics and watch your sales hiring success ratio rocket to new heights.

How 90% of Sales Managers Skip Steps in Sales Hiring

Sports analogies and sales are made often for a very good reason – because there is a direct connection between what it takes to succeed in sports and what it takes to succeed in sales.

Less than 10 weeks ago I announced that I was going to run the Tel Aviv Marathon.

The idea of running a non-US marathon was so exciting to me. Since I was scheduled to be in Israel at the time of the marathon and had always wanted to run one in a foreign country it would be perfect.

Except training for a marathon takes 18 weeks if you are 58 years old while I was allowing 12 weeks.

Sales managers who skip steps hiring salespeople to end up with duds 3 out of 4 times.

When we talk to managers we often hear that they start by evaluating less than 20 applicants. Yet, one of the steps to making a good sales hire is to evaluate a minimum of 20 applicants.

Managers will tell us “I only got 5 applicants from Craigslist” or “When I ran my newspaper ad I only got 8 applicants.” As if that fact means they then skip the “Minimum 20 applicant rule” and head on to make a sales hire with what they got. Nope. Sorry, Charlie.

If you only get 5 applicants from Craigslist that means you’ve got to run an ad on Careerbuilder. Or, better yet, use the section in the Sales Hiring E-course on Using Social Media.

I hesitate to identify any step as more critical than the other steps, but making a good sales hire requires that you pick from many applicants. Evaluating fewer applicants is about as sure a predictor of failure as I can think of.

Oh, and about that marathon…I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to scale back to a half marathon. Still a decent goal, but nowhere near as impressive as a full marathon. Next time I won’t skip steps. How about you?

One of the hardest things I do is to try to convince sales managers that sales hiring needs to be an ongoing part of your work. You can’t wait to hire salespeople until you need one. Instead, you need to be constantly scanning the market for top performers.

Your sales department, if you are going to have top performers as opposed to mediocre salespeople, needs to have a constant program going to attract top performers to apply.

Most sales managers start the sales hiring process way too late. And, although it seems logical to wait until you need a salesperson (you don’t start looking to buy a car until you need one) it results in way too many mediocre sales hires.

Having thought about sales hiring for sixteen years now, here is my theory on why it doesn’t work to wait:

1. Too much pressure to “make the hire” and get on to the next thing. The odds of success go down dramatically when doing anything under pressure.

2. Top salespeople have a unique personality style. Unlike MD’s or Attorneys who have a degree to prove their qualifications, salespeople have a “sales personality” and a propensity for sales.

The problem is only 2 of every 30 people has the personality style of a top sales performer. But since no degree is required, if you really want a good sales to hire, you need to sift more.

Too, since the majority of salespeople hired turn out to be average (or worse), don’t get all excited about “previous sales experience.” In most cases, you are getting some other sales manager’s retread.

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