Tagged: interviewing salespeople

March 13, 2013

Salesperson Turnover: Is Your Manager Hiring The Wrong People Or Did You Hire The Wrong Manager?

Unwanted turnover on a sales team can be a fatal blow to achieving revenue goals. Unfortunately, many sales managers still have the mindset that turnover or “churn” is to be expected, especially in rookie sales positions. I couldn’t disagree more. Not only shouldn’t it be expected, it shouldn’t be tolerated either. If you are a sales manager with a high turnover ratio (or the manager of someone who does) you need to find out the reasons and quickly. Not only does this churn cost you thousands of dollars in recruitment and training costs, and untold thousands of dollars in lost opportunities costs, but it also is damaging to morale and makes your company look bad in the eyes of your customers.

So, back to the original question, is the sales manager hiring the wrong people or is the sales manager the problem (or both)? To find out the answers, here are the questions you need to ask…

1. IS THERE ANYTHING HAPPENING IN THE MARKET THAT COULD LEGITIMATELY BE THE CAUSE OF AN INCREASE IN TURNOVER? Is your turnover significantly higher than your competitors? Have there been any major changes in the market or your industry?

2. ARE YOU DOING EXIT INTERVIEWS? YOU MUST! An exit interview should be done by an HR representative for every salesperson who leaves, whether the person is fired or leaves voluntarily. Or, you can use an online service to do this. (Questionpro.com is one that is free and has exit interview templates you can customize.) You need this information to help diagnose and get to the root of the problem.

3. ARE YOU DOING 360 SURVEYS WITH EXISTING SALESPEOPLE? This is an important tool in revealing many potential problems before it’s too late. Again this can be done online and anonymous with free tools such as freeonlinesurveys.com. The following questions are ones that will help you determine whether you have a hiring problem or a management problem, and where the issue(s) may be:

Did you receive the initial training and onboarding needed to be successful in the position?
Do you feel you are getting the on-going managerial coaching and training you need?
Do you have the tools and resources to be successful in your sales role?
Are you recognized for excellent performance?
Is poor performance addressed and confronted quickly?
Do you feel you have a career path with the company?
Do you feel you are continuing to develop your professional skills and knowledge?
Was your compensation package presented to you accurately?
Has the company and your manager lived up to what you expected when hired?
Are you proud of what you sell and do you feel the company has a solid reputation in the business community?
Do you believe your manager is invested in your success and can help you achieve your goals?
Does your sales manager meet with you on a regular basis and communicate information you need to know?

4. ARE YOU PAYING YOUR SALESPEOPLE APPROPRIATELY? You need to analyze your comp plan and consider the following questions:

What is the likely amount a salesperson will make the first year under this plan?
Is this competitive with what the salesperson could make with an industry competitor? What about a sales position with another industry?
Are you asking the salesperson to take all the risk?
Is the comp plan designed to launch the person successfully or is it full of potential roadblocks?
Is the comp plan straightforward and easy to understand?

5. ARE YOU SETTING AND MANAGING EXPECTATIONS IN THE INTERVIEW PROCESS? Starting a new job is fraught with stress coming from all areas of a person’s life. The last thing you want is for that new salesperson to feel he was misled (whether intentional or not) about the position. The sales manager must make sure she is 100% transparent about the pros and cons of the job, what the salesperson should expect in the first 30 days, 6 months, one year, and very clear about what expectations the manager has of performance. This should be continually reiterated in each interview and spelled out in writing in the offer letter.

6. ARE YOU FOLLOWING A SET HIRING PROCESS DESIGNED TO FIT TALENTS TO TASK? This means having a set hiring process in place which is specifically designed to identify a person’s talents and skills; then determining if those are a fit for your sales position. The following is the process I use and have found to be effective:

Define the sales position. What exactly will the salesperson be asked to do? What are the requirements of the job?

Based on the above information, what talents, skills, and experience does the salesperson need to have on day 1? What are the skills you are willing to train for? This doesn’t mean describe your “IDEAL” candidate. This means list the “deal breakers” those competencies the person MUST have to be considered and those that you would “like” but don’t have to have.

Based on those requirements, vet every application you receive against those and only proceed with candidates who meet those requirements.

Do preliminary phone interviews FIRST with those candidates whose applications/resumes you have vetted. The phone interview should be 20-30 minutes and you should use a prepared list of behavioral based interview questions. (see related article “My 25 Favorite Salesperson Interview Questions”) Every person you phone screen should be asked the same questions so that you can fairly assess the answers and stay in EEOC compliance.

Do face-to-face interviews with those candidates who have “passed” your screening interview. These in-person interviews should also be comprised of a set list of behavioral based questions that are the same for each candidate.

Do reference checking and background checks at this stage. Don’t wait until you’ve decided on one candidate only to find out the person has something in his or her background or former job that knocks him out of the running. Use an online reference checking system like www.Checkster.com. (see related article ”5 Steps For Getting real Information From Candidates’ References”)

The candidates should interview with a minimum of two people in the company. Ideally interviews should include the sales manager, the sales manager’s manager, an existing sales person, and an H.R. or manager from a different department that interacts with sales. The interviewer should take specific notes on the candidates’ answers. Then all interviewers should give their evaluation of the candidate to the sales manager or fill out a candidate evaluation form.

Use a validated, PREDICTIVE, sales assessment for final candidates. Sales assessments are key to increasing your successful hires. Only 14% of sales people hired based on only interview information are successful hires. A good sales assessment should boost that number to about 80%.

Evaluate ALL the information you have on a candidate before offering the position. This includes interview information, reference checking information, sales assessment results, and of course your “gut instinct.” This is referred to as the 30%-30%-30%-10% rule.

7. DO YOU HAVE AN ONBOARDING PROGRAM IN PLACE? Even if you’ve done everything right in the hiring process up to this point, if you don’t have a well-designed onboarding program you are setting your new hire up for failure. Research shows that salespeople get up to speed 51% faster when a company has an onboarding program. Onboarding includes not just outlining first day or the first week, but the first 30 days and beyond (see related article “Steps For Keeping Your New Sales Hire From Circling The Drain” for onboarding tips).

8. DO YOU HAVE AN INDIVIDUALIZED COACHING PLAN FOR EACH SALESPERSON? It is the sales manager’s responsibility to develop a salesperson’s talents and skills through coaching (see related article “Tips For Coaching Your Salesperson”). To effectively coach you must first know what those specific talents and skills are (the sales assessment should tell you that) and then have a plan in place for how you will best manage and develop them. A coaching plan should include at a minimum the following information.

Goals we have agreed upon and date to be achieved
The salesperson’s expectations of me the sales manager
My expectations of the salesperson
Top 3 motivators
I should remember NOT to do
Likes recognition in the form of
What salesperson likes best about sales
What salesperson like least about sales
Long range career goals
Key strengths/weaknesses
Growth area salesperson would like to develop and how I will assist

All of this information should be discussed in the first days after the new hire begins the job and should be updated every 6 months.

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How to Successfully Recruit and Hire New Employees When You Don’t Have an H.R. Department

Infographic: What Mis-hired Misfires Cost You

March 3, 2013

4 Reasons Why You’re Not Attracting Top Sales Talent (And How To Fix It)

What is the most common challenge I hear from managers? Hands down, it is that they have difficulty finding top sales talent. And, when they do find a qualified candidate the person often opts for a different opportunity (many times a competitor). Why? Obviously there can be many factors for why you aren’t attracting top sales talent, but these are the ones I’ve found to often be at the root of the problem:

1. Not looking for talent in the right places (and not looking continually).
2. Using job ads/posts that are poorly written.
3. Not addressing top talent’s hot buttons.
4. Not setting expectations with the candidate about the hiring process.

The good news is that all 4 of these problems are easily fixed. Here are the steps you can take to not only attract sales talent, but get them eager to come aboard.

Not looking for talent in the right places (and not looking continually).

The first rule of successful recruitment is you should ALWAYS be recruiting and ALWAYS be interviewing. It serves two purposes; it sharpens your interview skills and increases your networking and scope of influence. Like sales, you should never be without prospects in your funnel. If you don’t currently have an opening then simply tell the prospective candidate the truth and add that you would like to meet to get to know the person better. It’s flattering and I’ve never had a person say “no.”

Are you targeting your job ad in the right places? Analyze where you are looking for talent. Ask yourself how someone might reach you if you were not actively looking for a job, because most talented salespeople are NOT actively looking – they have a job. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have one eye open at all times on potential greener pastures! Think about your industry and what media those salespeople are consuming. It’s likely that placing a job ad on industry specific websites or publications versus putting an ad on Monster.com, makes a lot more sense.

Where are some other places those potential candidates might be? I’ve found that posting to the “Jobs” section of industry related “Groups” on LinkedIn yields much more qualified candidates than generic job boards and websites. (See “6 Free Ways To Recruit Salespeople On LinkedIn.”) And while you are on LinkedIn, make sure you do a status update about the position and ask your connections to forward it to those they think might be interested. Ask your current top performers to do the same thing. I’ve found that they tend to know other top performers and have very large networks of work acquaintances.

Another obvious social media choice is Facebook. If your company has a Facebook page, do a post about the job opening. People who are your company followers are fans or your company and likely to be interested. It’s possible that your next great hire could be one of those fans. Or, someone who knows them is, and forwards the info to them.

Get creative. Maybe you make a quick video about the job opening and post the video to your website and YouTube. Send the link out as an email blast to your contacts and ask them to forward it to anyone they know who might be interested. Ask your current salespeople, “If I was a company who wanted to hire you, where would be the best place for me to put my job posting to reach you?”

Using job ads/posts that are poorly written.

Think of a job post as one big news headline. Meaning, your focus should be how you are going to hook the person into reading it. Unfortunately, most job posts/ads read like a laundry list of desired traits that are more like an online dating site request than an engaging and dynamic job overview. The Harvard Business Review did a great article about this, “Your Job Ads Are Driving Away Talent.”

Too often they start off with a P.R. paragraph about the company…Here’s a recent one I saw (names deleted to protect the inept)

XYZ Holding Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pennsylvania-based XYZ Inc. and is comprised of: ABC Company and WYZ Company. We are the fastest-growing widget organization in the United States. Consisting of more than 570 retail stores in 39 states and the District of Columbia through 12 retail store names, we are the industry leaders in each of their respective markets. Find a better career and A Better You! We believe that our Associates are our most valuable resource and are, therefore, the key to our future growth, performance and success. We offer opportunities to grow and develop your career while providing world class customer service for our customers!

Wow – doesn’t that just grab you and reel you in? Um…no. It’s all about what the company wants you to know, not what you want to know. The start of the job ad reads like a press release. The opening paragraph needs to hit that salesperson’s hot buttons. Where are the specifics? Where is the mention of money, career advancement, challenges, selling tools, growth potential? Those are the things that grab a top performer’s attention.

A good tip to writing a great first line for a job ad is to ask the candidate a question i.e., “Do you feel you have gone as far as you can with your current company? Do you sometimes feel you spend more time selling your ideas internally than you do with your clients? Do you get the support and the resources you need to be at the top of your game?”

Don’t use third person language in the ad. Things like, “The ideal candidate will have…” do not engage the reader. Write the ad as if you were speaking directly to that talented salesperson you want to hire – because if you’re lucky, you are! When you are listing the “Responsibilities” describe the key aspects of the job, not a list of every possible thing the person might encounter. When listing the “Requirements” you should only list the things that are deal breakers. For example, does the person really have to have a college degree? Is it a must that the person has experience in your particular industry? Keep in mind that the more things you list here, the more likely someone will self-select out. Many people think that if they don’t have a stringent list of requirements they will be inundated with unqualified candidates. But actually, research shows that isn’t the case. Don’t describe your “ideal” candidate, because that person may not exist and you may be inadvertently turning away great candidates.

Not addressing top talent’s hot buttons.

These “hot buttons” are the key things that highly talented salespeople want to know when considering a job. These are the items that should be included in the job ad as well as in an interview. What are those “hot buttons?” The company Sales Benchmark Index did research specifically on that question to find out. I have summarized their findings as to what are the primary concerns that top performing sales people want to know about when considering a job:

• What opportunity (accounts, industry or geography) does the position offer?
• What is my earning potential? Now and in the future?
• Does my new manager have the skills to coach me and hone my skills?
• Will I have a chance to advance my career? In what ways?
• Does the new role offer unique challenges beyond just winning deals?
• What kind of training and professional development will I receive?
• Will I earn recognition for outstanding work? In what ways?
• Will senior leadership listen to my ideas?
• What kinds of tools will I use? Will the infrastructure shackle me or help me win deals?
• What type of internal resources will I have to help me?
• Does the brand and/or reputation of the company open doors? Are the products/services respected?
• Who are the customers? Do they give positive referrals? Are they irritated or delighted?
• How will I quickly ramp up during my onboarding period? Is there an adjusted quota or a guarantee?
• What is the culture like? Is this a winning team? Are the sales people respected?

You won’t be able to address all of these in a job ad but make sure you are hitting as many as you can in order to increase your chances of catching the eye of the right candidate for you. And make sure you are covering these items in your interviews with top performers.

Not setting expectations with the candidate about the hiring process.

Many times I’ve had managers tell me that when they have found a talented salesperson they lose him or her because the person gets irritated with the interview process. This might be because it is taking too long or involves too many steps. The solution to this is to clearly outline the process for the candidate from the beginning.

Map out each step and explain the reason for each step. It’s like how people feel about airline delays, the worst part is not knowing what is happening. Even if you are aggravated by the delay, you definitely prefer knowing the reason for it versus feeling left in the dark or jerked around and not appreciated. Stay in CONSTANT contact with the candidate through email and phone. Don’t let more than two days go by without some kind of contact and/or update. You want this person to feel that they are a top priority for you and your company. After all, he or she might just be your next superstar.