A recent Manpower study revealed that the most difficult position to fill is a Sales Representative and that is especially true in 2017. Why is finding top performing sales talent so tough?

When recruiting the best salespeople, it is all about the details. Your “gut feeling” about an applicant is no guarantee of success. Carefully defining what you want, asking the right questions, and listening critically for the right answers is the key.

The stakes are too high to fill an open sales position with the wrong person. On average it takes three to four months to find the “right” salesperson. It may take another three to six months for the new salesperson to be trained and begin producing. If the salesperson does not perform, it may take another four to six months to identify the problem, document poor performance and get them out the door.

To avoid the common hiring pitfalls, MproveSales thoroughly screens candidates in these key area.

• We use a structured hiring process. Before we start looking for the ideal candidate MproveSales and our client’s define the job requirements, agree on the structured interview questions, decide on assessment tools, and clearly define the interview process until an offer is made.
• Drill down into their sales skills knowledge. Sales people can definitely “talk the talk” and very few resumes come across our desks where the candidates do not boast “I was the number one sales rep” or “I never have missed my number”. Resumes can be embellished, but knowledge of key sales skills areas cannot. Our decades of leading sales organizations have us question their skills; how do they develop a quality pipeline, how strong is their business acumen, how do they frame and conduct negotiations, etc.
• Validate their track record. You are making a huge investment. MproveSales invests a lot of time validating the track record. We have several people interview the person and validate the answers given and with our decades of experience running sales organizations we can easily validate the candidate’s claims.
• Don’t settle. Understand that a key to successful hiring is objectivity. Hiring salespeople on gut feel, the old-fashioned way, doesn’t work. You want to fill the position quickly, but hiring the wrong person will cost you time and money and in the end you’ll find yourself sitting in the interviewer’s chair all over again.
• MproveSales looks for candidates who can sell. The most common mistake we see is companies hiring only those salespeople that have experience with their products and/or industry. It takes a lot longer for someone to learn how to be a good salesperson than it does to learn a product, industry lingo, or a specific industry. Hire someone with a successful sales background. They know how to ask the right questions and they won’t be reticent to get started quickly.

MproveSales can shorten your hiring cycle and more importantly increase the quality of your team. We welcome the opportunity to work with your organization and building the best team for success!