Reasons Why Companies Fail to Hire Top Sales Talent and also Hiring Tips
Reasons Why Companies Fail to Hire Top Sales Talent and also Hiring Tips
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.
Every aim-full company could be win the championship not only one match, therefor they always busy to finding the new talent for their company.
As executives create their strategic sales plans for the year, the conversation eventually turns to recruiting top sales talent to execute those plans. Yet, there are three reasons why companies fail to close the deal with top sales candidates.
Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.
1. They don’t have clarity on the role. During interviews, top salespeople ask a ton of questions about the role and expectations. They’ll ask…
- How would you describe a day in the life of a salesperson in your company?
- What territory would I be assigned?
- What expectations would the company have of me in the first year?
Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.
2. Re-assess what you really need.
The exercise of reading so many applications made it more clear to me what qualifications I really needed. True, it would have made more sense to have thought this through more clearly before advertising, but since when do we live in a perfect world?
I knew I needed fantastic writing ability, eagerness to learn, and an enthusiasm to work with me, specifically. I also remembered that I had taken on a new ghostwriting client on a subject in which I didn’t have a lot of professional background. So I kept an eye out for applicants who weren’t only qualified but who happened to have some familiarity with this field–even though I hadn’t mentioned it in my advertisement.
3. They haven’t finalized compensation. It’s no surprise that top salespeople want to know how they make money. They want to know…
- How does the compensation plan work?
- What will I earn if I meet goal in my first year?
- If you can’t explain and show the compensation plan, top salespeople get turned off.
“Everyone has talent. What’s rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.”
― Erica Jong
4. They can’t answer common sales questions. You expect your salespeople to sell the value your company brings to bear. Top talent will ask you those questions during the interviews. Questions like…
- Why do people buy from your company?
- What is unique about your products?
- Who is your biggest competitor and what is your strategy to defeat them?
“Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.”
― Lou Holtz
5. They have not clear algorithm
Every company should have an algorithm for hiring.eg
- % of experience (Past clients status )
- % of skill set
- % of degree education
- % of market reputation
One well cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration-to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
William Matthews
6. Fish where the fish are
Figure out where the best candidates for your company would be hanging out, whether virtually or physically. If you’re in the market for technical talent, drop by a hackathon or demo day. If you’re looking for someone in sales, a trade show would be a great place to see someone in their element and get a sense of how they deal with customers. Looking for someone with a niche passion? There’s likely a meet up for it.
As boring as they might sound, conferences can also be a great way to attract talent by letting you pitch the business in a more conversational way. “It gives you a chance to express the vision behind the company in a non-interview setting and to meet one-on-one casually,” says Etahan Song, co-founder and CEO of Frank and Oak. “We’ve started sending our team members to various conferences because it gives the company a voice and a face, and that’s much more attractive for employees.”
7. They have not the data of present scenario.
Company should have to know the knowledge-bank of their area.
“If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them.”
Jack Welch
8. Always be hiring (or Thinking about hiring)
Start thinking about everyone you meet as a potential hire. “I keep a pool of names in a database of people I’ve met that I’d like to work with someday; they’re coded in our Sales-force as ‘prospective hires,'” says wee Spring CEO Allyson Downey. She takes the “long view” and says she’s casually building a relationship with someone who would be a great CTO candidate in 6 or 12 months. Downey taps her hit list when she’s ready to hire, but if she needs to cast a wider net, she uses Cream.HR, which provides stats on candidates based on problem solving, innovation, task management and other dimensions. “We’ve found it 100x more reliable than a resume screen — it’s like Moneyball for hiring,” says Downey.
The team at AWeber makes a point to reply to every single applicant, which might seem like a daunting and fruitless task. “They may not be a fit for the job they applied for, but you never know when you might have another open position that would be perfect for them,” says AWeber’s Cohen, who says individual responses build goodwill. “Maybe that person will apply with us again down the line, or maybe they’ll speak well about us if they know someone else that’s interested in a position with us.”
9. Recruit your team to help recruit
Of course, promoting from within is a great way to incentivize and reward hard work, but sometimes you need fresh meat, and you should empower your team to help bring in great candidates. After all, no one knows your company better than your own team, so they should be on the lookout for talented, interesting people who would bring new talents and skills to the team. You can reward successful referrals with a cash bonus or with other prizes, like gift cards or perks, says Cohen of AWeber, who adds that “engaging your employees in the recruiting process is also a really cost effective way to find good candidates.” Even if your team isn’t bringing in the candidates, they should be involved in the interview process — they’re the ones who are going to be working with the person every day.
10. Use the “two strikes” rule.
This was critical. I had to cut down the pile. First, I set aside 70 or so applications simply because the applicants couldn’t write well, or because they seemed to have cut and pasted the same application for many jobs. After that, I went through them again, employing what I called the “two strikes” rule.
If I found two mistakes in an application–more than one misspelling or a missed word, for example–I tossed the application. This meant rejecting some amazing people, but it was necessary. One mistake might just mean that you’re human but two mistakes suggest you didn’t proofread. If someone doesn’t pay attention to detail when applying, why would that improve once they’ve got the job?
11. Insist on a test run.
When I had identified some great candidates, I asked several to do an initial tryout research assignment.
These were all legitimate projects, if small ones, but they were also tests. So, I intentionally left a few things out, like for example not mentioning the deadline. One applicant–who went straight to it, stayed up half the night to finish and sent me the assignment at 3 a.m.–made a fantastic impression. Let’s just say that not everyone who had a tryout came close to that kind of standard.
12. Skills Can Be Taught, Personality Can’t
“A great business runs on culture, and culture runs on the chemistry and personality of people. So without exception I hire for personality and “fit” first, skills second. Obviously a candidate must have the necessary
practical qualifications for the job (a designer must be able to design, an accountant must be able to. well.. account, etc.). But given two similarly qualified people I will always, always hire the one with the best personality and who seems to be the most likely to fit with our culture. Skills can be taught and developed, personality can’t. And I have found -again almost without exception – that the majority of bad hires we-ve made (which fortunately have been few) were more often bad hires because of personality and culture fit.”
13. Check Their Social Media
“I think the best practice I’ve stumbled upon for hiring a new employee would be to vet them thoroughly using social media. Find all their links, from Twitter to LinkedIn and especially Faceboook and *gasp* MySpace if they have one (that alone is a red flag) Taking the time to see how they interact with others online is a good measurement for how they will interact with with their co-workers. It can also provide insight into their character or personal habits. I.e. do they talk about calling in sick online? Yes, that still happens.”
14. Verify the information
“Our best advice for business owners is to make sure you try to know everything you can about your potential employee before you hire. This can be done by conducting a thorough interview that will not only get you answers to all of your questions that you may have, but is also a good opportunity to clarify anything on the resume. Once the interview is over, you must now “fact check”. Verify all information on the resume, as well as anything that may have popped up in the actual interview. A good background check should be conducted on all employees. Unfortunately, given this economy, some applicants will say and do anything to get a job. Statistics show that 30% of business failures are attributed to employee theft, which can completely shut down a small business.”
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