Smart Hiring is a Smart Sales Strategy

Smart Hiring is a Smart Sales Strategy

Frustration – I’m the one in charge of the sales strategy.

I’m the one that’s supposed to be leading the team on how to increase sales for our start-up medical device company.

Instead, I’m watching dollar bills fly out the door. Salespeople are filing in and out. And, I have no clue what I’m doing incorrectly.

No clue.

Sounds familiar?

That was me, in my first role as a sales recruitment manager. I can still hear my frustration.

I know I can sell. Now, I’m facing a new challenge – hiring the right salespeople to sell for me. They seem impossible to find.

Business owners and CEO’s working with Millennial sales teams are facing the exact same challenges today. In this recovering economy, the star performers responsible for the sales growth of your busi­ness will be primarily Millennials. That is why your leadership matters! You need to actively recruit Millennials with superior sales skills right now! However, there are many pitfalls on this journey.

How can you know if your new millennial candidate will be a leading salesperson or BDR on your team before you hire them?

Costly Hiring Mistakes Derail Sales Growth  

“I’ve wasted so much time on hiring salespeople that fail. How can I know if the Millennial I’m going to hire has what it takes to be successful?”

This is a legitimate question.  I hear it often.

I also hear from leaders who say that they are…

• Struggling to find Millennial sales candidates with a “hunter” mentality;
• Frustrated that they’re not identifying salespeople and BDR’s with a fire-in-the-belly mindset for winning new accounts; and,
• Disappointed that their sales turnover is costing more than they projected.

I can sympathize.  I’ve witnessed the crippling effect that recruiting mistakes can have on sales growth. Our research indicates that estimates for sales hiring mistakes run from between $100,000 to over $1,000,000.

Here are three strategies to consider avoiding making costly hiring mistakes:

How to Increase Sales with a Smart Interviewing Strategy 

I see it all the time. Hiring managers try identifying a new salesperson or business development rep through gut instinct during the interview process.

Does gut-instinct work when hiring salespeople?

The short answer is, “NO!” (This is something I had to learn the hard way.)

When you hire, based on interviews and intuition, you might be throwing away thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In my experience, these candidates will more than likely fail. 

Is that your standard practice too?

According to numerous workforce studies, interviews lead to almost 90 percent of hiring decisions. The shocking fact – they are only 14 percent accurate in predicting success. Just 14 percent!

Experienced sales leaders know that resumes and interviews can only tell you so much about how a hire will perform in your company. If your hiring manager is making this mistake, my eBook, Millennial Sales Hiring, is a must-read as part of your leadership development efforts.

The 7-Step process in Millennial Sales Hiring, guides you through the recruiting, hiring, and fast-tracking of your high-performance Millennial Sales Team. Our process will significantly reduce the amount of time it takes you to fill an open position.

Don’t Assume the Competitor’s Star will Solve your Sales Growth Challenges  

Have you ever hired your competitor’s star salesperson? You’re hoping he or she will solve your sales growth problems. A few months later, you are frustrated and disappointed….and out a few more precious dollar bills.

Why will a star salesperson in one company fail miserably in another?

In my work with high-growth sales teams, I often witness this phenomenon…

Think about the leading and lagging people on your sales team and the environment in which they sell. Everyone faces the same competition, economy, and potential opportunities. However, some consistently outsell the rest.  Why?

The truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all “sales gene.” There is no guarantee that someone who excelled in your competitor’s business will succeed in yours.

The New Normal selling environment requires salespeople with specific selling competencies. You need your Millennial salespeople to be:

Competition Resistant 

They need capabilities to proceed skillfully when dealing with competitors and dealing with large sums of money. (66% of all salespeople are not comfortable discussing money.)

Value Sellers 

 Can your salespeople sell value and hold margins? (Only 32% of all salespeople can sell value.)

Strong Hunters 

One of our most important sales growth strategies is hiring and retaining sales pros who have “hunting” DNA. (Our research shows that 18% of all salespeople are weak hunters and 62% of all salespeople have a Need for Approval.)

We often expect a star salesperson to possess all the qualities we need in our business. However, they may have been selling in a comfort zone. What were they selling before the pandemic turned our world upside down? Have they been selling a well-known brand at the best price in a strong economy? Now, they are completely overwhelmed when they meet strong buyer’s resistance in a recovering economy. They need to build trust relationships from scratch, and sell value.

So, instead of blowing the budget to lure the so-called “stars” to your company, consider a structured recruiting process as a vital part of your sales strategy.

Adopt Smart Hiring to Boost Sales Growth 

After I wasted too many dollar bills on failed hires at our medical device company, I acknowledged that our hiring strategy was flawed. So, I started to ask different questions:

• What might we do to hire productive Sales DNA—the Fire in the Belly?
• What might we do to identify and hire the Sales DNA needed in our unique sales environment?

The answer was a Smart Hiring strategy. That meant that I started looking at candidates differently.  Even if they ticked all the boxes I previously considered important, now, I was looking deeper. I had to know that they would be the right fit for our company, market, and pricing strategy, and our unique positioning.

How do you learn all of this without a geneticist on your team? Well, here’s the good news: Proven objective assessments identify the strengths and skills you need. This knowledge empowers you to hire the right salespeople in the right roles where they can be most effective.

How to Manage Millennials 

If you need help to avoid the pitfalls of hiring Millennials with superior sales DNA, get the Millennial Sales Hiring eBook here.

Smart Hiring is your roadmap to pinpoint the combination of skills, talents, knowledge, and acumen required to hire strong players. We will connect you with the crucial sales genes you need, enabling you to find the best millennial sales talent matches for your company. 

Summary:  

If you are considering hiring new Millennial BDRs and salespeople, you want to know their sales DNA – their “genes” – before you hire them. Simply put, you want to know that they will perform on your team before you hire them.

All business owners want to consistently win new accounts, grow revenue, and take market share. Then you must know which prospective candidate will succeed or fail before you hire them. Refine your interviewing strategies, so that you don’t have to rely on your gut feel.

Forget about your competitor’s sales superstar. Instead of getting frustrated and watching salespeople filing in and out of your business, Smart Hiring will lift your sales growth results higher than ever before.

And, start growing your pile of dollar bills!

Leadership Lesson: Growth-oriented sales leaders hire those millennial salespeople with the right set of DNA potential to become top performers. 

Leadership Question:  What might you change in your hiring process that will yield top-tier sales professionals and BDRs?

Join me for a free virtual coffee meeting

Having challenges keeping your team engaged and focused in a productive direction? I invite you to schedule a free virtual coffee meeting with me. No charge, no obligation. Just 45 minutes to talk through what challenges are happening, receive personal tips, advice, and next steps on how to solve those challenges. To schedule, email me at danita@DanitaBye.com