Having participated in the interviewing of hundreds, hiring of dozens, and firing of quite a few Sales people over the years, I’ve certainly seen my share of gems and bad apples. In this blog I wanted to share a few of my experiences that may perhaps guide you on your next Sales hire.
I wrote in two earlier blogs about the Habits of Successful Salespeople, and that certainly provides some guidance around a lot of the things that I look for during the hiring process. One of the great difficulties in hiring for a Sales position is that so many of the required skills for success are soft ones (and not tangible and objective ones that stand out in a resume). Unlike hiring a software engineer, you are not looking for proficiency with a specific programming language, software platform or database engine. You’re looking for someone that can be the face to your customers and prospects and at the same time successfully drive bookings. The requirements/characteristics to do that are not a specific list of hard skills that the individual must possess.
So let’s start with the hiring process - personally I’ve settled on 6 stages to a hire.
Stage 1 - Resume review, or one might better call this “removing the noise”. Assuming that going in you have some basic requirements like application domain experience, major account experience, specific account background, specific geography experience, inside sales, maturity, technical background, or other, then this is the easy stage. If you’re using a recruiter and you get a resume violating a key requirement, then throw it back at them and threaten to end the search because they’re wasting your time. If the candidate doesn’t present themselves well in the resume, or has poor writing skills, throw it away - good Sales people need to be clear, concise and good communicators. If they can’t do it in a resume why would you think they can write a proposal for a customer? Beware of candidates listing dozens of accounts they have worked with. More often than not, these candidates have never touched most of the accounts they list (they are often laundry lists of accounts of their employer, not the individual). Look for job hopping - it generally takes a good 6 months to really and truly learn how to sell a company and their products, so a long string of 9 month ventures probably means the candidate has not sold a thing with any of those employers. Look for a continuous string of achievement and success.
Stage 2 - The Verification interview. I have typically done this by phone and I am always prepared to devote 45 minutes to an hour to each. Sell your company and your products/solutions. Verify the candidate’s career history by having them talk you through it and get them to point out experience relevant to what you just told them about the opportunity. Ask about their successes, and just as importantly their failures. Even the gems have lost a big one somewhere along the line and should be prepared to tell you about it and what they learned from it. Ask what they specifically did to close a key deal, and how they utilized the greater team - a good way to weed out the lone wolf. Ask about their relationship building process from prospect to close, where they start those relationships, and how they build on them. Be listening for the specifics, beware of candidates spouting sales motherhood and generic information, or long winded explanations of employment history or specific jobs. One of my favourites is to ask what gets them up in the morning and got them into a Sales career. If you’re an early stage startup, you may want to be very careful about moving forward with a candidate who answers “money” to this question. But then again this is not always a bad answer if supported by other things (always good to have Sales people that are highly leveraged on a personal basis…).
Stage 3 - the Validation interview. Sometimes I may combine this with Stage 4, but this is where you really want to figure out if the candidate wants the job. Do this within several days of the Verification interview. The gems will have done some homework, and often lead this conversation. They’ll ask you the questions about competition, value proposition, product status and roadmap, technical support staff, company financial status, etc. If I don’t get questions in this interview, I will usually take the candidate off the list.
Stage 4 - the Personal and Character assessment. I always do this stage in person. I want to see how the candidate conducts themselves face-to-face and I do my absolute best to act and think of myself as a customer, and not a potential employer. Look for bad personal habits - bouncing legs, fidgeting or lack of eye contact, poor hygiene or dress, obvious and blatant body language, taking a mobile phone call in the middle of the interview. Remember that this is your company’s face to the customer and you had better be assessing that this person is projecting the image that you want to project. Get the candidate to present something (but notify them in advance and give them a chance to prepare) - a short sales pitch, a 30 or 90 day plan, anything that can give you an indication of their selling style.
Stage 5 - the Team assessment. Cycle the candidate through other people and functions in the company. A peer assessment is always good. Sales people have to work with Finance and Product Management, so you’d better make sure that there is some level of compatibility and acceptance on both sides. Don’t go overboard - 3-5 others should be sufficient.
Stage 6 - References. Ask for a peer, supervisor and customer. Fine if HR does the peer and supervisor checks, but I strongly suggest that you do the customer check as the hiring manager. Go looking for others (that they have not referenced) that might know the individual. The technology world is a small one in the end, and the gems and bad apples are likely to be known by someone you have come across in your travels.
Common pitfalls? The rolodex is worthless in this day and age. People move between companies and positions far too quickly today, so why place high value on this? Any contacts a person has in a specific account are likely to be out-of-date before you know it. Far better to hire a candidate that knows how to navigate an account than it is to hire one that can ring off a bunch of names. Watch out for candidates that “buddy up” to you (or others) during the process. More often than not these individuals can only operate in the “old boys club”, and this approach to selling is getting pretty stale and dated. If the candidate thrilled your CEO and infuriated your CFO or a Product Manager, then beware. It’s likely that they only want to play with the big boys and easily ignore or show contempt for people necessary to their success.
So all of this looks like it takes some time right? And it does. A Sales hire is the most expensive one you make outside of the executive team. And even if you are diligent in the process prepare to get it wrong some times. At best I’ve been 8 out of 10. Knowing that, I’m always prepared to cut my losses quickly after making a hire if it’s clear I’ve messed up and hired a bad apple. It’s far too expensive to proceed with a Sales candidate who you know is a bad apple - Sales people are very difficult (if not impossible) animals to change, so don’t think that you can.