HOW TO HIRE SALES REPS
When you are hiring new sales reps, what traits are you looking for?
I use the 5 below which have worked for me time and time
again. And an in-person interview is your best way to test for these top
5 and below I will also share with you how to spot them. So here they
are:
1) Conscientiousness
This research on sales rep performance
published by the American Psychological Association way back in 1993
found that the most predictive indicator of sales rep success is
“conscientiousness.” Conscientiousness simply means achievement and dependability.
We also can refer to it as “hard work until you get it done,” also
known as “GSD” (i.e. Get S**t Done, implying that getting things done
comes with a goal and the dependability to achieve it). Candidates who
are conscientious are goal-oriented, hardworking, persistent, and have
high expectations for themselves – exactly what you want in a sales rep.
When you find a candidate that fits this description, you
can count on them to not only set goals, but also to set a high bar for
themselves and make a great effort to reach that bar. They’ll be able to
work autonomously. Conscientious sales reps do really well with data transparency – when they have access to their own sales performance data, they can track and adjust their efforts in real time.
Testing for Conscientiousness:
But when it comes to interviewing candidates for your sales
team, how do you gauge conscientiousness? Ask them to tell you about a
time they set difficult goals. What did they do to stretch themselves
and achieve these goals? Let them walk you through the process and
purpose. If they can show they’re goal-oriented and results-driven, they
will likely put in a lot of effort and do well on your sales team.
2) Coachability
While hard work and conscientiousness is important, the
most successful sales candidates will find a healthy balance between
that self-starter attitude and an ability to turn coaching into results.
Mark Roberge, HubSpot’s top Sales Executive, ran an experiment
where he looked for specific attributes during sales interviews and
measured over time which of these attributes actually correlated with
success. He collected over 1,000 interviews and hired more than 60
people before doing his first analysis. What he found was that Coachability was the #1 predictor of sales success at HubSpot.
Testing for Coachability:
One of the best exercises to test for coachability in an
interview is to run a roleplay. Ask them to sell something simple to
you, like their phone or the table. Spend a few minutes pretending to be
a prospect while they deliver an elevator pitch and answer some of your
questions. Then, ask them to reflect on the roleplay: what did they do
well and what did they not do well? Candidates who are open about and
unafraid of their weaknesses tend to be the most open to coaching. Next,
tell them what to do differently next time. Do they get defensive or
stressed, or do they receive feedback well? It’s a great sign if they
take notes on your response. Then, have them do the roleplay again and
see how well they apply your feedback.
So, what does this mean for you as a sales leader? You need
to hire coachable reps and then dedicate time to actually coaching
them. Well-coached sales teams consistently outperform the competition
and improve forecasting accuracy. Moreover, your reps want to be
coached because they want to develop their professional skills. It may
be a serious time commitment, but prioritizing coaching has proven
significant, long-term benefits.
3) Intelligence
In order to be coachable and smart about sales, a rep must
be intelligent. Sales is a data-driven field, so successful reps can
analyze sales data and make smart decisions based on their analysis.
Testing for Intelligence:
Good indicators of intelligence include your candidate’s
academic and workplace experience and achievements, including GPA – but
remember, those can be arbitrary. I’ve found that a great question to
ask in an interview is: “In five minutes, could you explain something to me that is complicated but you know well?”
It can be a hobby, something technical… anything they want.
Their response will tell you not only how well they can comprehend
complex subjects, but also how well they can articulate them to someone
who doesn’t know much about the subjects. To succeed in sales, your
candidate will need to explain your product, technology, and ideology to
people who are mostly unfamiliar. That question will show you how
naturally this comes to them – and it’s a sneaky way of gauging
intelligence.
4) Prior success
This is critical because you want someone who has shown a
track record of achievement. It doesn’t matter in which area – and even
someone graduating from college can show that either in academics or at
sports or hobbies.
Testing for Prior Success:
This is easy – just look at the resume. Or look at their
academics and grades if the candidate is fresh out of college. It’s easy
to see. Also, Inc. magazine published an article recently called, “The
Only Interview Question That Matters.” The question was: What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your career to date?
Even more important than the question itself is the
follow-up questions you can ask, like “Walk me through the plan, how you
managed it, and its measured success,” “What were some of the biggest
mistakes you made?”, “Give an example of how you managed and influenced
others,” and “What would you do differently if you could do it again?”
It’s amazing how much insight you can gain about a candidate by spending
5 minutes asking questions about their #1 accomplishment.
5) Passion
Hire candidates that have passion for sales. And I suggest
that you look for someone passionate about your company’s mission, too.
Testing for Passion for Selling:
Ask your candidate why they want to go into sales. Ask them
what books they’ve read about sales, which sales blogs they read
regularly, and what excites them about sales. People tend to succeed
doing things they really like, so a passion of sales can be a good
indicator of success.
Testing for Passion for Your Company:
You also want sales reps who are passionate about working
at your company. It is really important to be clear up front about your
company’s mission, culture and purpose
You can gauge their passion and selling savvy by what
questions they ask you when given the chance. Are they well-thought-out,
difficult questions? That can give you a clue into whether they will
maintain high interest in your organization over time. Ultimately, the
candidate that will succeed on your sales team will passionately engage
with you on this subject.
These 5 characteristics of successful sales candidates
might surprise some of you. What about years of sales experience or
industry knowledge? Think about it: those traits can all be learned, but
none of them are inherent. The most successful sales reps have high
potential because they possess the 5 characteristics I’ve listed. Those
are far stronger at the core than something that can be easily learned.
Sometimes it is tempting to hire a candidate that looks
fantastic on paper with tons of experience even if they didn’t pass the 5
tests above. But the cost of turnover is high and you don’t want to
screw it up. Hire the most dependable, goal-oriented, coachable,
intelligent, and passionate people and you are guaranteed to build a
world-class sales force.
If you are big organization and you’ve hired a lot of reps,
I’d love to hear if you try these so let me know how these traits
correlate to performance (especially Productivity Per Rep – PPR) of your
most successful reps. For example, you can run a few simple
regression analyses to correlate the sought after traits (which can be
tracked during and after the interview) with performance of your reps. A
number of companies including Hubspot have run such analyses and many
of us agree on most of these 5 as strong and consistent predictors of
success in inside sales.
