How to Hire Sales People

70 点作者 relaunched大约 10 年前

10 条评论

sk5t大约 10 年前

> You need to ask for actual proof — screenshots of activity graphs and leaderboards directly from their org's CRM, for example. If you're lucky, some of these screenshots will show both where your candidate landed on the leaderboard and the names of the other high-rankers.Isn't this a marker of both gullibility and unscrupulousness? Would the author be okay with his current employees taking similar screenshots out of CRM and sharing those screenshots with other prospective employers?

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MangoDiesel大约 10 年前

This is generally very sound advice. There is one part that I take issue with though.>We also looked for proactive junior staff out of companies like LinkedIn who were ready for the next step, but not afforded the opportunity>A candidate may have worked in sales, but if they were an account manager tending existing customers, they may not be cut out to be an account executive acquiring new business. Just because someone has made 80 sales calls a day in a prior job doesn't mean they can demo and close. Make sure candidates have the expertise you need.These two points contradict each other, and I think it is a very important issue. If you are not willing to allow a junior person a better opportunity immediately (hiring them into a promotion) then you have to compensate them better compared to the current company for the same position (short of intangibles.)Often times, larger companies will have a more deliberate and organized sales process that is time-based. This creates scenarios where candidates that are otherwise qualified for the next step (Market Development Rep --> Account Executive) have a seemingly artificial ceiling preventing them from that role at their current company. While it probably makes sense at the larger company for a Market Rep to be promoted after 18-24 months, this person may be very capable of the next level earlier.If you can successfully find driven junior level people who have this type of artificial ceiling, you can hire very valuable sales people. This also means you are going to have to take a risk that they can perform on the next level, but you can also hedge this risk by offering slightly less total compensation for the opportunity _now_.

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euphemize大约 10 年前

> If there's one thing you should hire for, it's intellectual acumen, a high “figure shit out” quotient with the ability to grindI think this is true in general. I've worked with highly intelligent, but less-motivated people, and you're always waiting for that magical moment when they come out of their lethargy and become a 100x worker. And that moment usually never happens.

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jedanbik大约 10 年前

Serious question - what sort of information can be gleaned from a sales candidate by asking them how messy their room is on a scale from 1-10?Ability to answer random questions? Ability to compose a narrative? Ability to deal with seemingly arbitrary BS?

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at-fates-hands大约 10 年前

There were some definite red flags in the article:"Even a win rate of 35% means you lost 65% of your deals. Remaining upbeat in the face of micro-failures is key"This is a total misconception of sales at its core. What if a sales person closed his 10 largest deals worth multi-millions and the rest got away? Is losing those other smaller deals making up your mythical 65% considered a failure? Hardly. Sales isn't about percentages, it's about generating revenue - period. Thinking like this is dangerous."i.e. sales staffs that are looking to jump onto their next rocket ship."Not sure this is great advice. Why would I want a guy who keeps jumping ship to the next big thing? If anything, you want someone who's been at a larger startup who wants more stability as opposed to the "get in and get out" type of sales person who's more likely to leave you high and dry if things aren't working out the first two months - making you having to start the process all over again."Find people who have artifacts of the type of achievement you're looking for: quota attainment, activity metrics, etc. Note that salespeople are used to, well, selling — so don't get spun"These salespeople tend to come at a cost.If you have people getting into president's club and consistently performing, they're going to cost you. There's only two types of sales people - the mediocre kind and the high performing kind. As you stated, you don't want mediocre salespeople, you want the chart toppers. These people know they are good at what they do and will demand a higher salary, more benefits and bigger percentage of the company. They also know how to negotiate. Remember, they're sales people so expect a fight on how much they're going to demand if you really want their skills."Another good screening tool is a mini homework assignment involving account research and voicemail pitching. At the end of the written screen, I ask candidates to leave me a 30-second voicemail pitching TalentBin as if I were the head of recruiting at Airbnb"When I was in sales, I was taught specifically to not leave voice mails, for several reasons. If you're asking me to pitch you over voice mail, that's a red flag in my mind. If you want me to do my homework and then come back for an impromptu sales pitch, or do a simulated cold call over the phone that's fine - but leave a voice mail? Not an ideal way to judge someone's sales ability at all.

roymurdock大约 10 年前

How to Hire Sales People: A Guide in 6 Steps1. Build a great product.2. Find people with a good attitude that are genuinely excited about the product.3. Hire those people.4. Give them the chance to talk to other people about how excited they are about the product.5. Track metrics and provide sales-based bonuses but don't overincentivize/gamify the sales process.6. Enjoy healthy, sustainable sales growth, happy customers, happy employees.Disclaimer: I have little to no experience in sales. This just seems like common sense to me.

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JSeymourATL大约 10 年前

> Not skimping when negotiating fees. If you try to talk a recruiter down to 20% or 17.5% of a first-year compensation fee, you're actually incentivizing them to only show you candidates they don't think they can place elsewhere.True - better service always commands higher fees. Offer to pay a full 30% if they promise to deliver and make me happy. * Hat-tip Stuart Diamond.

AndrewKemendo大约 10 年前

>we focused all our energy on landing new, hungry grads out of high-caliber universities like Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA and more — with preference to athletes and others who had demonstrated grit and success on a team.All they did was replicate the Financial Industry model. Goldman et al. do exactly this, nothing new or hacker about that at all.

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normloman大约 10 年前

Sport, Sports, Sports! Yeah, this is still a guessing game.

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cc438大约 10 年前

>We also looked for proactive junior staff out of companies like LinkedIn who were ready for the next step, but not afforded the opportunity.This is the more efficient way of hiring a sales team IMO. I've been in both categories and although I've only been in the game for a few years, I've learned the pitfalls of the "fresh grad" approach.The author is right in considering sales "Mission Critical" for startups and other small businesses looking to grow and then goes on to explain the various ways in which an open or ineffective sales position will damage the position of the company. Despite that display of wisdom, they advocate a "fresh grad" approach which is just about the fastest way to ensure high turnover and low productivity. Every salesperson has to start somewhere and a fresh graduate with a sales personality and love for the job often be the best kind of salesperson for this kind of role for the reasons stated by the author. The problem is that candidates can't know if they'll like the world of sales until they've lived in it. Even if they have an amazing ability to filter out applicants without "the right stuff", they'll still end up with a high % of new reps that just don't like the responsibilities of their role.That can manifest itself in a lack of interest for the industry (boy did I hate copiers, talk about a dead-end market), a lack of interest in the product (some people love sales but hate selling intangibles like services), a mismatch in the selling style required by the market (relationship vs. technical), or a preference for stable income (depends on compensation structure but sales can be very feast or famine).The company I work for now faced this issue and we've had incredible success stemming from the switch to the strategy of hiring young reps with a few years of experience. We're all "fresh" enough to go after new business with enthusiasm but we were also a known quantity in that we had all proven that we would stick it out in sales. Prior to this switch, we had 50% turnover for all the reasons stated above (some reps wanted to sell tangible products, others wanted a relationship sales style, others wanted a guaranteed salary, and other realized marketing or operations was a better fit for their personality) but none of the "new group" has left in the past 12 months and I doubt anyone will for a while.The post-2008 stagnation has created climate with a lot of talented reps stuck near the bottom of the ladder. Offer them the next rung or an honest path toward advancement and they'll jump over in a heartbeat. Let the churn n' burn companies (ADP, Cintas, office equipment dealers/manufacturers) do the hard work of weeding out the fresh grads that won't cut it or don't want in. You avoid the biggest risks and although you'll have to pay more, you'll be more confident that you're getting value out of that "Mission Critical" sales position.