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Insights When Hiring Salespeople
I’ve been interviewing salespeople for clients lately, and I have to tell you I’m disappointed.
The good news is that companies are engaged in growth, and I’m seeing more of them understand the need to bring on quality salespeople to support the effort. The bad news is that it doesn’t appear most salespeople are ready to take advantage of this.
So I share these insights with those who are hiring, and those sales candidates who are looking for a new place to call home.
What’s interesting is the entire challenge rests in the one part of the hiring process sales people should absolutely thrive – the interview!
Hiring managers should be aware that the salesperson is at their best in the interview. Here’s what that means:
- If the salesperson sounds like every other salesperson in an interview – it’s probably because they are. If they can’t differentiate themselves there, they’ll struggle differentiating your product/service when they’re with a customer.
- If a salesperson doesn’t ask penetrating questions that both takes the conversation deeper and allows you and them to understand your issues better, they’re don’t going to ask penetrating questions to enable you to Move Beyond Price when they’re with a customer.
- If a salesperson doesn’t share with you real mistakes they’ve made, how they’ve learned from them, and how they will apply those lessons in the future – they are lying, have no self awareness or both.
- If a salesperson doesn’t show tremendous curiosity in the interview, they won’t in the job.
- If a salesperson isn’t completely prepared at any stage of the interview process, they won’t prepare once they’re hired. They should understand your business (or have very good questions to understand your business), have a solid idea of the results you’re looking for and be able to discuss barriers from the beginning. If they can’t it’s a good bet they’ll peddle your offering, just like they peddle their services.
Feel free to share any insights you’ve gained in assessing salespeople in the comments below. By the way, I recently updated an article on avoiding the 10 most common mistakes when hiring salespeople.
The Purpose of Lead Generation
For those of you that are subscribing to our Fast Growth Weekly Tips, this post is a reprint. I got several comments on the tip and felt like sharing it with those that aren’t subscribed.
I realize that this may sound obvious, but lead generation needs to focus on starting the sales process, not finishing it. Yet despite that, I’m constantly perplexed by how often lead generation tactics focus on late stage/buy issues.
As a B2B selling organization there are two clear hurdles you must clear to successfully selling. The first hurdle is, “Why should I (the prospect) talk with you?” The second hurdle is, “Why should I (the prospect) buy from you?”
Your selling process is all about the second hurdle. The purpose of lead generation is clear the first hurdle.
When you focus your lead generation efforts on “selling” why people should talk with you even if they don’t buy from you, your lead generation efforts will work far, far better than when you mistakenly focus on the sale. As I often advice my clients: ” Stop selling and start helping.”
Ask yourself:
- What are the top 3 problems that a prospect has that you can help them with?
- How can you communicate your ability to help them, without confusing that with how or why they should buy from you?
- is the focus of our lead generation message why people should talk to us, as opposed to why they should buy from us?
By the way, if you’re looking to get 2012 off to a great start (sales wise, at least), you won’t want to miss our upcoming webinar on November 2nd: Successful Lead Generation for B2B Companies.
To Make More Sales: Solve A Big Problem
I don’t know who first said, “Go big or go home.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. I’m often surprised by how small some business executives think about their business and their products or services. Rather than addressing the big problems that their customers and clients face, they waste their time trying to solve the small problems.
The result of this is a failure to stand out or justify the value that a seller brings to the table.
One of the net results of the deep recession and recovery cycle we are going though (yes, we are going through a recovery cycle) is that discretionary budgets have been virtually eliminated. Today, as a seller, you are either indispensable or your are a commodity. If you’re a commodity your business model better focus on delivering your products and services faster, better and cheaper than your competition.
The only long-term strategy to support strong, growing margins is to be indispensable. And the only way to be indispensable is to solve big problems.
This small problem trap is so unfortunate, because most companies are 80% of the way to addressing big problems. For some reason, most businesses fail to go the last 10 – 20% to be able to address the big problems. They seem afraid to dig deeper and understand their customers at a deeper level. They wait for customers to talk about their problems, rather than provoking them. It seems as though business executives are simply afraid to make the big promise – and then work like hell to deliver.
Going forward, it’s the companies that take that last step (or two) and position themselves to the big problems that will earn the lions share of profit. Be one of them.
Successful Lead Generation for B2B Companies
Since the beginning of time (or least since salespeople have been around) the the search for leads has been like the search for the Holy Grail. Good leads, better leads…The Glengarry leads.
Yet, with all of the attention on lead generation, and all of the tools available, small and mid-market B2B companies continue to struggle with to consistently and effectively generate, cultivate and convert highly qualified prospects.
The reason is that most lead generation efforts are built on faulty a premise. If you’d like to invigorate your LeadGen efforts, you won’t want to miss our upcoming webinar.
Successful Lead Generation for B2B Companies
Learn the 3 Reasons that Lead Generation Efforts Fail &
The 5 Critical Actions That Will Dramatically Increase Quality Leads
When: November 2, 2011 2:00 – 3:15pm EDT
Where: Online
Today’s business environment requires every company – especially small and mid-market B2B companies – to be able to do more with less.
To succeed selling organizations must be able to do two things extraordinarily well:
- Increase the number of prospects that want to do business with them, and
- Increase the quality of those leads.
The vast majority of lead generation tactics are not only ineffective, they actually commoditize your products/services, increase the likelihood that prospects will shop you and decrease closing rates. As a matter of fact, the best business opportunities are lost because of these lead generation techniques.
That’s right – most lead generation efforts eliminate the highest quality opportunity and attract the lowest quality. It’s no wonder that sales costs are skyrocketing and closing rates are plummeting.
It doesn’t need to be this way! Join us on November 2, 2011 at 2pm EDT as we share The Secrets to Building An Effective Lead Generation Machine For B2B Companies.
This information is so important that we’ve decided to waive the registration fee entirely. You’ll learn:
- Why many B2B companies aren’t ready for lead generation.
- The 3 reasons lead generation efforts fail
- The 5 critical actions to build an effective lead generation machine
- How to utilize lead generation tactics to increase referrals
- How to increase the ROI of your lead generation efforts by 500% or more
Don’t wait – your 2012 sales results are depending on you attending this webinar.
Steve Jobs’ Legacy
As I’ve been watching and reading over all of the news stories and tributes to Steve Jobs, I notice that they’re missing one of the biggest insights to Jobs’ success.
While every story makes mention of Jobs returning, very few of them acknowledge just how close to death Apple was when he returned. What of the most important lessons I learned in business cam from watching Jobs turn around the company.
How did Jobs do it? He cut to the core. He took 22 products that were in Apple’s go-to-market pipeline and cut them down to 4, 2 consumer products and 2 business products. He knew this would result in Apple becoming (temporarily) a smaller company. He told Wall Street, customers and employees:
“Apple will get bigger, first by getting smaller. We will cut to our core, we will focus on our core, and we will forever grow from our core.”
For nearly 15 years, Apple did just that and the result was transforming a company worth $5 billion (and nearly bankrupt) to the most valuable company in the world, valued at $350 billion. A 70x result!
To me, Steve Jobs will also stand for the power of three critical elements:
- Focus
- Simplicity
- Belief
Thanks Steve.
The Toughest Lesson
Without question, the toughest lesson I’ve every learned in sales (or life for that matter) is that you can do all the right things and still not get the outcome you want. You can ask the right questions, make the right connections, zig when you’re supposed to zig, and zag when it’s time to zag…and you still may not win the sale.
When you lose, you want something to blame. You want to fix something. It can be demoralizing to look at a lost sale and not find where you went wrong.
That is why it’s so important that you keep activity levels up. I always caution CEOs and salespeople that a 99% probability of success still leaves a 1% chance of failure – and in a world with 7 billion people, 1% events happen to 70 million people A DAY. And, unless the contract is signed and the check is cashed, there is ALWAYS a chance things will fall through.
Sales, especially in The Drought we’ve been in for 3 years and counting, is a marathon run at a sprinter’s pace. You can’t assume anything. You’ve got to keep things moving.
I remember a speaker who told an audience of CEOs that you’ve must grow by at least 15 – 20% per year. If you didn’t grow at that rate, you would fail to account for the “oh shit” factor. The same is true in sales. You can never become overdependent on any single opportunity, because even if you do it everything right…you may not get the sale.
If you’re looking for some insights in making this approach systematic, I encourage you to download an article that I just published – The 5 Adjustments Every Sales Team Needs to Make.
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Resources
Doug's Washington Business Journal Columns- Intelligent Growth Articles
Third Wave Selling Blog
Products to Grow
