Recently, it has been found that many employers are screening out great sales candidates, and this phenomenon has been attributed to two common sales-recruiting myths. The first is that candidates are must have some sort of college degree, and the second is that a number of years of sales experience is required. In most cases, it makes much more sense to hire a prospective salesperson who has a natural talent for the job or one who has already established relationships with prospective clients. However, you may not be attracting those people or giving them a chance to prove themselves because of these two knockout questions in your hiring process.
Studies show that half or more of sales people should probably not hold a sales position, and almost a quarter of them are simply selling the wrong product or service. Therefore, hiring experienced salespeople simply recycles mediocrity and gives you a good chance of employing someone who will not prove to be of benefit to your business.
Lack of experience should never be the sole reason to pass over a candidate because this trait can almost always be overcome with the proper training. What cannot be overcome is a lack of sales talent. Hiring an experienced sales representative who performed poorly for someone else is not a winning recruiting strategy.
The sales profession requires qualities that not everyone possesses. The high turnover rate of salespeople in so many organizations simply reveals ineffective sales hiring and selection processes.
The solution to the problem of high turnover is to stop screening out good candidates by implementing a process for assessing sales candidates who may have the potential to match your top performers. Imagine how your sales would skyrocket if you only had more people like your top performers!
An effective sales assessment strategy takes the guesswork out of hiring people for your valuable sales positions. Such a strategy should include the evaluation of key behaviors, including competitiveness, persistence, sales drive, energy and self-reliance. It should also seek to discover critical sales behaviors, such as prospecting, closing sales, teamwork, building new relationships and maintaining existing relationships.
The use of this approach will lower employee turnover in your sales department and improve sales productivity. Implementing an effective sales-assessment strategy will be an adjustment to your current hiring practices, but it could dramatically increase overall sales and reduce the costs associated with high turnover. It does not make sense to simply accept as a fact that high turnover in your salesforce is normal or standard for the industry. It is only normal if one fails to see through these two common yet flawed elements in the hiring process. The competition may have already discovered what it takes to develop a winning sales staff, and you can’t afford to continue hiring salespeople who simply cannot perform even though they are college educated and experienced.
