Author: hiredna

Here’s How to Develop a Winning Sales Recruiting & Selection Process

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As many as 80% of salespeople fail to hit the mark, and 55% of them should actually be doing something else, according to the National Association of Sales Professionals. These numbers illustrate just how difficult it is to succeed in sales and shows that the CEOs and sales leaders responsible for hiring reps have their work cut out for them. 

But in this post, we’ll outline a definitive strategy you can use to develop a winning sales recruiting and selection process to ensure you only hire the best of the best. Let’s jump right in.  

First, Identify the Most Important Areas That Influence Success

Each company is different. Therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach is seldom effective. Instead, you need to start your sales recruiting campaign by pinpointing which specific areas most influence success in your business. 

In their eBook Best Practice to Recruiting the Hardest Role in the Company, SG Partners says “Best Practice Sales Team Selection process commences with a clear understanding of the criteria for success in your market. You need to identify the candidate’s experience in the 20 most important areas that will influence success.”

They then go on to list some examples of factors like:

  • Markets where your company operates
  • Your customer base
  • Competitors
  • Sales cycle
  • Method of compensation 

Screen Candidates Objectively with a Sales Assessment

Before you look at a single resume or begin interviewing, you’ll want to use a candidate sales assessment to get an objective snapshot of selling skills to determine which candidates have what it takes to thrive. 

“This unique screening process was developed exclusively to identify those salespeople that WILL be successful in specific sales environments,” explains SG Partners. “It separates out those candidates that may look like salespeople and sound like salespeople but simply won’t sell.”

There are many different tools out there, but the main one we suggest using is the sales assessment from Objective Management Group (OMG). It’s based on a massive amount of data, including over 2 million salespeople from more than 30,000 companies across 200 industries. 

And its predictive validity rate is unparalleled, with 92% of suggested candidates reaching the top half of the salesforce. This will analyze 21 sales core competencies like the will to sell, motivation, coachability, and so on to filter through your list of candidates and narrow it down to the most elite. 

Phone Screen Shortlisted Candidates

Now it’s time for the actual interviewing process to begin. For the first round, you’ll want to phone screen the candidates who successfully completed the sales assessment, possess the right skills you are looking for and match your unique selling environment. 

This should be brief at around 15 to 30 minutes and is simply meant to see how well they engage with you, as this will be a great indicator of how well they’ll engage with leads if hired. 

You’ll want to create a basic script for your phone screening to ensure all candidates get the same questions and have the same opportunities. SG Partners recommends intentionally putting candidates under pressure to see how they respond to gauge their overall effectiveness. And you’ll also want to use quantitative scoring to rate a candidate’s response to each question (e.g. a 1 to 5 rating). 

For a full rundown on how to effectively use phone screening, check out this previous post we wrote. 

Conduct Short Interviews with Top Candidates

Once you’ve narrowed down your candidate pool even more, it’s time for a round of more detailed but still relatively short interviews of around 35 minutes. Ideally, this will be done face-to-face, but given the current climate post-COVID, doing it over video conferencing software like Zoom should be sufficient, specifically if they will be selling virtually. 

“The candidate is screened on issues or concerns with their work history or suitability based on their resume and also issues that were identified through the [sales assessment],” says SG Partners. “This interview is again designed to measure the ability of the candidate to respond to challenging objections while seeking to gain control of the interview process.”

The exact questions you ask can run the gamut, but Meg Prater of HubSpot highlights 10 sales interview questions that should help get the ball rolling. You can also download our interview questionnaire for a more detailed list of behavioral style interview questions. 

Perform In-Depth Interviews on Your Top 2-3 Candidates

At this point, you should have narrowed it down to your top two or three candidates who all show great promise. You’ll then want to have highly in-depth interviews with these candidates and really dive in deep to figure out what they truly bring to the table. 

“This interview is a very extensive process that requires the candidate to take you through a structured overview of their work and experience following a clear chronological order,” writes SG Partners. “This process can take up to two hours and is designed to separate truth from fiction in relation to the past history of the candidates.”

And don’t forget about reference checking. 

Given the amount of preparation that in-depth interviews like this take, it’s crucial that you perform plenty of planning and preparation in advance. 

Hold a Final Interview for the Candidate You Want

The last step in the sales team selection process is to have a final interview, which is where you go over the formalities and get everything squared away. Here are some specific things that SG Partners suggests covering. 

From there, it’s just a matter of making an offer.

Rinse and Repeat

Rockstar salespeople don’t grow on trees. And we’ve seen time and time again that haphazard hiring practices and selecting candidates based on “a hunch” lead to unfavorable outcomes. 

While nothing is 100% foolproof, following SG Partners’ sales team selection process can promise with near certainty that you’ll find the right salespeople that fit in perfectly with your company culture. 

Once you have the formula, rinse and repeat. 

For more on how to level up your recruiting, download Best Practice to Recruiting the Hardest Role in the Company. 

And to learn about which mistakes to avoid, read The Top 5 Reasons You Are Failing at Recruiting Consistently Great Sales Teams. 

How to Ensure You’re Hiring Based on Actual Skills Rather Than Just “Personality”

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Have you ever encountered a candidate who oozed charm and charisma? Who said all of the right things? Who had the “it factor?”

People with great personalities naturally make a great first impression, and more often than not, they end up walking away with the job. In fact, personality was deemed the single-most desirable quality in an employee by 78% of hiring professionals, according to an executive survey. 

And while it’s certainly a nice trait to have, it’s important to ensure that you’re hiring based on skills rather than solely on “personality.” Here’s why. 

A Long-Standing Misconception 

SG Partners, a professional sales training and coaching company, wrote an eBook entitled The Top 5 Reasons You Are Failing at Recruiting Consistently Great Sales Teams. In it, the first mistake they mention is evaluating “personality” rather than job skills. They talk about how many CEOs and sales leaders think that personality traits like high energy, honesty, and strong work ethic practically guarantee success. But that just isn’t the case. 

“Many consultants and distributors of pre-employment tests maintain that certain personality factors help ensure management or sales success and offer psychological theories to support that belief,” explains SG Partners. “However, solid statistical research from many objective sources shows little correlation between personality factors and any specific job factors. Producers of these tests (like the Myers-Briggs) admit that they are useful for self-awareness and training but not for hiring.”

While having a great personality can certainly help a sales rep, especially when it comes to interactions with leads and their colleagues, there’s no clear evidence that it will result in success. And on the other end of the spectrum, just because someone is shy and doesn’t have a magnetic personality doesn’t mean they can’t succeed. Geoffrey James of Inc.com even talks about how introverts often make the best sales reps these days, mainly because of the growing distrust of “fast-talking, backslapping salesmen” who come across as hyper-aggressive. 

These days, many leads prefer to deal with more introverted reps because they tend to be better listeners and take a more empathetic approach. 

The Dangers of Hiring Based on Personality

And in some cases, CEOs and sales leaders can get themselves into trouble when they focus so much on personality that they overlook a candidate’s obvious lack of other skills. As humans, we can’t help but form first impressions of others. It’s how we make a baseline assessment. Jean Baur, a career coach and author of The Essential Job Interview Handbook, even says that it only takes about three seconds for someone to form an initial impression. 

But it’s far from foolproof and can often be a red herring that leads to making the wrong hire. After all, someone with a stellar personality may be likeable and get along with everyone, but it doesn’t always mean they’ll necessarily add value. If their ability to close deals and general skill set are lacking, they could be quite costly because you’ll have to start the entire hiring process all over again. 

With the U.S. Department of Labor calculating that “the average cost of a bad hiring decision is at least 30% of the individual’s first-year expected earnings,” this can be a major blow to your company. 

How to Objectively Assess Potential Sales Reps

This begs the question. How exactly do you make an objective assessment and ensure that a candidate checks all of the right boxes? 

We recommend using a tool like the sales candidate assessment from Objective Management Group (OMG). This assessment is based on an immense volume of quantitative data, where OMG analyzed over 2 million salespeople across 30,000+ companies in 200 industries. 

From their findings, they were able to pinpoint some specific factors that determine a salesperson’s likelihood of success, including the will to sell, possessing the right “sales DNA,” being coachable, having core competencies, and more. 

And the numbers speak for themselves. By using the sales candidate assessment, a staggering 92% of salespeople who were recommended reached the top half of the sales team within their first year. 

On the other hand, three quarters of candidates that weren’t recommended but still hired failed within six months. 

At the end of the day, it’s about taking a science-based, data-driven approach to hiring that gives you a comprehensive, objective view of candidates. That way you can efficiently narrow down the candidate pool without getting caught up in surface level traits like personality that don’t guarantee success. 

Keeping Your Hiring Process Objective

Hiring isn’t easy. It’s something that even the world’s top companies struggle with at times. 

Therefore, it’s common to fall back on natural human tendencies like confusing having desirable characteristics like a great personality as being an indicator of success. But as we’ve just learned, taking this approach comes with some definite pitfalls and can be more of a hindrance to hiring than an asset. 

The key to making consistently sound hiring decisions is to focus on actual skills, ideally using a tool like the sales candidate assessment, to gain an objective understanding of a person’s abilities and likelihood of success. And while having a likeable personality is a plus, it should by no means be the main factor when selecting a sales rep. 

To learn more about this common hiring mistake, along with others, check out The Top 5 Reasons You Are Failing at Recruiting Consistently Great Sales Teams by SG Partners. 

And to learn about how to improve your hiring process, check out Best Practice to Recruiting The Hardest Role in the Company. 

5 Obstacles High-Level Sales Reps Must Overcome

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In an eBook by sales training and coaching company, SG Partners, called Best Practice to Recruiting The Hardest Role in the Company, they talk about the difficulties involved with being a salesperson. It’s a reminder that this role is highly challenging, and being successful demands a person that possesses the right hard and soft skills. 

With that said, we’re about to take a close look at five specific obstacles high-level sales reps must overcome so you’ll have a better idea of what to look for when assessing candidates. 

Let’s jump right in. 

1. Competition

For starters, most sales reps face an immense amount of competition. Take SaaS companies for example. As of mid-2020, there were over 15,500 SaaS companies in the world. And although the number of these brands has cooled off a bit over the past three years, it’s definitely a saturated market. 

So, often the biggest obstacle is simply having an original unique value proposition (something that’s becoming more difficult, by the way) and an approach that helps your brand stand out from the competition. 

These days, the most successful reps tend to take on the role of consultant and trusted advisor rather than having an overly aggressive “sell, sell, sell” approach. They also have a genuine passion for their industry and product, which naturally shines through when they’re interacting with leads and giving product demos. 

The bottom line is that high-level sales reps have a knack for preventing your company from getting lumped into the crowd and have a likable personality that leads are receptive to. 

2. Hostility From New Prospects

SG Partners mentions that salespeople will “encounter hostility from new prospects that view their presence as an unnecessary interruption to their day. They must venture into a marketplace where prospects are time poor and often rushed, irritated, disinterested, or even hostile.”

And that’s an excellent point. Often, it doesn’t take much for a conversation to go in a negative direction, where a new prospect becomes openly hostile, especially when cold calling. If they’re caught off guard and adamantly against making a purchase, things can get ugly in a hurry. 

Therefore, a high-level sales rep must be able to disarm the situation — something that’s best done using “friendly strength.” Rather than being passive and immediately waving the white flag or returning the prospect’s hostility with their own hostility, friendly strength is where a rep combines the confidence in their product with their knowledge and expertise to steer the conversation in a more pleasant direction. 

For more on friendly strength and how it can be used to win over more prospects, check out this post by sales enablement evangelist Josh Harcus in Forbes. 

3. Objections From Leads

SG Partners also points out that a high-level salesperson “must persuade people to purchase from their company” — something that often requires them to overcome a gauntlet of objections. These can run the gamut, but according to Bryan Gonzalez of HubSpot, there are seven common sales objections that reps encounter most frequently. 

And let’s face it. Formulating an intelligent response, let alone one that instantly slashes through objections from a highly skeptical lead, can be incredibly difficult. So, you need a sales rep that can put themselves in a lead’s shoes and effectively quell their concerns, while putting their mind at ease. 

Possessing this ability takes time, experience, knowledge, confidence, and the right diplomatic touch. While much of it can be learned, overcoming sales objections is something that some reps are naturally more skilled at than others, which is why you should ask what their approach is to handling objections during an interview. 

4. Rejection

It should go without saying that being a sales rep is a position that requires some thick skin. As SG Partners puts it, “they will face rejection on almost a daily basis. There is no selling without rejection and salespeople will face this as they attempt to develop new business for the company.”

A high-level sales rep will have the ability to handle rejection, deal with it, and move on without it ruining their day. They’ll also be able to ensure that it doesn’t “kill their vibe” as they transition to speaking with other leads. It’s like a football quarterback being able to pick themself up and dust themself off after throwing an interception and get right back in the game. 

In short, a high-level sales rep will have the resilience and “short-term memory” needed to persevere even with chronic rejection.

5. Complacency

Finally, even the most rockstar of sales reps will likely battle complacency at some point. In fact, you could argue that this can be a bigger issue for elite sales reps as opposed to mediocre ones because of the level of success that they have. 

It’s human nature to go into “cruise control” when things are going our way. And when a rep gets massive results where they’re on fire, making sale after sale, it’s easy for them to cool off where they lose some of their drive. But the top salespeople will realize when they’re going this route and kick it into the next gear. 

While they’ll remain continually confident, they’ll also be wired to always look for areas of improvement, no matter how minor they may be. 

Overcoming Obstacles to Unlock a Rep’s True Potential 

Selling is easy, said no one ever. It’s a career that’s fraught with difficulties and one that only a small handful of individuals truly thrive in. 

In fact, exhaustive research from Objective Management Group found that only 6% of sales reps are elite performers. 

The five challenges listed above are some of the biggest that high-level sales reps must overcome, and having the ability to do so should always be on your radar when assessing candidates. 

For more on this topic and other tips for better recruiting, check out Best Practice to Recruiting The Hardest Role in the Company by SG Partners. 

And to learn about common mistakes CEOs and sales leaders make when recruiting, check out The Top 5 Reasons You Are Failing at Recruiting Consistently Great Sales Teams. 

92% of Recommended and Hired Candidates Succeed. Here’s Why.

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How many times have you chosen a salesperson who had an amazing personality and checked all of the right boxes, only to later find that their performance was less than stellar?

This is a common experience among many CEOs and sales leaders, and according to Shep Hyken of Forbes, 57% of sales reps fail to hit their quotas. But fortunately, there’s a way to get it right nearly all of the time. 

In this post, we’ll discuss a proven system you can use to take the guesswork out of hiring salespeople to ensure that you consistently select elite performers. 

Accurately Predicting Sales Success

Objective Management Group (OMG) has conducted rigorous assessments over the years to compile a massive amount of data on the sales force selection process. Here are some specific numbers that went into their research.

As you can see, they’ve analyzed over 30,000 companies, more than 86,000 hires, and over two million salespeople to determine what contributes to success. The volume of data is staggering and has generated some fascinating insights into what sales recruiters, sales leaders, and CEOs should look for when assessing and hiring sales candidates. 

For example, OMG found that having the will to sell, where a person possesses the right level of desire and commitment, is a key factor in success. They found that being trainable and coachable is critical. They also found that having 21 core selling competencies, like being a “Hunter, Consultative Seller, Qualifier, Closer, and so on are vital — something they can quantitatively measure. 

In short, OMG found that there’s a science behind hiring quality salespeople — a formula sales recruiters, sales leaders, and CEOs can use over and over to find top talent and retain them for the long haul. 

Check out more data from OMG, see how your sales team compares to the competition and the sales DNA of top performers in your industry here.

92% of Recommended and Hired Candidates Succeed

Through their findings, OMG has developed what they call The Original Sales-Specific Assessment, which measures sales capabilities rather than just behavioral and personality traits. This assessment takes a data-driven approach to finding the best of the best candidates and is so effective that it’s been rated the #1 sales assessment for 9 consecutive years by Top Sales World.

And here’s where it really gets interesting. OMG found that a whopping 92% of candidates that are recommended and hired through The Sales Assessment succeed and reach the top half of the sales force within just 12 months.  

This shows how important it is to make hiring decisions based on data, rather than merely a hunch. And this is something that more and more organizations are actively embracing, with a PwC global data and analytics survey finding that 61% of companies want to rely more heavily on data analysis and less on intuition when making hiring decisions. 

On the other hand, OMG also found that “75% of candidates who aren’t recommended but hired anyway fail within six months.” 

This just reaffirms the importance of assessing candidates based on concrete data and how utilizing a sales-specific assessment can be a real game changer. 

Why it Works

Now let’s take a closer look into the details as to why using the assessment works. 

First, it’s customized to your unique selling environment. “Your customized Role Specification allows you to specify the unique requirements of your position. Candidates are then assessed against your criteria to create a recommendation custom-tailored to your needs.”

In other words, it doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, the assessment looks at your exact business and identifies which characteristics the ideal sales rep, manager, or leader should possess. 

Next, it uses a Candidate Analyzer to quantitatively score candidates based on their abilities via an easy-to-use portal. This allows you to seamlessly filter through candidates and pinpoint the ones you’re most interested in for later follow-up. 

And finally, OMG has a recruiting system called STAR (Sales Talent Acquisition Routine) that allows you to deploy a more structured approach to recruiting sales talent over a four-week period and looks like this:

During the first week, there’s the initial setup, where OMG configures their assessment for the specific role you’re hiring for, creates the optimal applicant tracking questions, and writes an ad that articulates the traits, skills, and experiences a candidate should possess.  

The second week is when sourcing takes place, where the ad is placed on relevant job sites and candidates are searched for on resume databases. Then, OMG provides tactics to help you filter through the results to confirm that applicants meet base requirements along with training on how to narrow the list down through phone screening calls. 

The third week is when the top candidates are interviewed in-person or through video conferencing. This is where you go more in-depth and really get to know each candidate and see what they bring to the table. The fourth week is when the final interview takes place to identify the true rockstars and when a candidate is officially chosen for the position. 

As you can see, the process is very streamlined and can be used again and again to ensure you consistently make the right hires. Also, note that The sales assessment is designed specifically for sales, sales management, and sales leadership roles, making it extremely accurate. 

Hiring Candidates Based on Science

74% of sales reps are ineffective and fail to hit the mark, while only 6% are considered to be elite performers. At first glance, this may seem like the odds are stacked against sales recruiters, and it’s true that finding quality people can be tricky.

But comprehensive research has found that selecting salespeople based on hard data that’s generated through tools like The OMG Sales Candidate Assessment enables you to make decisions with relative certainty. It’s just a matter of putting the data to use and objectively selecting candidates based off of it. 

Interest in a free trial of the OMG Sales Candidate Assessment? You can register for a free test drive here.

For more helpful information on improving your sales hiring process, there are two eBooks to check out below. 

The Top 5 Reasons You Are Failing at Recruiting Consistently Great Sales Teams

Best Practice to Recruiting the Hardest Role in the Company

Everything You Need to Know About Phone Screening Sales Candidates

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Historically, most interviews for sales rep positions have been done in person. However, in recent years, there’s been a shift to holding initial conversations over the phone to make a baseline assessment of a candidate’s qualifications. 

And with COVID-19 greatly restricting in person interactions, phone screening is something that many companies are doing by necessity. 

Here’s everything you need to know about phone screening so that you can streamline the process and find the best of the best sales reps. 

The Purpose of Phone Screening

In an eBook called Best Practice to Recruiting the Hardest Role in the Company, sales development firm SG Partners explains why phone screening for this position is such a smart idea. 

“Because your salespeople need to engage over the phone — doesn’t it make sense to check that they can and will be able to engage effectively with your existing and potential clients? They need to convince you that they are worth progressing to the face to face interview stage.”

This is a simple way to assess how well sales candidates perform and which ones you should advance. It also provides you with instant insights into their personality, traits, sales style, and so on. As a result, you not only learn about a candidate’s hard skills but also their soft skills and how well they fit in with your company from a cultural standpoint.

Now that we better understand the context, here’s how to seamlessly implement phone screening. 

Keep it Brief 

Given that this is a preliminary stage in the hiring process, it’s not usually the time to ask in-depth, hard hitting questions that require a long winded response, says global HR consulting firm Robert Half International. Rather, the goal is to narrow down your list of candidates and pinpoint the ones you want to give serious consideration. 

Therefore, you should keep the phone screening brief — ideally somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes — and focus only on the essentials. Then, once you’ve finished this round, you can follow up with candidates who’ve advanced and dive into deeper questions during the official interview.

Create a Script

In order to accurately and objectively gauge sales candidates, you need to have a standardized phone screening process where every interaction is nearly identical. You need to have a script. 

Why? There are two main reasons. 

First, this creates a sense of homogeneity where every candidate can be viewed through the same lens, making your assessment less likely to be skewed by variables. It’s like creating the same conditions during a science experiment to ensure the results are valid.

Second, it helps you move through phone screenings faster and more efficiently. By sticking to a script and asking the same questions (something we’ll discuss in more detail in just a bit), you can navigate through the process more fluidly and not waste time. 

And this is important considering that on average, conducting phone interviews can increase the length of the recruitment process by 6.8 to 8.2 days. 

So, what exactly should a script look like?

Here’s a basic formula you can use:

  • Offer a quick introduction of who you are, what your company is about, and what you’re looking for in a sales rep
  • Ask a series of straightforward questions
  • Take notes
  • Ask follow up questions
  • Ask the candidate if they have any questions for you
  • Close letting them know when and how you’ll reach out to them next

Ask The Right Questions

The exact questions used during phone screenings will obviously vary from company to company. That said, applicant tracking system, Betterteam, has pinpointed seven key questions that work great for making an initial assessment of a sales candidate. 

Here they are.

Besides that, you may want to ask questions to see how much they know about your company and what makes them a good fit. Some examples include:

  • What products or services do we specialize in?
  • What was it that attracted you to our company?
  • Why makes you a better fit over other candidates?

Again, the goal here isn’t to know a candidate inside and out. It’s to get a basic feel for who they are, what their skill level is like, and how good of a fit they would be for a sales position. These questions should serve as a good starting point, and you can tweak them as needed. 

When it’s all said and done, shoot for somewhere between five to 10 phone screening questions, as that tends to be the sweet spot. 

Treat Each Candidate Equally

It’s also vital that you eliminate any bias and give each candidate the exact same opportunity. “Approach every conversation with a blank slate, and treat each candidate fairly and equally,” writes Robert Half. “Remain fully engaged during every call.”

This should prevent your judgment from being clouded, enabling you to make an accurate assessment of multiple candidates, which brings us to our final point. 

Use Objective Scoring

The final piece of the puzzle is to objectively quantify your results so that you use concrete data when deciding which candidates to advance. Typically, the easiest way to do this is to use a numerical rating system to rate how satisfied you are with a candidate’s response to each question. 

For example:

  • 5 is excellent
  • 4 is good
  • 3 is average
  • 2 is below average
  • 1 is poor 

Then, add these numbers up to score each candidate, and use this to decide who moves onto the next round of hiring. You should also incorporate a sales-specific assessment that uses data and science to objectively evaluate the candidate’s selling skills and capabilities to accurately predict the likelihood of success. 

Improving Overall Hiring With Phone Screening

Phone screening sales candidates is a proven way to filter through a large applicant pool and find the true rockstars. It’s just a matter of developing an efficient system that allows you to move through the process swiftly and seamlessly. 

Need help hiring sales talent. HireDNA sales recruiting platform makes hiring sales reps easy by delivering pre-screened and qualified sales professionals. Request a demo. 

These Are the Top 5 Traits to Look for in a Sales Rep Based on a Mountain of Research

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In another blog post, we talked about the importance of making hiring decisions based on data rather than a hunch. At the end of the day, sticking to a proven formula leads to better hires who are more productive and perform at a consistently high-level. 

It’s all about using science.

In this post, we’re going to expand on this topic and break down the top five traits to look for in a sales rep based on in-depth studies and a boatload of data. Let’s dive right in. 

The Sales Acceleration Formula By Mark Roberge

There are countless bodies of research that have analyzed what makes for a successful sales rep. For instance, sales strategist Steve W. Martin of The Harvard Business Review interviewed 1,000 top tier salespeople and performed personality tests on them in 2011. 

And the University of Florida conducted in-depth research in the early 2000’s to distinguish the difference between “tellers versus sellers.”

Research like this offers a ton of value, but one of the preeminent sources for identifying key traits is the work that former Chief Revenue Officer of HubSpot, Mark Roberge, did in 2015. He exhaustively analyzed a massive amount of data to come up with what he calls The Sales Acceleration Formula, which he wrote a book about. 

One of the key parts of his system is tapping into critical metrics to not only find high level sales reps, but create a more efficient process for doing so. After parsing through the data, Roberge came up with five specific traits he found most important. 

Here they are ranked by their importance. Drumroll…

1. Coachability

Above all else, Roberge found that being coachable and adaptable is the number one characteristic to look for in a sales rep. He specifically mentions how he’s had situations in the past where a rep who had incredible success in a prior position floundered in a new environment simply because they had a rigid attitude and weren’t open to input. For example, they had the mindset of “I’ve been selling for 10 years, and I’ll figure it out.”

But in today’s ultra dynamic business world, having a willingness to accept direction and feedback is of the utmost importance. In fact, some of the top reps Roberge has encountered who have “crushed it” are the ones who have been the most coachable. 

2. Curiosity

Next, he found that having a natural inquisitiveness is huge. Being curious about how a platform works, how it fits into a company’s sales model, how to solve a prospect’s pain points, and so on plays a key role in gaining a deep comprehension, and in turn, being an adept salesperson.

And this is a sentiment that’s shared by many other sales experts, like Matt Sunshine of The Center for Sales Strategy. “Great sellers are naturally curious and they can’t help but ask questions to learn more about how they can help.” In turn, they take that information and tailor their approach to meet the unique needs of each lead head on. 

3. Intelligence

Okay, this one is pretty obvious. A rep should always have a strong intellect and a high-level understanding of your industry, customer psychology, how your platform fits into a lead’s business model, and how to nurture a lead. It’s also helpful when they possess a solid emotional intelligence (EQ), where they know how to navigate issues like addressing prospect concerns, how to collaborate with other team members, and generally how to operate with tact. 

It should be noted that Roberge places intelligence far above what many would consider conventional sales skills like convincing, which involves an aggressive approach. Instead, he says that the top performing reps in this day and age tend to act more as consultants or trusted advisors to leads. They use their business savvy to help leads make critical decisions and explain how a platform can improve operations, rather than trying to “shove a product down their throats.”

4. Work Ethic

This trait should also come as no surprise. “Someone with a great work ethic will accelerate his or her learning curve and operate in a state of constant improvement,” explains The Muse in Forbes. “He or she will always look for ways to be better.”

Naturally being driven and willing to put in the time inevitably positions a rep for success and is integral to their evolution.

5. Prior Success

While prior success doesn’t 100% guarantee success within your company, it definitely factors in heavily. As long as a rep possesses the other four traits listed above, their odds of thriving are excellent. 

When it comes to assessing prior success, David Kurlan of Objective Management Group, explains that there are two specific criteria to look for:

  1. Sales reps reached 100% of their quota or better in a previous position
  2. They were in the top 26% of all salespeople

So, these should definitely be on your radar when assessing candidates. Kurlan also points out that using a science-based sales recruiting platform like HireDNA allows companies to identify reps in the top 6% of the total sales population. 

Always Look to the Data

The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge reaffirms what sales recruiting experts have been saying for years. Making smart hiring decisions hinges largely on looking at objective data to make assessments. 

After performing a mountain of research, Roberge was able to pinpoint the top five traits that electrifying reps possess — coachability, curiosity, intelligence, work ethic, and prior success. 

Using a science-based sales recruiting platform allows you to effectively zero in on these areas and provides you with quantifiable data to help you make the right decision. And the best part is that this is something that can easily be rinsed and repeated. 

Want to see how you can streamline your hiring process and find top tier talent? Book a HireDNA demo today. 

Why Hiring Decisions Should Be Based on Data, Not a Hunch

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Using your intuition and “following your gut” can be beneficial at times. And as humans, it’s something we’re naturally wired to do. 

In fact, research psychologist and author Gary Klein found that as many as “90% of the critical decisions we make are based on our intuition.”

But when it comes to critical business decisions like hiring, it’s better to take a data-driven approach rather than merely relying on “a hunch.” Here’s why. 

What the Harvard Business School Has to Say About It

In an article entitled The Advantages of Data-Driven Decision-Making, The Harvard Business Review (HBR) talks about how intuition has become deeply ingrained in the business world and the deep value that’s been placed on it over the years. 

“Society has imbued the concept of ‘intuition’ — of simply knowing when something is right or wrong — with a tremendous amount of prestige, importance, and influence,” the HBR explains. “The concept of intuition has become so romanticized in modern life that it’s now a part of how many people talk about and understand the ‘geniuses’ of our generation.”

They make specific mention to intellectual and business juggernauts, like Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, who relied heavily on their instinct for guidance. And while intuition has certainly factored into the success of notable figures like these, as well as other massive success stories like Henry Ford and Jeff Bezos, it doesn’t mean that it should be the default for making important hiring decisions.

The HBR says that intuition can definitely be a helpful tool, but there’s a strong body of research that says data-driven organizations have an inherent advantage over their competitors that rely less on data. In fact, they point to a study by PwC that found the former are three times more likely to experience “significant improvements” in decision-making than the latter. 

Let’s Quantify

Given that this article is all about the numbers, it’s only fair that we quantify exactly how much hiring decisions improve by taking a data-driven approach. According to separate research from the HBR, an algorithm that based candidate evaluations off of a simple equation outperformed human decisions by at least 25%. 

Further, using the algorithm allowed researchers to increase the accuracy of choosing productive employees by over 50%. That’s impressive! 

So, what specifically makes data superior to human intuition when it comes to hiring?

Brian Connelly, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management at the University of Toronto summarizes it well by saying, “the problem is that people are easily distracted by things that might be only marginally relevant, and they use information inconsistently.”

It’s also easy to fall into the trap of being overly charmed by a particular candidate’s personality, where you end up overlooking major flaws. You may also pass up a top tier talent simply because they don’t have a striking personality or you don’t feel an instant connection with them. 

This isn’t to say that you should mindlessly rely on machines to make every single hiring decision, and human input should definitely factor into the equation. But at the end of the day, it’s clear that using data is highly important. 

And given the high-powered tools that are readily available, it would be foolish to not take advantage of them. 

Finding Perfect Candidates

In a whitepaper called The Modern Science of Salesperson Selection, David Kurlan of Objective Management Group mentions how extensive research was done to identify “perfect candidates” — those that are virtually no fail and positioned for massive success.

Kurlan boiled it down to two specific criteria:

  • Candidates are top performers who reached 100% of their quota or better
  • They were ranked in the top 26% of all salespeople

Then, by using strong filters to assess core sales competencies, Kurlan was able to pinpoint candidates that were in the top 6% of the total sales population. This shows firsthand how making an objective assessment using the right data can help a company find the best of the best. 

It eliminates the guesswork and allows you to assemble a sales team based on legitimate skill and talent rather than merely a gut feeling. 

What Specific Data-Driven Assessment Tools Should You Use?

There are multiple sales assessment tools on the market, but there’s one in particular we recommend — the OMG Sales Candidate Assessment. It’s designed specifically for sales rather than simply “being tailored for sales” and evaluates 21 core sales competencies (not just personality traits) that have been objectively proven to predict success. 

Here’s what it looks like. 

And here’s a glimpse of the data that went into identifying the 21 core sales competencies that it analyzes. 

Using this tool provides you with a bird’s eye view of what each candidate brings to the table, providing you with quantitative data and allowing you to effectively predict their likelihood of success. 

Studies have found that a staggering 92% of recommended hires through the OMG Sales Candidate Assessment reach the top half of their sales force within a year and that it eliminates 96% of hiring mistakes using proven science. 

It’s even been rated as the number one predictive sales talent assessment for nine years straight by Top Sales World. 

Let’s Recap

Although there’s no denying that instinct can definitely play a role in business success, multiple studies have proven that it has its limitations, especially when it comes to hiring. Companies that choose candidates based on concrete data have a distinct advantage over their competitors that rely solely on emotion. 

It’s just a matter of using the right tool to analyze core sales competencies, and narrowing your candidate pool down to the top performers. 

Want to learn more about the process? Register for a free sales candidate assessment today. 

Are you hiring? Get pre-screened, assessed, and vetted sales candidates tailored to your hiring criteria and unique selling environment. Request a Demo of the HireDNA sales recruiting platform.

The Ultimate Guide to Interviewing and Hiring Rockstar Salespeople

Posted on by hiredna

What makes someone a winner in the sales world?

More importantly, how do you pick them out of the crowd, finding the small handful of champions out of hundreds of applicants?

In this guide, we’ll explain what goes into interviewing and hiring rockstar salespeople, while looking at science-backed data. 

Look for Candidates With These 5 Traits

Mark Roberge, former chief revenue officer of HubSpot, wrote a book called The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to Go from $0 to $100 Million. In it, he talks about how every company will have its own unique sales hiring formula, where the ideal salesperson will possess a distinct set of characteristics. 

That said, Roberge also mentions that there are some specific traits based on quantitative data that rockstar salespeople share across the board and that should always be on your radar when hiring. 

Here’s what those traits are, according to Roberge. 

So, being coachable, curious, and intelligent, while demonstrating a strong work ethic and having a proven record of success should be at the forefront of your mind when reaching out to candidates and conducting interviews. And you’ll want to create interview questions that help you gauge these specific areas. 

For full details, watch this Google talk from Mark Roberge. 

Seek Out Reps Who Can Be Trusted Advisors

One of the interesting points Roberge makes is that some of the characteristics that have historically been valued in salespeople, like being able to convince leads and possessing strong closing skills, were negatively correlated in his model of success. 

In other words, being overly aggressive and “salesy” can now end up doing more harm than good, and what most leads are really looking for is someone who can assume the role of a trusted advisor.

And there’s plenty of other research that backs this up. According to Salesforce, “79% of business buyers say it’s absolutely critical or very important to interact with a salesperson who is a trusted advisor — not just a sales rep — who adds value to their business.”

There’s just one problem. Only 3% of buyers trust reps!

While it may be many hiring manager’s first impulse to seek out slick, high powered reps that are “selling machines,” this data shows that this isn’t usually the best approach. Instead, you should look for candidates that exude trustworthiness and professionalism. Individuals that you could see being a consultant to your leads and who will make them feel comfortable throughout the buying journey — that’s who you want to look for. 

Assess Verbal Communication Skills Over the Phone

These days communication can happen over a variety of different channels, including email, live chat, social media, and even texting — none of which require actually speaking to a customer. That said, research has found that 92% of customer interactions still happen over the phone, with many deals being closed this way. 

That’s why you need to pay close attention to a candidate’s verbal communication skills and look for someone who is clear, articulate, and confident. One of the best ways to assess this is by simply having a brief phone interview during your preliminary round of hiring. 

Within the first few minutes, you should have a pretty good idea of what their verbal communication skills are like, and you can filter out anyone who struggles in this department. 

Can They Give an Epic Presentation?

“69% of consumers believe a product demo best assists them when making a purchase decision.” This is what ultimately connects the dots and lets them see how your product works, what its features are, and how it will make their life easier. 

So, being able to give a killer presentation and show off your product demo is absolutely essential. While this is something that can be learned to some degree, some people are naturally better at giving presentations than others. 

One of the simplest ways to gauge their skills in this area is to have them give you a mock demo. Here are some specific things to look for:

  • The ability to instantly build rapport
  • Deep knowledge of your industry and product
  • Taking a personalized approach
  • Making smooth segues
  • Asking relevant questions at opportune times
  • Being able to seamlessly handle objections and concerns
  • And most important great listening skills

Use an Interview Questionnaire and Scorecard

A common mistake many hiring managers make when interviewing and hiring is relying on “a gut feeling.” Don’t get me wrong, sometimes going on instinct works out fine. But other times, it can be a disaster and lead to excessive turnover, which negatively impacts productivity and profitability. 

Fortunately, we’re living in an era where data is more plentiful than ever, and taking a data-driven, scientific approach has never been easier. By using in-depth analysis, the right processes, and powerful tools, top sales leaders have been able to boost sales force productivity by 200% and close 3x more leads. 

An easy way to generate quantitative data when interviewing and hiring is to use a sales interview questionnaire and scorecard. By downloading a free template, you can streamline your interviewing process and ensure consistency across your pool of applicants. In turn, you’re able to evaluate candidates more effectively and identify those that align perfectly with your ideal candidate profile and hiring criteria, moving them swiftly to the next round of hiring. 

This keeps everyone on the same page and can be a massive time saver. Here’s a peak at what the HireDNA sales interview questionnaire and scorecard looks like. 

Finding Unicorns in a Sea of Donkeys

Interviewing and hiring aren’t always easy. With the average job attracting around 250 resumes, the sheer volume of applicants alone can be overwhelming. 

But developing a formula and focusing on critical areas, such as essential traits and abilities, should help you navigate the process with relative ease. Combine that with tools like a sales interview questionnaire and scorecard, and you can find rockstar salespeople who truly stand out, while developing a repeatable system. 

See how you can use the HireDNA sales recruiting platform to hire better sales talent, faster, using data and science to reduce hiring mistakes.

Increase Productivity By 38% and Profits By 27% With an Employee Engagement Strategy

Posted on by hiredna

Employee engagement is one of the hottest topics in the business world right now and something nearly all companies are trying to increase. And for good reason. 

“Organizations with higher than average levels of employee engagement realized 27% higher profits, 50% higher sales, 50% higher customer loyalty levels, and 38% above-average productivity.”

It’s hard to argue with those numbers. But how can you increase sales rep motivation in a practical, concrete manner?

It’s simple. Create an employee engagement strategy. 

The Impact an Employee Engagement Strategy Can Have

Before we dive in too far, let’s discuss just how big of an impact this can have. To put things into perspective, we must first understand how prevalent employee disengagement currently is. 

According to research, 45% of the workforce is not engaged, and 26% of employees are actively disengaged. That’s a huge problem and means that less than a third (29%) of employees are actively engaged.

Further, “disengaged workers cost the economy $300 billion or more per year,” mainly because they’re only there for the paycheck and do the bare minimum to not get fired. This scene featuring Peter Gibbons in the movie Office Space summarizes this trend perfectly. 

But having an official employee engagement strategy in place is arguably the best way to slash through disengagement. Not only does it help boost productivity and profits, it tends to make the workplace a more pleasant place and naturally enhances the collective culture. 

Besides that, companies with high employee engagement have a 41% lower absenteeism rate. And having a positive company culture results in 4x the revenue. One study even found that 90% of business leaders believe an employee engagement strategy could yield positive results for their company. 

How to Create an Employee Engagement Strategy

Now let’s get down to brass tacks. Here’s how to develop a winning employee engagement strategy for your business. 

Step 1 – Pinpoint Your Specific Goals

Of course you’ll want to increase productivity and boost profitability. Those are givens. 

But the first step to shaping your strategy is to look deeper and pinpoint a handful of specific goals you want to accomplish with your employee engagement strategy. 

Some examples can include:

  • Raising collective employee satisfaction levels
  • Reducing turnover
  • Motivating employees to stay with your company longer
  • Creating a more positive, collaborative culture 

Once you’ve got these nailed down, it’s time for step two. 

Step 2 – Build an Action Plan Based on the 10 Key Engagement Drivers

When you break it all down, there are 10 main factors that contribute most heavily to employee engagement and overall satisfaction. Here they are. 

Therefore, these are the primary areas to focus on and will help shape your approach. The trick is to analyze each of these factors and prioritize them in the order of the most importance. 

For example, your top three engagement drivers may be:

  1. Recognition and rewards
  2. Wellness and balance
  3. Career growth

Those would be the top three you would want to focus on, and have everything else come after that.  

Step 3 – Identify Actionable Ways to Improve Top Engagement Drivers

Once you’ve identified your top engagement drivers, you need to devise actionable strategies to improve them. 

If, for instance, recognition and rewards was your number one priority, you might encourage managers and higher ups to continually praise employees and thank them for a job well done. “70% of employees say that motivation and morale would improve ‘massively’ with managers saying thank you more,” according to a Reward Gateway study.

You might create a rewards program, where employees receive things like bonuses, paid time off, gift cards, and so on, for exceeding expectations. Here are some more ideas on this. 

Or, you might even go so far as to hold an annual event where you pass out awards to your team and acknowledge areas where they’ve excelled. Think Dunder Mifflin’s “Dundies” awards from The Office. 

Step 4 – Determine How to Measure Outcomes 

Quantifying your results is absolutely essential. Without having an effective means of analyzing the impact, it’s hard to gain any real progress. So, you’ll want to figure out which KPIs to look at and be diligent about keeping tabs on the numbers. 

One of the most straightforward KPIs is your turnover rate before implementing an employee engagement strategy and after. 

Say your turnover rate hovered around the average of 17.8% before developing an employee engagement strategy. But after a year of having it in place, you were able to drop it to just 10% — a good number experts say to aim for. 

That would mean you were able to lower your turnover rate by roughly 8%, which would indicate that your efforts were definitely paying off.

Step 5 – Set a Realistic Budget 

While some aspects of an employee engagement strategy are basically free (e.g. having managers thank employees for doing quality work), others like bonuses and gift cards require an investment.

So, you need to come up with a realistic budget that allows you to get the results you’re looking for without killing your profits margins. At the end of the day, it’s about getting the best return on your investment. 

This begs the question. Just how much should you spend on an employee engagement strategy?

A 2016 study found that around 1% of payroll is a good number to shoot for. “When companies make this level of investment, they are nearly three times as likely to rate their program as excellent, compared to companies that invest less.”

Taking Employee Engagement from So-So to Stellar

Although employee engagement has risen slightly over the past decade, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

Hands down, one of the best ways to attack this problem is by developing an employee engagement strategy. And with only a quarter of businesses having one in place, this should put you ahead of much of the competition. 

A big part of having a highly engaged workforce is choosing the right employees from the get-go. See how HireDNA can help refine your recruiting through powerful technology and science-based sales assessments. 

An Employer’s Step-By-Step Guide to Developing a Sales Performance Improvement Plan

Posted on by hiredna

When a sales rep is noticeably underperforming, you have two choices. 

1) Let them go and find a replacement, or 2) create a sales performance improvement plan (PIP) to help them get back on track. 

Considering the average cost of hiring a new sales rep is about $15,000, plus $20,000 in training, choosing the latter option is often the best choice, especially when a person shows promise.

Here’s an actionable, step-by-step guide to developing a rock solid sales PIP to maximize a rep’s potential, help them boost their confidence, and coach them into a sales powerhouse. 

Step 1 – Examine Their Sales Funnel

In some cases, the main reason for underperformance is simply a leak in their sales funnel. If there’s a particular stage where a large number of leads are dropping out, you’ll want to identify it. 

Maybe, for example, you find that after providing a demo, the rep’s leads aren’t converting like they should. When done correctly, “a demo video can increase conversions by 85%.” But if it’s not hitting the mark and is low quality, doesn’t fully explain the benefits of your product, or is too long, it can result in leads backing out prematurely. 

Research has found that nearly 40% of leads lose interest once a video hits two minutes in length. 

So, the first step is to get a bird’s eye view of your sales funnel and see if there are any changes you can make to put your rep in a better position to succeed. 

Step 2 – Look at Lost Opportunities

Next, you can gain insight by analyzing key opportunities a rep has lost in the past. Examine at least five situations, and patterns should emerge. 

For instance, maybe there’s a trend where using a particular sales technique, like being too pushy and trying to force the sale, is turning leads off. 

Step 3 – Get to the Root of the Problem

The data gathered on lost opportunities combined with leaks in the sales funnel should provide you with a clear vantage point on the exact cause behind a sales rep’s low performance. 

Beyond that, you’ll want to see if there are any other factors behind it, such as:

  • The rep is experiencing personal issues that are negatively impacting their performance
  • They didn’t receive adequate training and coaching
  • They don’t have the right incentive to operate at their best 
  • Their confidence was shaken after losing a major deal 

To streamline the evaluation of your sales team, you can use a tool like HireDNA to identify weaknesses and generate concrete data for crystal clear insights. 

Then, put all of this information together to get to the root of the problem, as this will shape the specific path you take with the rest of your sales PIP. 

Step 4 – Set Quantifiable Goals

At this point, you’ll want to clearly state where your rep is currently at in terms of their sales performance and where they need to be. To do this effectively, you’ll need to set quantifiable goals so a rep knows what your expectations are. 

Here’s a simple example. Say that the rep has a volume-based sales quota, which is measured by the number of products they sell or the total revenue they generate for a particular period. They’re currently only selling an average of 30 products each month, but they need to sell 40. 

This would mean they’re only hitting 75% of their quota, so they need to increase their sales by 25%. Having a clear number like this shows a rep exactly how much they need to improve, which eliminates any ambiguities or confusion. To make this process more manageable, it’s wise to break large goals into smaller sub-goals.

Here are some examples:

  • Connect with at least 35 leads per week — 7 per day 
  • Show at least 10 demos per week — 2 per day
  • Spend at least 3 hours each day speaking with leads over the phone or on video conferencing software 

Step 5 – Provide Reps With the Right Tools and Resources

Once you’ve outlined the level a rep needs to get to, it’s up to you to help them get there. For instance, you could provide them with continuous sales training by assigning them a mentor and giving them access to an online education portal. This alone, can result in up to 50% higher net sales per employee. 

Or, you could give them a cutting-edge sales tool, such as a mobile CRM, that helps reps manage leads more efficiently, so they can spend less time on redundant tasks like data entry and more time selling. Research has found that for companies that use a mobile CRM, 65% of reps hit their sales quotas, whereas only 22% of reps reach their target without one. 

Step 6 – Motivate

Another integral part of the process is figuring out how to effectively motivate each rep. At the end of the day, much of their output hinges upon motivation, so you need to know what they’ll truly respond to.

According to The Harvard Business Review, here are some specific motivation strategies that work best:

  • Don’t place a cap on commissions – A study found that this keeps most salespeople motivated and increases revenue by around 9%. 
  • Offer quarterly bonuses rather than annual ones – “They help laggards contribute to the bottom line without detracting from the performance of other groups.”
  • Make employee recognition part of your company culture – Nearly 70% of reps say they would work harder if they felt more appreciated. 

Step 7 – Measure

And finally, track their progress at logical intervals. For example, look at KPIs two weeks after implementing the sales PIP, after one month, after two months, and so on. 

This will let you know precisely how much progress a rep has made and if additional improvements are necessary. 

Developing a Winning Sales PIP

Firing a rep for underperforming is seldom a recipe for success, and is both costly and time-consuming. Instead, it often makes more sense to enhance a rep’s performance by creating a sales PIP. 

In many cases, this not only gets them up to par with the rest of your team, it allows you to extract their full potential, which improves your company’s bottom line. 

HireDNA is a platform that’s designed to optimize recruiting and build a stronger sales team. Learn how HireDNA’s assessment tools can help you perform individual performance evaluations, while taking a science-based approach.