How to Avoid Sales Hiring Mistakes

Have you ever made what you thought was a great sales hiring decision and later realized that it was a mistake?This article will provide you with information about how you can avoid sales hiring mistakes by measuring the person, not the experience.Whether you're an executive, a manager or a team leader, the following information will be beneficial to you.

You are bursting with pride at your most recent hire in the sales department.You lured the guy with a high sales quota from his job at Giant Company to work with your small, entrepreneurial startup and told him you wanted him to work the same magic for you that he worked there.You believe he can do it or you wouldn't have gone after him.He believes he can do it or he wouldn't have left his job there to come to work for you.

He arrives wearing his best suit and carrying his updated Rolodex.You put him in a great spot and wait for superior sales figures.And wait.And wait some more.The sales figures you expected never materialize, even though he's always on the phone and seems to be rattling lots of doorknobs.You try to analyze the situation and can't put your finger on the problem.The gears just never seem to mesh.He's always out of step with your expectations and never quite reaches the level of performance you see in your sales leaders.Or he reached a certain level and never went beyond that.Now he is marching in place.

Such disastrous hiring doesn't have to happen, yet it often does.Why?It's linked to a belief that excellent salespeople are born, not made, and that sales success in one place easily translates to sales success anywhere.These beliefs ignore the fact that a great part of the top salesperson's success at his previous company was linked to that company's culture.Oh yes, a previously successful salesperson can be successful in your company too.But success in your company will depend on you redefining his role, training him well, and both of you thinking about selling for your company in a different way.In short, you can't import his previous success without key changes.

Prior sales success is often the sole criterion that hiring managers look at when considering a candidate for this crucial position.After all, that star by the quota line is a quantitative measurement.You don't get to count the notches in the belt of most other employees.So why is a previous track record a bad thing to look at?

It's not, unless it's the only thing you are looking at.Don't let your search end there.Look within as much as you do without.Study your own company and customers, and think about what you want sales excellence to look like.Only when you have discerned what your company's culture requires can you begin to develop a profile for what your top salespersons should look like.

Doing this is not terribly hard if you are willing to look at people in your company who are already tops in sales and still growing, achieving ever-higher quotas and building on their successes.They will provide you with the standards you need to hire future top salespeople.

Failures at sales are mostly due to a person's underdeveloped skills and to selling the wrong thing.You can put someone with good skills in a nice suit and give her lots of contacts, and she still won't be able to sell if she doesn't have the right attitude, vision, skills and training that you provide.

Also consider that good salespeople are not necessarily born.Some make it look so easy that it seems like native ability, but just like any job done well, a talent for selling takes training, practice and commitment.Yes, there's an art to attaining superior sales, but art is not magic.If you combine the right characteristics that assessments can help you discern with the right training, hiring top salespeople is a science that enhances the art.

About the Author

Jim Sirbasku is co-founder and CEO of Profiles International, a leading provider of human resource management solutions and employment assessments for businesses worldwide.

For more information about how you can avoid sales hiring mistakes, visit our website.

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Five Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make That Stifle Their Own Success

Being a successful entrepreneur involves more than just having the right idea. Becoming a successful entrepreneur involves being aware of the common mistakes made when starting a business in order to prevent them before it its too late. Employing expert business coaching will help to learn about the many dangers in business in order to succeed.

Failing to Think Outside the Box

In order to turn a brilliant business idea into a successful company, you must be able to think creatively; you need to have a vision and the ability to think outside the box. Expert business coaching can teach you how to forget the mentality of ordinary thinking that has been encroached on most people.

Some of the world's most successful business people will say their secret to success was their ability to figure out and utilize new and inventive methods. Whether it is conducted through telephone coaching, or face-to-face, business coaching is a highly effective way to identify which problems will require a little creative thought to find a solution.

Taking On Too Much At Once

One common and often fatal mistake an entrepreneur can make is thinking that asking others for help is a sign of weakness. This is completely false. Mentors and coaches can provide entrepreneurs with a lot of support and hold new business owners responsible for achieving their own goals. Which business tasks can be held off or outsourced and which ones should take a priority, can be determined through business and telephone coaching.

Poor Organizational Skills

Failing to stick to a list wastes all of the hard work that goes into making one. The secret to a successful entrepreneurial venture is not only getting organized, but also learning how to maintain it and learning how to focus. Although it may be hard to believe, many successful business people are forced to deal with ADD and have difficulty focusing on a particular task.

Through business coaching, you can learn how to get over these ADD tendencies and stay on track. As an easy and convenient way to add business coaching into your life daily, try telephone coaching. This way, you can contact your mentor as soon as you encounter problems with your organization.

The Tendency to Be Over-Controlling

It is easy to understand why you cherish your business idea and that you think the person best suited to turn that idea into as successful business is you, but sometimes it is necessary to allow others to have control. When you attempt to do all of the work yourself, money and time that you cannot afford to lose will inevitably be wasted.

Expert business coaching can teach you how to deal with the aspects of the business that you find difficult because you either dislike the work or are simply not very efficient at it. The basic daily chores associated with running a business can easily eat up your day and it is vital to the success of your business to stay focused on your vision.

Poor Choices Involving Business Relationships

The relationships forged between entrepreneurs, business partners, employees, and clients are vital components of a successful business. When business relationships become personal ones, it almost certainly will lead to problems.

Interestingly, professional business coaches will tell you that entrepreneurs that come from dysfunctional homes are more likely to form unhealthy business relationships. Business coaching is an effective method of coming up with different ways to keep business relationships from going the wrong direction.

You can keep your business on the right path simply by educating yourself so that you do not end up committing one of these five mistakes. Business coaching will not only teach you how to avoid them, but also help you to identify them.


About the Author

Christine O'Kelly is an author for the successful Raleigh psychotherapist and executive business coach, Barry Selman. He has worked as an executive business coach for a variety of professionals who desire to grow their business and achieve their professional and personal goals.

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