Welcome to Day 7 of X-Factor: 10 Days of Epic Sales Knowledge! Week 2 continues with an article from Don Cash.
At Xvoyant we are privileged to work with the world’s greatest Sales Leaders and Sales Organizations. Getting to see how the best in the business work reveals a lot of common traits. The best sales teams generally are fueled by predictable process. This includes processes around how they hire. Don Cash is the SVP of Global Inside Sales for BMC Software. He’s run Inside Sales at some of the world’s most successful inside sales organizations. As he’s built these high performing sales engines, he’s built a playbook on how to hire great salespeople. Today, Don has shared excerpts from his hiring playbook that have helped him build killer sales teams in several different companies. Don knows a thing or two about going fast…whether he’s winning awards for inside sales growth or building high performance cars that challenge for land speed records, one thing is for sure: Don Cash can help you move fast. Step aside Ricky Bobby…
Here is where you can follow Don:
Website: www.bmc.com
LinkedIn: /in/doncash/
Hiring Kick Ass Salespeople
World-class sales hiring is the biggest reason for world-class sales results. Seems easy right?! Making the right hiring decision is a make or break decision with a huge upside or a huge downside. Everyone knows the financial impact of a bad hire in lost real dollars in time and compensation, and the more important lost “opportunity costs” for unrealized sales revenue and customer satisfaction. This entire article could be written on why a bad hire sucks; however, I would prefer to discuss how to make the right hiring decisions and more importantly, how to increase your chances of good hiring and mitigate the risks of bad hiring.
DISCLAIMER: If I terminate a sales rep for poor performance, even after working through solid performance improvement plans, I tend to take it very personal. It is due to 1 of 3 main reasons that they failed and they are all my fault.
- They did not have enough patch. That is on me. They should always have a relatively equal and fair playing field. I can generally course correct here in time.
- They did not have enough training. Again, my fault. This can be fixed also.
- I hired the wrong rep. I usually find in retrospect that I was sloppy in the interview or background and reference check process and simply hired the wrong person. This is generally the main reason I have failures in hiring…I own it.
Most sales managers feel there is more of an art than science in interviewing and selecting top sales candidates. I agree that there is some amount of “gut” feel that I rely on throughout the interview process that could be described as the “art” of hiring. However, my approach has always been to make it as scientific as possible. By “scientific” I mean the constant factor that is recognized in nearly all successful sales reps. How do I determine these constants and how do I test for them in sales candidates I am interviewing? Most look for industry knowledge and experience as top criteria for hiring. I have not found that to be the best criteria at all. It can certainly be helpful in ramp time but not a constant in successful reps. I tend to look for ten key traits that most of my successful reps have exhibited and test for them in the process. Science, not art. Here are my top three;
#3 Good Communicators. Can the candidate communicate well in the phone interview? E-mail communication? The face-to-face interview? How do they communicate responses to tough questions? How do they present? OK, so there is some art to how you judge and evaluate good communication but come on…
SALES HIRING HACK: I find asking a candidate to do an impromptu whiteboard elevator pitch and value proposition to me as a potential client for their current sales role is key. Impromptu means thinking on their feet. If I’m hiring people who are successful in what they have been doing, they should have no problem giving me a value prop presentation for 5 min or less. This results in one of two things. They nail it and good communication is key…or they fail miserably. Hem and stammer? Flow of thought process and summary? High energy, passion and enthusiasm for their product/solution that comes through loud and clear? Would I want to buy from this person after that presentation? Did they ask any questions before starting after I asked for the presentation to help set up the scenario? Honestly, there seems to be very few “average” presentations. If their assigned Sales Engineer does all the demos, you will see that very quickly. These are either Kick-Ass Rockstar quality presentations… or they suck. I have not had anyone fail as a rep who nailed this impromptu preso…unless my #1 trait is missing (spoiler alert: Work Ethic).
#2 Naturally Curious and Coachable The biggest question I look forward to asking my candidates is if they have any questions for me!! Does the candidate have a written list of questions that are good questions? Not “what is the dental plan?”. Do they ask good open-ended questions and follow on questions (not written down) after you answer? Do they generally want to know what this sales opportunity is all about and want details on why it is a great opportunity? Do they ask about the top reps and why I think they are successful? My top reps love to understand why a pain point for a customer is a pain point and what that means to them. They have that sympathy/empathy that only comes from truly understanding what it is like to be a customer and how our solutions help them.
SALES HIRING HACK: I find “Coachability” is a tough trait to test for in the interview process but we ask early in the interview what do they tell their mom or sister on her question of “who is BMC?” Depending on the answer (hopefully it was crisp and in “mom” terminology), I always give them positive feedback on what they said well and then make 1 or 2 recommendations on how to say it differently or what they may want to include. Later in the interview I ask them the same question and see if they included my recommendations in the new answer to “who is BMC?”. This tells me if they are open to receiving constructive feedback and if they will do that in the role. (KEY: Make sure you and the frontline managers are good coaches! What is the point of looking for coachable reps if you are not coaching them?)
#1 Work Ethic This is and always will be my key trait. Nothing happens until a rep picks up a phone. How much effort did they put into the 30-60-90 day plan? The case study homework? Did they work summer jobs and/or part time in high school and college? Did they pay for any of their car, gas, insurance or repair expenses? Ask to have them show you their work week calendar and see how full it is. Structured days? A full calendar is a byproduct of hard work, I get it. I absolutely hate the saying, “I work smart, not hard”. What??? What would happen if you did both? I would always take someone with a good work ethic over natural sales talent. Laziness has burned me a few times with absolutely great sales talented individuals. Give me an Idaho farm kid all day long and I will coach them. You can’t coach work ethic.
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If you want to find out more about changing behavior in your sales teams with Xvoyant Coaching Technology,
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You can get caught up with past day’s articles by clicking on their titles below:
Day 1: X-Factor: 10 Days of Epic Sales Knowledge
Day 2: Annoying Persistence vs. Professional Persistence
Day 3: The Most Important Attribute in Coaching Top Performing Salespeople
Day 4: Transformation in the Digital Era
Day 5: Designing a Social Sales Blueprint for Sales Leadership in 2018
Day 6: One Haunting Sales Statistic Every Sales Leader Should Know
Day 7 Bonus: It is Time for More Women in Sales
Day 8: The Five Keys to Great Sales Coaching
Day 8 Bonus: 5 Lessons A 2-Year Old Can Teach You About Sales Coaching
Day 9: Why Impact Eats Value for Breakfast
Day 9 Bonus: Top 3 Coaching Mistakes Made by Good Sales Managers