The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » Hiring and recruiting

Now, when sharing the notion of full accountability with my clients, I expect some pushback from managers and executives around taking on this position. I hear things like, “C’mon Keith, 100%. Don’t managers get a little bit of a break here? How can we be fully accountable when I’m already stretched thin and still expected to achieve higher sales goals with fewer resources. Doesn’t the salesperson have some role and responsibility in this? After all it’s their career and it’s what they were hired to do. I mean, what if…”

No, I didn’t cut this person off. I actually heard them through completely. That’s why we’re going to list all of the ‘what if’s’ (a.k.a excuses) that I’ve heard managers react with when I challenged them with adopting this principle. Here are all the reasons I’ve heard as to why managers feel they should not be fully responsible for their salespeople.

1. I just got promoted and inherited my sales team. I didn’t hire these people.


2. We don’t do background checks. Sometimes, you just don’t have all the information to make the best hiring decision.


3. Some of these veteran salespeople have been here forever. You can’t change them, they’re too set in their ways.


4. We don’t have time for a sales training and coaching program. We need people producing and out in the field.


5. It was HR’s fault. Our/my sales training is great.


6. That’s normal in my industry. Turnover is just something we just have to deal with. We just accept it as part of our hiring practices.


7. That responsibility was not part of my job description.


8. I don’t have the authority to make hiring and firing decisions.


9. We can’t offer competitive packages like other companies can. It’s straight commission. No salary or benefits. So, as you can imagine, we attract only a certain type of person and not always the high end salesperson. We do our best to play the hand we’re dealt.


10. We don’t have an evaluation process.


11. There’s just this one person who no matter how hard I try I just can’t get along with. They probably shouldn’t be here anyway. They just make my job tougher.


12. Actually, I agree with you, Keith. But here’s the thing. The problem is really this; it’s my boss. He’s the real bottleneck to making any positive changes.


13. The salespeople are really independent contractors. So if they need help, they should get help on their own. Besides, they should be able to manage themselves.


14. They fail, then they really weren’t cut out for this position.


15. We’ve given them training. Two weeks of training which covers all of our product line. Soft skill development? No.


16. Needed help? Then they should have come to us. We would have helped them. That’s their responsibility. How can I read their mind if they’re having a problem.


17. My sales team is awesome. It’s the other divisions we have to interact and work closely with that are bringing our numbers down.


18. I need quick studies. If they don’t pick it up fast, then chances are this position isn’t for them. I don’t have time to baby sit them. That’s our qualification process; the strong survive.


19. I worked with that guy for three weeks of solid, on the job training. And still nothing.


20. You can’t make any headway in this company. They’re opposed to doing that sort of thing.


21. The President and her board already feel that things are going well and this is not a priority. So why change? And if that’s how they feel, what can I do?


22. I told them to call the other salespeople for help.


23. It’s hard to find good sales talent out there now. Our market is super competitive and this is what I have to work with.

Interestingly, in each of these excuses, there is one common denominator that travels down the road called, YOU DRIVE! Here’s what I’ve responded with when hearing these or what the client had to come to terms doing.

“Ultimately, you have a choice, yes?”

What managers lack in accountability is made up for in their excuses or justifications for performance. The secret is, the real power comes in taking full ownership. The alternative is to play the helpless, powerless victim. And this role is filled coming from a place of weakness, devoid of power and from which no new possibilities can ever grow. For you’ve given up your greatest power; the power of choice.

These excuses are a declaration for these managers, as if they are etched in the stone writings of their predecessors that must never be challenged nor questioned. And each one of these justifications has the power of hands on experience and the evidence behind it to support its truth. But, still, where does that leave any of these managers? They’re still dealing with the same problem or stuck with a team of underperformers. At the end of the day, these managers have surrendered. They’ve given up. They’ve lost. The instant you begin to buy into a justification, you’ve started to surrender your personal power.

Then comes the next reaction I hear. “Okay, Keith, so now I’m a believer. Here’s another situation. Lets say we have constructed the most comprehensive recruiting and retention program you’ve ever seen. We have checklists, assessments and personality profiles. We’re doing background checks, speaking with prior employers and even their co-workers.

Once the preliminary work is done, we have each new candidate drive-along with one of our salespeople for one full day so they get to experience the job first hand and in the trenches. Each candidate is interviewed by a minimum of twelve people from their new colleagues to the senior leaders over the course of fifteen separate meetings.

Prior to the official hire, we have them spend three days working in the office, performing their job functions. Then, upon their official hire, we implement at your suggestion, a Thirty Day New Hire Orientation Program which details the daily regimented training and coaching they will be receiving, as well as the measurable results they would be responsible for at the end of the first thirty days on the job. Finally, we team them up with a sales coach to support them on a weekly basis. Now, even with an infallible system like this, in spite of everything, they don’t cut it. Are you telling me it’s still my fault?”

My response to this, “Has this happened yet to you?”

That’s about the time the conversation ends. Because any company that has these safeguards and measurables like these entrenched in their recruiting and retention process has reduced their risk of failure one hundred fold if not more, mathematically speaking. That is, the companies I’ve worked with who have implemented a program like the one I’ve described have seen their numbers shrink from a whopping 78% attrition rate of salespeople within the first year to less than 3%.

If you’re not making a choice to live responsibly, then you’re making a story.

“What is that guy doing now?” It was just an odd maneuver. Something out of the ordinary from what would have typically been an everyday experience at the drive through of a Burger King. (Hey, my kids love it and no, they don’t eat this ever day; just a treat!) I was on my way back home after spending the day with the family, unaware that within the next several minutes I’d be having a breakthrough which led to the development of many of the concepts and strategies you’re going to read about in my book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions.

I watched the customer in front of me drive from the first to the third window of the drive through which happened to have been closed. “What an odd maneuver,” I thought, as I noticed that the typical handoff through the drive through window was not in play. Instead, the cashier came outside, headset in tact and bags of food in hand, to deliver it directly to the window. The customer, happy to receive his order, drove off.

As I pulled up, I wondered if I too would suffer the same fate as the customer before me. Then it happened. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a digital timer mounted above the cashier’s head near the window. At that moment, the manager at the drive in window waved me forward, without my food. “We will bring it out to you. Just pull up, please,” he requested.

The manager sent a young man out to my car and handed me my food. Wanting to understand this odd tactic, I couldn’t let it go. “I’m curious, why did we have to pull up, especially when there was no one behind me?”

“The timer,” he replied. “That’s how the manager is rated in performance. We’re supposed to serve each customer under a certain period of time.”

As a manager, is this truly a feat you’d want to be known for? This manager actually succeeded at beating the clock, yet at a greater expense and one that most managers are blind to. Then, with a puzzled look of disbelief, these managers are mystified when their staff doesn’t meet expectations of performance. This manager unknowingly or worse, consciously did his company, every customer, as well as every person on his team, a major disservice.

Is there really any wonder why there is such a shallow pool of real talent in the workforce? At some level, across every business unit, industry or profession, this is what our managers are teaching the workforce – how to skirt and dodge full accountability! And then they sit and wonder why they can’t attract better people into their organization who are fully accountable for their performance and success. Hmmmmmm.

Like many business owners and sales managers right now, there’s a strong initiative to recruit new talent that can drive sales during these more challenging times. Companies are scrambling to find more rainmakers rather than order-takers to build out their sales team – and the line of disparity continues to widen between the two, as many salespeople are struggling to keep up and make the necessary and rapid changes needed in their sales process and strategy, as well as in how they think in order to adapt to and thrive in this new marketplace.

Yet, as I’ve observed with several of my clients, diligent recruiting efforts and putting the hours in each day to find the right candidates is simply not enough, as I see many companies continue to make the wrong hiring decision. Sure, they’re asking many of the right questions, doing their best to disqualify each candidate in their effort to avoid being seduced by potential or ‘being sold’ on a candidate who in your heart you know isn’t the best fit. They even tell me that they hear my voice in their head when interviewing a candidate (gee, that could be a scary thing : -) saying, “Remember, hire from choice. Don’t hire out of need. Don’t compromise your standards. A mediocre hire breeds a mediocre sales team.”

While any business owner, HR professional, recruiter or sales manager can be hyper-sensitive to this, it’s still not enough to ensure the best hire. After all, if a candidate tells you during the interview process that they’re used to calling on a certain type of prospect or have no problem making cold calls and then when you hire them you come to find that they’re reluctant or unwilling to pick up the phone or are unable to cold call as effectively as they told you they could, where did you miss the mark? Where was the sign; the red flag?

One manager I spoke with readily admitted that even though they are doing their best to stay true to the standards and expectations they have regarding the caliber of people they hire, he realized that he was still asking questions that were leading the candidate to where he wanted them to be. That is, he was asking the questions that would give him what he wanted to hear, thus justifying his hiring decision. Here are two examples of the leading questions managers unknowingly ask that cause them to make the wrong hire – and into the depths of recruiting hell. “So, you don’t mind having to pick up the phone and make some cold calls each day?” “This position is for people who are team players, organized, motivated and are open to learning our way of selling that may be a bit different from the way you’ve done things in the past. Can you share with me some of the qualities you possess that you feel would make you successful here?”)

Finding your next star player requires more than having them simply sell you on why they are a solid fit for a position on your sales team. And it goes beyond anything you’ll be able to decipher or read into when evaluating their resume. While many managers and recruiters have taken the time to develop what they feel is a solid hiring strategy and screening process, they’re missing the mark when it comes to uncovering whether or not the person has the right selling acumen, make up, disposition, drive, persistence, experience and ability that would make them a successful salesperson within your company. Consider this; it’s one thing to determine if someone would fit nicely into your corporate culture. It’s an entirely different set of criteria that’s needed to uncover whether that person is truly the right fit for your sales culture.

Making the Right Hiring Decision Requires A Better Set Of Questions

There’s an entirely different set of questions that you’re not asking which is causing the breakdown in your recurring efforts. I’m referring to the type of questions that go many layers deeper, exposing exactly the candidate’s experience as it relates to the type of selling they did and who they sold to. Generic questions about their sales experience, how many years of they’ve been in sales, whether or not they’ve ever been trained or what they have sold in the past are the type of questions that managers and recruiters ask that seemingly qualify or disqualify a candidate. Unfortunately, the hiring decision is then made based on the wrong set of intelligence and data, thus forming an inaccurate perception of the potential new salesperson you’re thinking of hiring.

The next time you’re in recruiting mode, its critical to weave in this deeper set of qualifying questions to determine with greater pinpoint accuracy whether or not this salesperson is going to thrive on your team – or be another survivor who’s holding on to their job and their few selling opportunities by a thread. Rather than fill in the knowledge gaps about the candidate regarding their perceived abilities or experience with costly and inaccurate assumptions, here’s a list of 20 additional questions from the trenches that you can start asking during your next interview.

1. What was the average size of each sale? (Dollar amount, cost of goods/services sold.)


2. What type of appointments were you scheduling when prospecting or cold calling? What was the goal here?


3. Where the appointments on site/face to face with each prospect or via the phone?


4. When actually closing a sale, did you actually sell over the phone or did you have to meet each prospect in person?


5. Did you sell a product, a service or both? (Describe how you sold each product and why there was a different approach.)


6. Did you handle the entire sales process from start to finish, including the deliverable? (Was there an account executive who you worked with, was it a team oriented approach to selling, were you only responsible for certain aspects of the sale?)


7. Describe to me the products or services you’ve sold? (Complicated or simple?)


8. Did you sell something that had an online component? Was it strictly a service? (Where they selling the tangible or the intangible?)


9. Was your product/service a “nice to have,” a “want to have” (luxury, added benefit) or a
   need to have?” (Was it a necessity, i.e. gasoline, telecom, office supplies, utilities, mobile phones, insurance, etc.)


10. What do you consider ‘prospecting’ and ‘cold calling’ to be? How do you feel about having to engage in this activity? (We’re looking to uncover how they think and feel about prospecting; their perception of it.)


11. What type of prospecting and cold calling did you do? How much cold calling did you do each day/week? (Number of calls made.) How many calls did you have to make to (get an appointment, close a sale, uncover a new prospect, etc.)?


12. Please share with me what your typical approach would be when cold calling. (Describe not only your process but exactly what you said when you were making a cold call.)


13. Who was your target audience/prospect? (B2b, b2c, C level executives, business owners, sole practitioners, were you dealing with only one decision maker or did you have to coordinate with several decision makers, influencers, committees, board members, etc.)


14. When were you calling on them? (Time, day, frequency of calls, etc.)


15. What was the average size of the company you called on?


16. What markets did you focus on? (Type of company, industry, vertical, etc.)


17. How did you get your leads/uncover your prospects? Where the cold calls you made totally cold or were you getting them from another source and then following up with them? (These would be warmer leads from trade shows, web inquiries, referrals, call-ins, direct mail and marketing efforts, etc.)


18. What were the concerns or objections that you typically encountered with your prospects? (What stalled your sales efforts?)


19. How long was your average sales cycle? (From the time you connected with a qualified prospect up until the time when you converted that prospect into a client.)


20. Were you selling based on a bidding process, RFP’s, etc.?

The next time you’re searching for a sales champion to bring aboard your sales team, you can avoid the hiring nightmares simply by asking more specific, sales-oriented questions that will provide you with the critical, detailed information that you’ve never uncovered before. Whether your recruiting and hiring efforts become a painful, never ending process will depend upon how you approach and perceive each candidate. That is, view each candidate you’re thinking about hiring as a prospect who you’d like to sell to, as long as there’s an opportunity to deliver value to them. Now, rather than attempting to sell the wrong candidates on the job, your recruiting process becomes a matter of effective qualification to determine the perfect fit.