How to pick more Winners

HIRING: how to pick more winners

DARREN SPENCE I t still surprises me that employers and specialist recruitment companies don’t most appealing? Is their past, or how you see their future more important?explains how you work better together to improve the way Question 2: Do you agree that choosing the can take the luck salespeople are hired and onboarded. Too much emphasis (and risk) rests on right candidate can be the catalyst to you exceeding your targets and accelerating your out of recruiting the shoulders of the employer to manage the process effectively – recruiters could career and your earnings? If you do, do you agree also that choosing the wrong candidate great salespeople do more. I’ll come back to that point later on, can create a load of wasted time and effort, and but first let me ask you a couple of questions. result in a sizeable opportunity cost?

TO SALES MANAGERS Question 1: When interviewing candidates for a sales position, is it the competency or the potential competency of the candidate that’s TO SALESPEOPLE Question 1: When interviewing for a job, is it your competency to do the job or your potential ongoing personal development and subsequent

CASE STUDY 1 PAUL’S NEW BUSINESS STRATEGY

career progression that’s most appealing? Is your When Paul took over as wanted to assess was the past, or how you see your future more important sales director of a large IT competency of the to you? services organisation, he salesperson to use Question 2: Do you agree that if you’re realised that most of the LinkedIn as an effective onboarded well you are more likely to feel happy orders it received were networking and in your role and are more likely to be successful? coming from existing prospecting tool. To this And if you’re not onboarded well you may clients. While this end, he devised a series become disenchanted, underperform and helped predictability and of questions that would ultimately leave? forecasting, it was hindering his success, as his help him ascertain precisely how competent the individual THE NEEDS OF THE HIRER – THE SALES MANAGER Having grown nine sales teams, interviewed hundreds of salespeople and hired many, it’s targets were dependent on his team winning net new accounts and generating net new business. He therefore set about developing a more robust process for hiring and was and what, if any, further training would be needed. Other areas of prospecting competence that were assessed included the candidate’s ability to: abundantly clear to me that sales managers (hirers) are more interested in a candidate’s past onboarding new business salespeople. l Establish credibility than their future potential. Now… before you take to Twitter and vent your disagreement, let With assistance from his internal learning and development (L&D) l Write, publish and share blog content me emphasise the word “more”. Future potential business partner, Paul devised a l Deliver and participate in client, is of course important, but sales managers are looking for certainty when hiring new competency framework that aligned to his new business strategy. One of partner and general networking events. salespeople – and future potential is less about certainty and more about confidence. the competencies on the framework was prospecting, or to be specific, the proficiency of the candidate in Each area had an associated list of questions with a clear and consistent scoring matrix, which THE NEEDS OF THE JOB SEEKER – THE SALESPERSON networking and establishing meaningful connections. Three levels of prospecting proficiency enabled Paul to understand exactly where the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses were. The results For the job seeking salesperson (the were defined, and the higher the enabled him to make more candidate), the opposite is true. They are more level, the more proficient the informed hiring decisions and plan interested in what non-remuneration candidate was judged to be. for a better onboarding experience opportunities their future employer One of the specific areas of that was tailored precisely to the has to offer them. They want to prospecting that Paul needs of each individual. know that they are going to be onboarded properly and trained well so they can earn good money and progress their career as fast as they can. THE DICHOTOMY 26% ANNUAL TURNOVER OF SALES ROLES Source: SalesGenomix more confident that the successful candidate possesses the skills necessary to do the job. They will also be able to better identify the shortcomings of the candidate, allowing them to put together a more relevant onboarding So, on the one hand you have a programme designed to precisely address the desire from the sales manager to skills and behaviour gaps of the individual – validate the past and on the other you optimising the time-to-value calculation. have a desire from the salesperson to validate the Of equal importance, by being assessed for future. How then can you systemise your competency the salesperson will take comfort recruitment process so it delivers to both? from the fact that their personal development is THE SOLUTION letter refers to the competency assessment and The answer is competency-based interviews. highlights the development areas that will be

“A competency is a set of defined addressed during the onboarding process – behaviours that provide a structured guide allowing them to accept the best offer with enabling the identification, evaluation and increased confidence. development of the behaviours in Competency assessments offer a win-win for individual employees” (Wikipedia). both the interviewee and the interviewer.

Competency-based interviews are significantly

being taken seriously, particularly if their offer underused and can help take the unknown out ASSESSING COMPETENCY of the hiring and application process. How then is competency assessed? It’s a three-

How? Because by measuring the competency stage process. We need to: of a sales candidate the sales manager will be l Define what competencies we consider to

be necessary for each specific sales role CASE STUDY 2 l Design a framework (ie. a set of definitions) that underpin each competency SAM’S ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT JOB l Devise a series of well-crafted questions and a clear and consistent scoring matrix. Let’s assume for now that you want to improve your sales performance and that to do so you’ve identified that it’s critical that your salespeople can: Sam was disenchanted with her employer, so she left to join a more progressive sales team. She eventually joined a well-established designed to assess Sam’s ability to: l Question effectively l Understand strategic priorities l Network, connect and engage with new telecoms company, l Align a given prospects more effectively, either in net new which had a different proposition to the clients or existing clients (prospecting) approach to interviewing strategic priorities. l Increase deal margins and client loyalty by selling on value, not price (selling value) l Communicate their offering, both in writing than the other companies she’d been to. The role was as an account manager. The “propose” questions were designed to assess Sam’s ability to: l Collaborate with peers and orally, in a more compelling way (proposing) l Predict sales outcomes more accurately (forecasting). These identified core competencies – During the interview process, the employer explained that they were looking for someone who could take on the management of some of their existing accounts and grow l Communicate value in both written and oral formats l Structure presentations. At the end of the assessment, Sam prospecting, selling value, proposing and their value. It was further explained was invited by the employer to a forecasting – will then form the basis of the that the company had designed and playback session. She was taken overall competency mix associated with each published a competency framework through her assessment results and role within your sales team, so a new business and that all internal promotions shown an outline of the onboarding development role may major on the prospecting were based on the internal and training plan she would competency, whereas an account management candidate’s ability to demonstrate experience if she were successful. role may major on the selling value and proposing competencies. their level of proficiency against the competencies relevant to the role. In due course Sam did receive an offer. Although the remuneration Sam liked the systematic approach package offered wasn’t the highest THE OPPORTUNITY While competency-based interviews may make common sense, they’re not that common. I recently surveyed a wide group of sales managers and salespeople. Only 23% of respondents said they had a competency framework, suggesting that 77% of sales the employer had to promotions. Sam was asked to sit an assessment to help the employer measure her proficiency in two areas of competence, namely her ability to sell value and propose. The “sell value” questions were she had received, she accepted the role because of the competency based interview, the proposed onboarding process, and the implicit value the employer placed on salesperson development and long-term success. managers have scope to improve their recruitment process by introducing a relevant competency framework. “Specialist recruiters need to work better at improving

However, while this is clearly in the interest their selection services by assessing the competency of any of the sales manager, I don’t think that 100% prospective candidates before they are put forward” of the effort, risk and cost should rest on their shoulders. Specialist recruiters need to work better at improving their selection employer or recruiter, relative to the services by assessing the competency cost associated with a bad hire it is of any prospective candidates a small sum. An alternative is to before they are put forward for outsource the competency consideration by their client. assessment to an independent

Far too many recruiters still just organisation, with the cost of doing send “good” (their definition) CVs so potentially split between the over to hirers with a load of waffle employer and the recruiter. that the candidate is superior to all However we do it, do it we must. others. Where’s the evidence that When looking to hire a great validates the competency of such salesperson, we can’t keep taking pot candidates? luck and simply hoping for success. DARREN SPENCE is founder Of course, there is a cost involved in conducting competency based interviews and someone needs to pay it. But whether that someone is the 35%–45% PROPORTION OF SALES REPS FAILING TO MEET TARGETS Source: SalesGenomix We have the means and the opportunity to improve the way we assess and onboard our salespeople, removing “bad luck” from the possible outcomes. of Sales Gym 360 and author of The 30 Minute Sales Professional iOS app. Contact him at darren.spence@salesgym360.com or on 07771 598578, or visit: www.salesgym360.com or www.4eyedsalesguy.com