Hiring Rock Stars
While many things can affect a company’s ability to reach its financial goals, fewer things affect it more than the performance of its sales team. As a company leader, you can invest in technology, additional products, and new equipment to profitably grow your revenue, but if your sales team isn’t able to sell the benefits, it doesn’t guarantee that you will see the return on the investment.
Sales training events may not be the answer either. A recent study found that 55% of people with a sales title don’t have the aptitude for selling. Another 25% have the aptitude but are not positioned in the right role to capitalize on it. That leaves 20% who have the aptitude and are positioned in the right role. These are your “Rock Stars” that produce for you. It all starts with hiring the right individual.
Common Mistakes that Lead to Poor Hiring
Studies show that most decisions to hire a person are made four-and-a-half minutes into the interview and are based on “how I feel about the candidate fit.” Have you ever done this? Other common mistakes are haloing the candidate based on how he/she looks or acts in the interview; talking too much; not listening enough; jumping to conclusions instead of asking deeper questions; and allowing personal bias to influence a decision. If you aren’t enamored with the performance of your sales team, have any of these practices affected your company? It’s expensive to miss on hiring. The cost of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding a bad hire can be as much as $240,000. That doesn’t include the broken relationships with customers that a poor hire can produce.
No Silver Bullet, but You Can Improve Your Odds
There are steps you can take to make sure you are giving you and your team the best chance for success in hiring the right person for your company:
• Build consistency in the profile and your interview process
• Identify the competencies a sales person needs to be successful in your company
• Create “must have DNA” for your company- “if the candidate doesn’t have these traits, they don’t work here” – no exceptions
• Train your team on how to use the recruiting and interviewing processes and always be identifying possible candidates
• Successfully onboard and develop your Rock Star sellers
While it may sound complex and like a lot of work, once you develop your process it is a simple, productive venture. Your return on the investment is outstanding. Is there anything more important than your associates? People are the lifeblood of a company. Find the right fit for your company.
NineRuns has a proprietary process for developing competencies and solutions for recruiting, interviewing and hiring Rock Stars.
For more infor
mation contact:
Jerry Phillips
P.O. Box 34152
Austin, TX 78734
512-350-1536 Cell
jdphillips@nineruns.com
www.nineruns.com