Hire for the right skills. If a salesperson is struggling with selling his product or service, it is highly unlikely they will succeed doing so a different one. Incompetence in selling is a transferable skill. I will use this common belief to flesh that out: “I like hiring insurance sales agents. I find them aggressive and because what I am selling is much more readily accepted by customers, I know they will thrive.”
The temptation of the “aggressive” hire
This perception is not uncommon among many business owners – especially budding ones. More experienced ones hold a different belief- that incompetence in selling is transferable. “But it could be the besides the product being difficult to sell. It could also be they were getting frustrated by the employer because he was never paying commissions. Or denied training, or tools of trade.” Yes, I know. Many factors come to play in determining salesperson effectiveness. Holding all other factors constant, however, here’s a simple truth: If a salesperson in struggling with selling one product or service, it is highly unlikely they will succeed doing so a different one.
Hire for the right skills. Mistaking aggressiveness for competence
For example, business owners that hire the aggressiveness they see in insurance agents, are not entirely misled. Hiring effective sales people is tough. It is perfectly understandable therefore, that when you see what looks like hunger and drive, to be tempted to bring it on board. To poach. So, why not poach when you see what you admire?
Well, because ‘hiring insurance agents because they are aggressive’ is hiring a category, and not poaching. Hiring a specific one would be. But even that still does not mitigate the risks of hiring an effective sales person, even if to sell the same product – pharma to pharma, for instance. But that is a topic for another day. Today’s focus is hiring with the belief that if the product is ‘simpler to sell’ the salesperson will automatically thrive.
The learning curve trap
When you recruit on generality, you quickly realize that if the salesperson was struggling with, say, prospecting, they will not magically start doing so now that the product is different. It gets worse. Logically, you would think that if your business generates leads for sales people to merely convert, then this should be easy for this ‘aggressive’ sales person. Not quite. “I’m in the moving business and I generate leads for my team,” a business owner shared. “I fell into the trap of hiring a life insurance agent because I found them aggressive—and I assumed that aggression would translate to results. But his conversion rate turned out to be the lowest. I still had to take him through the same learning curve as everyone else—only his was much longer. He lacked the empathy our business demands; customers need to feel assured that their household items will be handled with care and security. But he was purely transactional. All he cared about was closing.”
Different environment, different expectations. Same struggling salesperson. The point? Choose wisely your reasons for hiring a salesperson. Hire for the right skills. If a salesperson in struggling with selling his product or service, it is highly unlikely they will succeed doing so a different one.
Hire for the right skills. Why frameworks matter more than products
If anything, because the environment they now find themselves in is much less intense, any lethargy on their end is magnified in commensurate manner. And that’s the point. The aggressiveness witnessed in life insurance agents is largely driven by the framework within which they operate. Effective sales management is one. The sales manager could be one that runs a tight ship and the reason for the aggressiveness. The aggressiveness could also be because, in insurance, measurement of sales is tracked obsessively. If you do not replicate this framework, it is unlikely you will get the same outcome. That aggressive salesperson you admire might have been built by the intense sales culture they came from—not because they are naturally effective across board. Incidentally, football fanatics tell me this is the same reason why internationally acclaimed football players struggle to shine when playing for their home team.
The comfort paradox: when a salary slows them down
That aside, if the sales person is purely on commissions, for instance, their survival is a daily motivator. And so, the business owner reasons: “I sell phones (or plots, clothes, membership etc). My product is comparatively easier to sell. So, if I also give them a salary plus commissions then they will fly.” Logically, yes. In practice, what actually happens is that the salesperson heaves a mental sigh of relief, “Phew! At least here’s a salary and it meets my monthly basic needs. Now I can relax.” And he does. In fact, now that his basic needs are met, he will quickly forget this and start lamenting about something else. “Airtime is not enough. We should be using Uber not matatus. Back office is frustrating our sales. We…” At this point you then realize that, that lamenting is what his selling engine actually runs on. Simply because you have changed the product, you’ve only changed the body of the car. The faulty engine is still intact. Hire for the right skills.
Choose the salesperson, not the circumstance
So, before you recruit based on surface traits or assumptions about product difficulty, ask yourself this: Are you hiring a person with proven selling skill, or are you hoping your product will magically fix a sales problem that’s rooted in mindset, not merchandise? If a salesperson is struggling with their current product, changing the product won’t fix it. It may only expose what was broken all along.
Hire for the right skills. What to look out for when hiring a salesperson
Recruiters will tell you that almost half of recruiters sought by employers is for Sales roles. Sales also has the highest turnover in any institution. As a business owner, don’t just hire based on where someone comes from or what they seem to represent. Hire for the right skills.Ask: Did they truly sell, or did they merely survive? Are you hiring the person, or just the pressure they were under? If they are struggling there, they will struggle here too.
In your experience, have you ever recruited a sales person based on their perceived hustle, only to be disappointed? What did you learn?
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