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Where we explore hiring managers and recruiters who lack understanding of the myriad of tools and resources that can be utilized to increase their odds of making a good hire. More importantly how to reduce the odds of making costly, unforced hiring mistakes.
It continues to surprise me that so many of our prospects continue to rely solely on their interviewing skills to make important sales hiring decisions. It’s old news that it’s bad odds to do so, yet it is the predominant practice which prevails. Even multiple interviews by others is often the same interview several times.
Trusting the result of a structured interview to make your final decision on a sales candidate is at best about a 50/50 bet. Some interviewers even brag about an uncanny ability to pick winners, but in a quiet moment they’ll admit they’ve made mistakes too. Oddly, even though they claim they use structured behavioral interviewing methods, if you observe them interviewing they are so rusty , they pretty much talk their way through the whole process. Or, here is another favorite….Sell me this pen! Pullleease! That question is so old there are tutorials on the web to teach candidates how to formulate a great answer for it. Unstructured interviews have been sighted by some authorities as worse than no interview at all.
I often wonder if you put real money – the hard cash – that they were about to spend on the table in front of them – lets say conservatively $75,000,00 for a new sales rep hire – not including the intangible costs and lost opportunity costs. And then said – “Ok, if you just use just your interviewing skills method – there is about a 50/50 chance you will lose this money.” How many would ask if there was anything else they could do to improve the odds?
Having spent years in the sales training and development space I’ve witnessed many sales management training curricula that include Behavioral Interviewing Skills. However, precious few have anything else about predictive assessment tools, background checks, reference checking. At best they may reference that is should be done – but there isn’t any true understanding of the “how to” or discussion of the value of such methods in improving the chances of hiring the right person.
Until sales recruiters and hiring managers begin to embrace better tools and methods to manage the risks of bad hires – the unforced hiring error will survive. Even in today’s sluggish economy where you would think its a buyers market mistakes are made. Rushing to judgement, hiring in ones own image, racing against the “time to hire” metric, the absence of a quality bench of candidates, and the dependence on the “one note song” and somewhat arcane interview practices feeds the tiger that is costly to nourish and time consuming to get rid of once brought into the zoo!
Don’t Create a Culture of Average, Move The Average Up!
As a 2009 Tedster I have several favorite talks. This one is now on the list.
At SalesGenomix our vision is a world where every sales force is ABOVE quota. Here is another tool to help you be one of them.
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Where we explore the approach and advice from a great golf coach and similarities to being a great sales coach.
Jim Flick was one of the golf world’s greatest instructors ever. Period, exclamation point. Unfortunately, he left our planet recently at the ripe old age of 82. No doubt this man transitioned to heaven with the greatest of ease. A true gentleman, with a keen eye for the golf swing who helped 100’s if not 1000’s of students improve their enjoyment of the game. He also guided golf greats like Nicklaus and Lehman to many wins. Mr. Flick was as humble as they come, he always credited others for his thinking on the game. He was quick to tell you how fond he was of Bob Toski’s thinking on the golf swing.
My personal experience with Jim was watching him as he instructed my son Ryan. He always called me Mr. John with that sweet sounding southern drawl. I’m told he did the same with everyone else. Little did Ryan or Jim know that my delight in watching a lesson was grounded in knowing that I was watching one of the world’s greatest coaches at work. It really didn’t matter about the results from the lessons for Ryan, I knew that would be what it would be. What was magical was listening to Mr. Flick’s approach to coaching – the metaphor rich visualization created by his words as he treated a teenaged golfer so respectfully it was as though he was instructing the next Tiger Woods. Always encouraging with kind words or correcting with a question not a statement. And then modeling what he meant. This is a skill many coaches don’t possess.
So how does this apply to the world of sales and sales coaching? There are certain people who make it easy for you to accept their feedback. Maybe its the way they ask you questions, or the analogies and the vivid verbal pictures they paint with words, but Jim Flick had the knack. Never demeaning and always a true story or two of golf legends examples to store his lesson into the mental hard drive.
To this day, I cannot stand over a golf ball and not think of Jim Flick. What am I doing filling my mind with so many thoughts at address? Fact is, for me his simple words of wisdom seem to correct more potential errors versus create potential defects. The words are “Uncomfortably close Mr. John – uncomfortably close.” What did he mean by that? It has an echo to a phrase my Dad always told us kids. “Get closer to your work.” This was usually applied while doing a project for him like raking leaves and getting encouragement to move the bushel basket closer to the leaf pile. Both instructions had the same intent. By being closer to the ball or closer to the leaves there was less room for error, wasted shots or wasted effort picking up leaves you had already picked up once before.
So, what attributes should sales coaches borrow from Mr. Flick’s world-renowned coaching methods?
Here are just a few.
Should sales coaches tell there reps to get closer to their work? Should they become uncomfortably close to a prospects business? You bet! The value you provide a customer isn’t knowing your product or service. But if you get close to their business and show them how your offering speeds the probability of meeting their goals you win more deals. You can’t do that without getting uncomfortably close to their company, your contacts within and close to the value you bring to them.
I will remember Mr. Jim Flick fondly and his gentlemanly ways. Even though I wasn’t his student – I was his student. If that makes sense. Thanks Mr. Jim.
With utmost respect,
Mr. John
Where we explore the parallels between mistakes made when recruiting and selecting sales reps and winning and losing in almost any competitive environment.
For those of you who play any game – physical athletic (tennis) or mental (bridge) – you know all to well, that the difference between winning and losing is often a single stat; “errors made”. Sometimes these are forced by some clever move on the part of your opponent(s) but, typically in the final analysis it is the “unforced” error that does you in most.
The 2012 Ryder Cup was no exception. The United States went into Sunday’s play with the most substantial lead they ever enjoyed in the tournament’s 39 year history. The Europeans were so far behind that the US field only had to win 4.5 of 12 matches played to bring home the cup. It seemed so unlikely not to occur that the Vegas odds favored the US by a long shot. Sadly, the ending was an unthinkable result in favor of the Europeans with the US secured only 3.5 points – less 1/3 of the total opportunities to win.
What transpired in Chicago on that beautiful fall day at Medinah Country Club was a train wreck of un-forced errors. The Europeans snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and kept the coveted Ryder Cup for 4 more years. It was the final holes of the match, numbers 17 and 18, where the US players repeated the same mistakes over and over. Hitting tee shots on 17 left of the pin often off the green and into a bunker to avoid the water right. Or, they overcooked approach shots on 18 that flew past the pin making it nearly impossible to take the hole. At one point Johnny Miller announced 7 players in a row making the same unforced errors.
But how does this relate to hiring sales reps and managers. The key ingredients that go into cooking up a good run of unforced errors are similar:
1. Pressure to perform with high stakes can muddy your decision making skills.
The US team’s final three players would undoubtedly be considered three of the best putters on tour. Furyk, Stricker and Woods – However, as they entered the final holes of play each of them knew that the weekend had come down to their ability to perform. The outcome of the entire 3 days of play was squarely on their shoulders. The result? Each missed makable final putts on the last whole to lose or tie their match and essentially allowed the European team to pop the champagne corks.
The Sales Parallel – sales managers who lose a rep are under pressure to perform. Quotas don’t go away – the VP doesn’t call you and say “Oh don’t worry about that territory’s number, I got you covered – I’ll lower your target for the year.” Bob Means a sage expert in the field of sales recruiting once gave me a verbal picture story to describe this pressure. He said when an open slot in the team occurs it almost always pressures the hiring manager to find any candidate fast. A large bird walks through the lobby of the office and they suddenly look like a high performing sales rep and get hired. They know if they don’t fill the territory fast the odds of them making bonus, going on this years incentive award trip and being on stage at the annual sales meeting are fading away. The theme song becomes ZZ Tops – Got Me Under Pressure refrain…”It’s got me under pressure, its got me under pressure”.
2. Time constraints to decide and execute
Often an unnatural set of circumstances cause us to rush to decide. These conditions fog our judgement when making decisions. We rely more on the subjective feel of what to do, maybe even shoot from the hip a bit, versus – slowing things down and using more objective decision criteria. In golf there is a clock and when you are on the clock and the pressure to perform meet up in a match – it’s a formula for disaster. You start to play “not to lose” – your confidence gets shaken and you make bad decisions. Now those who watched the painful preparation and over analyzing by Furyk would tell you they were frustrated by his deliberate reading and over reading of the putt. But the other extreme was the slap shot by Woods at the end (after it was a done deal) made you want to strangle him for missing his shot to at least tie the points.
The Sales Parallel – the more time that goes by the higher the odds that the front line manager will go home and tell her husband that the Hawaii trip with golf included is off this year. Maybe you can tolerate an open territory for a month – but two months its iffy and three months you are cooked. You essentially have to re assign the quota to the rest of your team. Usually on your top performers and fair or not, time is not on the hiring manager’s side. It means in the selection and interviewing process you have a motivated buyer (the sales manager) meeting with a motivated buyer (the candidate) and chaos occurs. One Xerox colleague of mine used to say – whats better bad breadth or no breadth?
3. Faulty Evaluation Subjective assumptions absent objective “fact based” criteria.
If only the USA team could have had the benefit of the announcer’s more objective commentary. They talked about how the putts broke earlier in the round, they drew a line on the screen marking the perfect path for the putt or the flight of the ball. They even used computer based graphics that were more precise. But, absent science in their decision making the players used their subjective interpretation of the situation and committed to their line – stroked the ball and made an unforced error.
The Sales Parallel – Absent the science of a good predictive assessment tool a costly hiring mistake leads to months of no sales productivity. Tens of thousands of dollars are wasted on training and salaries, a virtual time warp for the manager who has to coach the rep out of their job through the traditional PIP process. You must document your conversations, 30 day warnings, 90 day improvement plans and then some form of severance. The team morale is effected, clients complain of the revolving door in their account and competitors call into prospective accounts with no barriers to their success. But gut feel, pressure to perform and the pressure of time deal a death blow to the sales manager who allows these conditions to impair their judgment. Adding science to your decisions increases your odds by as much as 30% over conventional interviews.
The Solution
Hiring is a high risk, high reward decision for a sales manager. Pressure to perform can fill the open slot can create faulty evaluations and snap judgments. The burning platform of a choice between probable death and certain death often has the sales leaders choosing a sub par candidate just to fill the open slot. A University of Michigan study indicated that hiring decisions made without the use of a valid predictive assessment tool were no better than the toss of a coin. You could literally line the candidates up against a wall and count 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 and take either group and be no more accurate.
A wise sales leader has a discipline around recruiting. Similar to the one top sales reps have towards prospecting. Simply put, you should always be recruiting. The single biggest objection we encounter from prospects when presenting the SalesGenomix – talent discovery platform is “We aren’t hiring right now”. Makes you want to scream. First thought is REALLY? Does that mean you aren’t recruiting right now? If their top rep walked in the lobby that moment and put their resume in would they say…”Sorry we aren’t hiring right now”. Sales managers are responsible for creating the three conditions for unforced errors. They face the pressures to perform – the time constraints and the faulty evaluation methods by not keeping recruiting metrics that are due each Friday by 5 o’clock. When you have a solid living sales talent pipeline (like the one we help our clients build) and add science to your otherwise gut decisions you derive three benefits:
You can predict success, good selling!
John
Boston Consulting has published a recent report on the HR initiatives that produce the most value to the organization and recruiting was number one. No surprise to many of us as leaders repeat time and time again that people are their most important resource. However, in many sales organizations they use a commodity like recruiting process to find and hire what is a scarce resource.
Time and time again we hear our prospects say we love your system but “we are not hiring right now” call me back in 90 days. Really? Does the fact that you are not hiring mean you aren’t recruiting right now? If your best sales rep walked in the lobby and asked to apply would you want to see them?
Here is my rant on the core philosophy every front line manager should embrace to increase the certainty of meeting their numbers. A.B.R = Always Be Recruiting. Hope you find it useful. My clients have told me they use it to encourage their front-line sales leaders adopt a discipline of making recruiting something they integrate into their daily routine.
http://www.salesgenomix.com/7-habits-of-highly-effective-sales-recruiters/
Our Vision:
Imagine a world where every sales force is ABOVE quota.
As the saying, goes “Nothing happens until something is sold” – that axiom rings as true today in a sluggish economy as it does in the good times. We have to redouble the effort to make our quota. Effort alone wont win the day. A sales pro needs to be smart and nimble too.
For the past 30 + years I have overseen the sale of or personally sold more than 150 million dollars of training products and services. Most of that work was for sales leaders wanting to improve the skills of their sales managers and sales reps. There were many lessons learned – stories shared – and more often participants who taught me. By facilitating 100’s of workshops to a few thousand or more sales pros I was exposed to dozens of valuable ideas I want to share. This blog is intended to capture those ideas – so they can be harvested and benefit others who choose to pursue “sales” one of the world’s most noble professions.
As the youngest of five my Dad told us; Learn to sell and you will never be without a job. Our passion at SalesGenomix is helping sales people find the right kind of sales job. Most sales people who fail at sales – fail not because they are bad sales people, but rather they are in the wrong kind of sales job. We help employers fill open sales positions twice as fast with reps who are 50% more likely to make quota.
I write like I talk. Can’t spell well – use run on sentences and the grammar is not a strong suit. But this is about grasping the essence of the idea and using it as you choose. Postings will be made by me and my partners as the spirit moves us.
Happy to hear from anyone – anytime.
John Hoskins
ABOVE Quota 