by Wyeth Killip

Hiring salespeople is like major surgery – it is best to get a second opinion before going under the knife. You wouldn’t trust someone with your life on an operating table without doing your due diligence; nor should you trust someone with your business without sending them through a rigorous interview process.

Hiring the right person can be one of the most crucial decisions you make. When done right, it will most certainly impact your organization’s culture, drive considerable revenue growth, and fulfill a function within your organization that was significantly untapped. When done wrong, you risk exposing the business to a considerable disruption, draining you and your team’s time and resources, and placing your reputation with clients in jeopardy.

You are trusting both your business and the opportunity to be a part of your dream to someone you have probably only spent a few hours getting to know and who for the most part looks good on paper.  When was the last time you put your life or even your child’s life in the hands of someone you hardly knew?

Like with major surgery, you should always consider getting a second opinion before hiring someone.  If the candidate is as great as you think they are, they will pass through with flying colors.  If red flags are uncovered then you may have saved yourself considerable time, money, and disruption to your business.

The financial risks of a bad hiring decision are considerable.  If you add up the time spent interviewing –about $1,500 to $2,000 minimum per candidate that you don’t hire – double that for the candidate who advances to the final round, throw in training costs, your additional time, your team’s time, the salary you are forking out prior to them making their first sale (on average at least 2 to 3 months), and any fees if you used a recruiter, even for an entry level sales rep, you are looking at risking up to 30K if your new hire doesn’t last 6 months.  Now when was the last time your doctor told you needed a procedure that would cost you $30K out of pocket, which may or may not work, and you were jumping to write the check?

Hire Slowly, Fire Quickly
We always advocate hiring slowly and firing quickly, but we also understand that in today’s fast paced business environment most companies don’t have the luxury of dragging out the hiring process. One way that we at CFS help our clients work around this obstacle is by acting as advisors during the hiring process. We offer advice during the interview process and provide highly objective and quantifiable assessments of prospective hires.

Through this step our clients rely on us for a second opinion when hiring a salesperson to minimize the risk of hiring the wrong person.  We provide valuable perspective into hiring a salesperson that fits their culture and offer insights into the selling and communication style of the candidate. This is accomplished through our online assessments and in-person, phone, or Skype interviews.

I’m not talking about asking someone else for a gut feel, I’m talking about an objective assessment across 15 attributes, with a weighted scale in each category, observations during the interview and recommendation on next steps such as “do not hire,” “proceed with caution - delve into red flags,” and “you’d be crazy to pass up this hunter.”

Develop the Sales Process, then Hire into that Process
We also highly recommend against the frequent mistake of hiring a salesperson and trusting them to develop their own sales process. Time and time again we see companies come across a great salesperson that is a go-getter, has had documented success, and is well recommended. They then trust that individual to define their own key performance indicators and how they will be tracked.

No offense, but usually when a sales person is given free rein, they will quite naturally design an environment that is in their best interest and not necessarily in the best interest of the company. Let’s face it, if you ask a salesperson if they like rules and tracking, they will usually say no. But salespeople tend to be competitive and like to play the game. When they know where the edges of the sandbox are, they will be creative in their approach and learn to maximize every square inch of the playing field to score the most points.

Your primary objective is to establish the expectations and parameters that will motivate a certain set of behaviors from day one.  If the salesperson is left to his own devices, he will inevitably flounder and resort to bad habits.  If, however, they are provided the opportunity to play the game in which they can thrive, then they will be off to a running start and will have the confidence and support to do what they need to do to succeed.

Therefore, we recommend developing a sales process, defining objectives – weekly, monthly, and quarterly sales targets – and establishing the key performance indicators you will be tracking at all times.  Once you establish these parameters, you can search for the right salesperson who you think will not only be able to figure it out on the job but also fulfill the documented requirements of the position.

10 Key Considerations:

1. If I make a mistake and hire the wrong person, what will be the financial impact to the business?  How much money will I lose?  How much can I afford to lose?
2. Am I ready or is the business ready to hire a salesperson?
3. What processes do I have in place to ensure that the salesperson hits the ground running?
4. Have I developed a sales process, defined objectives, weekly, monthly, quarterly sales targets, and established the key performance indicators and how will I track them?
5. Have I created a commission plan that motivates the desired behaviors?
6. Have I developed a two week comprehensive ramp plan?
7. How will I support the salesperson during their ramp plan and will I have the time?
8. How will I objectively evaluate the potential hire to identify if they are a hunter?
9. Who should be involved in the hiring process?  Who can provide a second opinion?
10. Will I need to enlist the help of outside help in designing the sales process, creating a commission plan, interviewing assessments, and any on-boarding training and support?

By Deborah Frederick

Wouldn’t it be nice if every customer were ‘The One.’ You know, the one who seamlessly meshes with your team and fits your culture to a T. The one who totally buys into your process or product and raves about it at every opportunity. The one who always pays on time, communicates effectively, and truly seems to love doing business with you. Unfortunately, ‘The One’ isn’t going to come around every day for most businesses. Most customers could be honestly described as good at best with a few outliers who verge on perfect.

And then there are the others – those who cause dread when they call, evoke chaos and headaches with their constant demands, while generally making you wish they just weren’t yours to deal with. But now for the good news – those types of customers don’t have to stay. Here are a few articles that discuss the ways and means as well as reasons to fire those customers who are more trouble than they are worth.

When to Fire Your Customers
Here’s a nice little article that gives you four ways to identify clients who just aren’t worth your time. They may all be common sense, but that doesn’t mean you’re using them already. Take a minute to see if one of these metrics can help you find out your toxic customers.

When, Why, and How to Fire That Customer
This one’s an oldie but a goodie. This article from all the way back in 2007 shares the experiences of three business owners as they took steps to get rid of or reform some of their worst customers. Best of all are the hard numbers of how one owner’s system to rank and assess each client.

When to Fire Your Customers
Okay, they may not have come up with an original title (as this was article seven with nearly the same name, I decided to give them a little credit); however, this is perhaps the most comprehensive article of the bunch in terms of establishing a comprehensive thought process to assess customers.

The Fire Your Customers Myth
Finally, we have an article with a bit of a caution for those who are now all fired up to go out and get rid of bothersome clients. Here’s an article from a new prospective – that of a happy customer fired by a contractor. Though the situation was a little ludicrous – who knew it was so easy to damage a paver’s delicate feelings – the author still came up with three great ways to help soften the blow as you dump an unfit customer.

by Charles Bernard

We recently came across an interesting phenomenon that may bring comfort to those in the consultative selling world who lack the confidence to sound knowledgeable when talking to their prospects.  The term is Exponential Learning and it relates to the speed and ways through which you acquire knowledge to become a subject matter expert. 

Now I’m sure others have described it better, but from my understanding, exponential learning can sometimes be described as learning through doing. Instead of rote memorization or instruction, you learn from direct interaction and experience at a rate that cannot be achieved through other methods.

This idea has been weighing rather heavily on me lately. As I’ve considered it, I’ve become more and more convinced of not only its validity, but also its importance to those of us in the world of sales.  When speaking with clients and prospects, you are learning more about their business, the problems that they face, and what they are doing to solve them. 

As you continue to have more of these types of conversations with more of the people that you sell to, you begin to establish your own base of understanding of their issues and concerns.  Thus, after doing this for even a relatively short time, you are able to become a true consultant and bring value to a conversation. You don’t necessarily come to the table at the beginning as an expert in every way. Instead, you become the expert through your interactions with your clients and prospects.

In contrast to that is the declining rate of learning that is happening within your buyer’s organization.  I believe that even as the rate of learning is growing for the salesperson, in relative terms it is declining for the client.  In fact, I will say that your client is hungry for the knowledge that you bring from the outside world to provide a new perspective and refresh established ideas.  

In their world, they have to spend less time learning what solutions are out there and more time protecting their reputation, pleasing the boss, and doing the many things they have been mandated to do – all of which can inhibit learning or the freedom to learn. 

Don't discount the value of the knowledge that you continue to learn though interacting and doing.  Even if you’re not quite an expert yet, the process is like laying a lot of points out there early on in your new job or career. At some point during your momentum phase, you will suddenly be able to connect all the dots and gain a clear picture of who and what your clients really are.

By David Matos

Hi everyone! It’s David Matos here - former Trainer/Advisor and proud graduate of Criteria for Success. Quite a bit of time has passed since I last roamed the halls of this Blog section, but it feels good to once again contribute.

A former New Yorker in the world of sales, I now live in sunny Florida where I manage Customer Operations for a telecommunications company.  I recently visited New York and got a chance to meet with the team, reminisce, and share some war stories. During our conversation I committed to the team I would write a blog about my experiences with an old CFS adage "We rush to the urgent at the expense of the important." Anyone who has tried to build something special knows how true it is.

So what's the worst state to live in? No, not that state (shame on those of you who said New Jersey – I used to live there and absolutely loved it). In truth, the worst state to live in is the state of "Emergency.” One of the most difficult challenges to face as a leader is when your team runs up to you and tells you they have a critical customer issue. In an attempt to respond quickly to these "fires" we drop everything we are currently working on and respond. We never think twice about it because after all, our customer comes first.

The problem is, these "fires" tend to grow over time and distract you from other important things like planning, process development, etc. You become so focused on being a fast respondent that you miss other commitments and sacrifice truly important work. Before you know it, you are rushing to get things out of the way and lose focus on the important building your business activities.

Sure, your customers are grateful. But now they have become accustomed to dealing with only you and your uncanny – and usually unsustainable – turnaround time. Truth is, without setting the proper expectation for handling issues you create a "ghost" process that tells your staff to treat everything as urgent, passing along every issue to you without even attempting to address them.

Not setting customer expectation is a sure way to fall into an unrealistic system for how you or your company operates. In the end, it can create more harm than good in your future customer interactions. Instead of putting out fires, you take these small flames of crisis from your customers and transfer that mindset to the site where you should be building a bridge for your company's future.

So how do we avoid living in a state of emergency? Here are a few helpful tips to help keep your eyes on the prize.

Understand your customers’ needs. Listen, listen, listen! The key is to understand what your customers’ issues are and what they expect you to do about them. This will be the perfect opportunity to give your team the proper time to resolve the customers issue without sacrificing time in other areas.

Train your team and have faith in their ability. Sure, we all get frustrated in our customer experiences from time to time and want to speak to the Boss. However, it’s important that you take the time to train another resource that can be used as a point of escalation and communicate that to the customer from the beginning. Trust that your team can manage these relationships.

Reassure and follow up with your customer. Take a few moments to write a quick e-mail thanking your customer for their patience and assuring them that the issue is on your radar. This will comfort your customer knowing that even while your team is handling the issue, you are keeping a watchful eye as well.

On the subject of burning bridges, I would like to thank the team for their patience as this blog was written about two weeks later than I anticipated. When we met I assured them it was still on my radar and I would deliver. How is that for a bit of irony?