Hire the Right People | Create a Winning Sales Culture

Create a Winning Sales Culture – Hire the Right People Hire The Right People

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”– Jim Collins

It is imperative that businesses hire the right people, highly capable sales personnel; this a critical ingredient to the recipe for building a winning culture. Nevertheless, in too many cases, this important initiative is not given the leadership and focus that is required.

To best ensure that you hire the right people, a thorough and rigorous recruiting, screening, interview, and selection process is essential.  High potential/performance salespeople, who are both customer and team-oriented, are literally worth their weight in gold. So, business leaders must give this initiative (hiring the right salespeople) the highest priority and make sure that the entire process is performed with diligence.

These are some of the principal attributes of successful salespeople:

  • Strong interpersonal and communication capabilities
  • Deep-rooted desire to help people
  • Competitive mindset, high achievement orientation
  • Confident, optimistic, tenacious in pursuit of goals

Obviously, it would be a remarkable situation should you be able to find, for all of your open positions, candidates with prior successful sales experience, and who also possess the aforementioned traits. Realistically, this ideal situation will not always be the case.

So, just to be clear, do not,  not compromise on the previously identified traits; this is non-negotiable, as the selected candidate must possess these. That is, a person with prior sales experience who is found to be deficient in these attributes is not a viable candidate to be a member of your winning sales culture. Though you may feel pressed to fill an open position with a candidate with prior sales experience but who lacks the aforementioned traits, please resist the temptation. This will not work out in the long-term.

You can train and develop people for the specifics of the given job assignment; however, the sales personality profile cannot be taught. The candidate must have strong communication skills, a penchant for helping people, a passion for selling, and a competitive mindset for winning.  The resume’ won’t tell you about the candidate’s potential, nor will it will not convey the attributes identified earlier. Sometimes you will find the best talent when and/or where you least expect it. For identifying the right people, sales assessment processes make a lot of sense. Furthermore, referrals from people you know and trust are always a good source. Just be sure to exercise discipline and diligence in selecting the right people. This is simply one of the most important things you will do to ensure success.

Talented people are out there and many of your ideal candidates are already employed. Sources of talent are other successful sales employees, colleagues, customers, friends, neighbors, etc. You must always be on the lookout for talented people.  And, like other facets of your business, a clear plan, strategy and a process for disciplined execution are requisite. If you need help in building and executing your plan for selecting the right sales personnel, contact me at adam.vital@avbgs.com or (281) 817-7391.

 

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