What should we look for when hiring sales reps?

All too often, firms review the resumes of potential sales reps searching for similar sales experience, and then interview the candidate with an eye toward a gregarious personality. They end up hiring someone they personally like and then spend untold amounts of dollars in training, motivating, coaching, and frequently re-hiring.

What a company should be looking for is the proper strategic fit between the new hire and the position. It is critical that the company truly understand the profile of their customer and the customer needs. WHY is a customer buying from you? Is it based on price, on understanding the customer’s business, on technology expertise, on service? Is your offer based on individual selling or team selling? Does the selling involve developing strategy, creative thinking, tactical execution, or detailed implementation? Are you selling something that is new to the marketplace or considered a commodity purchase? All of these factor into the type of person you hire.

The skill set of the sales rep must match the position. Oftentimes a profiling tool is used to determine the behavioral styles of a candidate. Are they naturally strategic, tactical, detailed, visionary, cautious, and so forth. These tools can be extremely helpful IF the company has accurately done the upfront work of determining the profile most likely to succeed with that particular offer, buyer, and sales process. Do your homework before starting the interview process. Otherwise, the most gregarious candidate will win. And you will lose.