Controversial: Most reps lack sales talent!

In this blog, we talk about real truths that relate to sales and marketing. It does not take a genius to understand these principals but it does take a certain amount of willingness to fight the PC police and the typical corporate culture. If you are in sales or hire sales reps, then you know exactly what I mean. Month after month we attend our sales meetings and hear how difficult “the market” is. We hear all the reasons that certain reps cannot meet their quota or how and why they are struggling. Meanwhile, many of us meet and exceed all of our sales goals. Usually, these goals are far beyond the quota because they relate to specific financial goals we have for ourselves. Those that struggle have already met their financial demands because the salary the job offered in the first placed took care of those concerns. The system is literally designed for failure. However unintentional this may be is irrelevant. Nothing makes me laugh more than to read a sales job posting that outlines educational requirements and builds in a heavy salary package. Let me ask you this; if education dictates success in sales, why offer a salary? Think about it. If your candidates are “well educated” and that tells you that they are more talented or better suited for sales, why do these candidates need salary? If the elites are better qualified, why do they need a guarantee? A B.S. simply means that they were able to tolerate academic dribble that has little relevance in business. The average length of employment for a professor is 20 years plus. That means that even those professors that came from the business world did so, on average, 20 years ago. Most came from the academic world and gained their knowledge of business from books and seminars. Ha! Just writing that makes me laugh!

The point

My point is not that college has no inherent value, or that professors are all worthless. Instead, I only aim to reveal what makes a good sales rep good; talent. If I went to “baseball college”, would that make me a good baseball player? I can recite for you the fundamentals that make up a perfect swing. That does not mean that I can hit a curve ball or even get a bat on a 95 mph fastball. Business operates the same way. Those with a degree are not necessarily bad and those that did not attend college are not necessarily good. That is the whole point. Companies lean on pedigree and education for qualifiers only when they have a management staff that cannot recruit or hire based on those qualities that make sales people successful. It becomes a crutch. When reps fail you will hear,” Gee, I don’t know what happened. He/She had a degree from…” There are many reps that sell at the highest level that were educated in our colleges and universities. Conversely, there are even more sales reps that did not go to college capable of selling at that same level. Socioeconomic backgrounds drive college graduation rates far more than talent. The baby-boomer generation went to college in a time that admission was difficult and often told the story of kids that worked hard in high school. Now, most colleges will accept you with a 2.0 or higher. Not quite the impressive accomplishment admissions once were. Sales is a game and the good players bring to the table an aptitude and skill set conducive to winning that game. You cannot teach aptitude nor can education give someone a natural skill set. Qualifying or disqualifying candidates based on such arbitrary criteria only serves to ensure that your company stays behind the recruiting curve. Ask yourself this question: would you prefer mediocre talent with pedigree or reps with high levels of talent without the pedigree? In other words, would you rather hire less productive reps that have impressive backgrounds or reps that simply perform quarter after quarter? If you want reps that think of performance in terms of sports cars and big houses instead of meeting quota, look for talent and let the chips fall where they may.

What this all means

Sales recruiters simply gather candidates based on your criteria and are paid to meet those criteria. Conversational recruiting remains the most effective way to acquire new talent. We come across genuine talent everyday. The difference between organizations that build strong sales teams and those that cannot is the ability to spot that talent. Some of the strongest sales reps that I have recruited for my company and my clients have come from places like AT&T wireless stores, Best Buy, bartenders, and other low key places that you would not expect to find people capable of closing million dollar deals. These places all have one thing in common; people. Watching people interact with other people instead of looking down at them for the perceived lack of accomplishments, acts as a window into how they will interact with your clients. Any CEOs buy a cell phone, a new TV, or a drink? How about HR directors or Doctors? What about office managers or Sales executives? Gathering resumes does not offer this kind of insight. Interviewing only tests a person’s ability to mirror your concerns and reflect what they think you are looking for. If you want a great interview, watch people in action! That is the only way to determine a person’s natural skill set and aptitude for interacting with other people. There is nothing more rewarding than extrapolating somebody with the exact skills you are looking for and watching them succeed in an environment they have not been in before!

The bottom line

Choose the people you want when you are looking for new members of your country club. Choose people that mirror you if you want a group of people to follow you around agreeing with you. If you want tenacious, skilled sales people, you must recruit people that come to the table with the traits that are required. The bottom line is just that; the bottom line. The best way to affect that is to hire people that are built to do just that! Snobby elitism is not only based in ignorance, it is also counter productive to revenue generation.