How to hire a Good Sales person?

How to Hire a good Sales Person.

Sales is the oxygen of a product marketing company. Organizations succeed when sales and revenue targets are met. When sales aren’t firing from all its cylinders the organization is saddled with lower capacity utilization and higher fixed cost, higher inventory of finished goods / raw material and fully utilized working capital limits. In such a situation the sales team end up attributing the weak results to (m)any of these - Aggressive competition, Higher market spends & promotion schemes, Better advertising and spend, Superior competition product.

Under these circumstances, crafted strategy often ends up with recommendations such as redesigning sales incentives, increase the sales head count, increased advertising spend, higher discounts and attractive payment terms. All of these are usually the right levers to play and might yield results but end up draining the organization resources when the “Sales team” is weak. A weak sales team ends up producing mediocre results and poor revenue realization. Signs of a weak sales team include, higher dependency on leads from advertising, lower lead to sales conversion, higher discounts, higher advertising, aged inventory, unfulfilled promise to customers, higher incentive per unit sold and higher product sampling cost.

Therefore “How do we hire right sales people”, “What makes them exceptional”, “How to spot them in interviews”, “How do I retain them” are some of the challenges many organizations are battling. If they know what makes a great sales person, one can check if they fit that description. But if they don’t know the traits of a great sales person, they might be punting than hiring right.

Experienced and high performing Sales leaders ask a simple question, to a potential sales candidate - “What are the five qualities that best describe you as a Sales Person”

Usually the average candidates describe themselves as (m)any of these “Disciplined, Persistent, Probing, Follow Up, Innovative, Energetic, Hardworking, Reliable, Strong on Communication, Builds Relationship, Customer Oriented, Convince Clients, Analytical, Punctual, Honest, Pleasing personality”. But do these make a great sales person? In today’s world, many of these are hygiene. So, what are the five important qualities that one must look for?

1.       Result-Oriented: A good sales person lives for his/her targets. He / she is constantly focused on meeting or exceeding their targets. This leads to spending more time on the field and meet more clients. They wake up with their targets in mind and go to bed thinking how to achieve their targets. It is the result-oriented mindset that drives them restlessly. They look for new opportunities and often end up creating more opportunities than rest of the pack. Not achieving their targets is unacceptable and they always want to be recognized in all Sales meetings. It is the result-oriented approach which brings in unique solutions during difficult times.

2.       Planning: Planning is otherwise called being pro-active. Target achievement is all about planning, how to achieve one’s target, what is the prospect / order - pipeline, how many leads should I aim for, which product and geography should I focus, where is the demand, how do I leverage my promotional discounts, where to give more and where to give less discounts etc. Good planning leads to better execution. Well planned sales process will bring in sales every week in steady proportion and end up achieving their targets. They are usually the first to deliver in the first week. They don’t wait to deliver at the end of the month and there’s no huffing and puffing.

3.       Analyze Customer Needs: Sales happen when customers end up liking the sales person. People do business with those who they trust. So how does trust develop? Trust develops when the sales person asks leading questions to understand the client needs. Questions open the doors. Good sales person spends more time on understanding the client needs and offer products or solutions that meet them. The quality of questions and the ingenuity to probe client needs, leads to a better buying experience for the client and differentiation compared to competition. Fantastic probing often leads to a client realization of a need, that he/she had but never recognized.

4.       Knows the Product: Once they know the client needs, a right product and its explanation can lead to a sale. Pitching the right product is the path to closure. However, the right product recommendation comes only when there’s thorough knowledge of the product, its features and benefits. Strong product knowledge will assist the sales person to explain, how this product meets their needs. During this process of product explanation, customers often compare it with competition and try to seek more answers through comparison. It is at this stage that the sales person maneuvers well without belittling competition. It is not enough if the sales person knows his/her product well. He/she should also know competition well, better than what they know about their own product.  

5.       Customer Centric: Being customer centric is about being genuinely caring for the customer and their experience. One would come across as customer centric, the moment they have suggested the right product for the customer. Customer centricity is about being candid, genuine, warm, polite, concerned, responsive for the customers and being proactive with customers. It is the art of putting customers first and creating value for them.

It is these five qualities that makes a sales person successful. One might wonder, why higher revenue realization per sale is not considered a virtue in the above five qualities? Not giving discounts is an outcome. Discounts are often a mismatch between Price Vs Value. When the sales process and engagement of a customer is thorough, wherein the sales person understands the needs, positions the perfect product, explains how it meets their needs and comes across as customer centric, customers would see value in this buying process. When customers see value, they are overwhelmed and already start feeling the want to own the product and are connected emotionally.

So, go ahead and look for these qualities. Ask them to describe and you will be able to pick the right people basis these qualities. Build a strong sales team and compromising this, is compromising results.

K. Subramanian.

03/07/2018

(The author is the founder of Drawing Board Advisory and Consulting Services, based at Bengaluru. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at subbu@drawing-board.in)