Who are the “Right People” for Sales?
…And What Do the Wrong Ones Cost Your Company?
By Kai Faltot, Director, Account Development, Sales, Caliper Corporation
Informed hiring decisions can make the difference between profit and loss in your company, turning a marginal sales force into a team of superstars. Learning how to find the right people for your team should be the first step toward building a successful sales force.
Who are "the right people?"
And why does it seem so difficult to predict whether an individual has what it takes to sell successfully?
The problem is not a lack of qualified people who have the inherent talent and potential to make it in sales. Quite the contrary, our studies show that nearly one out of every four individuals in the general population has far better ability to sell than most people currently in the sales profession. The difficulty lies in trying to guess which of these candidates possesses this capacity.
Having evaluated more than one million individuals for virtually every business position, Caliper has found that most of the best salespeople possess four fundamental personality qualities
- Empathy
- Ego-drive (the inner drive to persuade)
- Ego-strength (the resilience to bounce back from rejection)
- Service motivation
Individuals who display these traits not only stand a better chance of succeeding in sales, but oftentimes become your top producers.
Without these qualities, sales is an extremely hard road. Why is this?
- It takes a special person to understand a prospect's needs
- Come up with appropriate solutions
- Be able to ask for an order assertively
- Service an account once it is brought on board
- Take the inevitable amount of rejection involved.
Salesmanship, after all, is not order-taking; it involves being on the line.
Depending on the sales situation, other qualities may be required for success, including the potential to make decisions and judgments quickly as well as the ability to negotiate and to prospect persistently. As one might infer, there are instances in which one’s qualities in one area can compensate for a deficit in another.
Therefore, the challenge in selecting and developing successful salespeople lies in thoroughly understanding the requirements of the specific sales job, then seeking individuals who exhibit the requisite personality strengths.
A recent blog on HR.com offers 10 “shocking” HR statistics – one being that it can cost:
- $7,000 to replace a salaried employee
- $10,000 to replace a mid-level employee
- $40,000 to replace a senior executive.
Moreover, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average cost of a bad hiring decision can amount to 30 percent of one’s first year’s potential earnings.
Given the cost of a bad hire, it is good business to make every effort to reduce the number of such mistakes. Remember, too, that the financial impact of a hiring mishap can be a bitter pill, but there is an even greater – and harder to quantify – cost at stake: the reputation of your business.
Not only do those who are ill equipped for sales end up hitting you in the wallet, they can damage your brand. Sales, at its core, is about building relationships. If a client is not catered to throughout the entirety of a sales cycle, a long-time bond can be severed. Once that happens, this can cause irreparable damage to a business’s image, even potentially hindering future sales efforts. How does a company avoid that from happening? The answer lies in taking the guesswork out of the equation and in selecting only those who possess the right personality dynamics.
To learn more about how you can find the right personality dynamic click here.