I’ve been discussing how a strategic approach to sales may involve standing still for a while in order to create solid future growth. In order to achieve that the strategy must contained two defined processes.
First and foremost a sales process that enables everyone to sing off the same song sheet (I discuss that at http://wp.me/pWNjL-5 ).
Secondly a process for hiring salespeople that achieves more than 25% success rate which is an industry standard
For as long as I can remember we have adopted a system for hiring salespeople dependent on gut feel and a labour intensive process of CV 2 interviews and a presentation (CV2IP). Then we wonder why we can’t get and keep New Business sales people. In fact the standard is that only 20% of sales hires are effective and failed hires are often the biggest single cost in any sales department.
Psychometric tests almost double this figure, but the number of times I have been told – “Oh you need to do this – just to prove you aren’t an axe murderer” . Sorry I’m not a moron or a child either.
So the evidence (and all business decisions are based on that – aren’t they ?) is that traditional hiring methods don’t work. But, what does.
We are developing Perfect Hire to follow an effective process. Perfect Hire uses data from hundreds of thousands of succesful sales hires to guarantee success. And it is simple, time efficient and easy.
1. Source in the normal way
2. Evaluate using an online evaluation (the one we use is expensive but 95% effective)
3. 5 minute phone interview
4. Read the CV
5. Face to face interview
6. Decide
7. Hire
8. Structured Onboarding
But you can only use this if you want a successful salesforce.
