How to Hire Sales Reps

One of the greatest challenges in business is finding, hiring, and keeping good salespeople. It may be that you've got great lines to sell and premier showroom locations, but if the reps you hire aren't productive, you won't move product.

We frequently speak with rep group principals and manufacturers who are befuddled by their salespeople's lack of performance. Some sales employees require too much attention and direction, or they don't stay very long. Or worse yet, they work with you for many years and when they leave you suddenly recognize all the lost potential when a new rep doubles sales in their first year.

But you can't figure out what went wrong in the hiring process. The interview went superbly. The candidate looked sharp, was excited, knew what needed to be done, and wanted to hit the ground running. Yet they didn't. You hired the wrong person for the job.

Often, a rep group principal will hire a candidate because he has experience with another rep group. Or they might hire a retailer who is interested in working on the wholesale side of the industry. Manufacturers often hire a former road rep as a sales manager or hire a sales manager with experience at another company in the same industry.

But the Harvard Business Review says: "Success hinges on a fit with the job. It is more important to assess the personality qualities of a person applying for a sales position than to gauge appearance or consider what he or she happens to have done."

According to Herbert Greenberg, chief executive of Caliper Corp., a human resources consulting firm, "Fifty-five percent of sales professionals don't have the ability to sell, and another 25 percent are selling the wrong product." Greenberg points to Willy Loman, the main character in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, as an example. He says that Willy's downfall stems from the fact that he should have been plying another trade — just as many of today's real life salespeople should be.

How do you insure that you hire someone well suited for the job? First, you must define the job's specific tasks, including the amount of travel required and the types of accounts to be called on. Assess the quantity and quality of training and support your company can provide a prospective hire.

Ask the candidate what they need in the form of support and training to be successful, and what tools were missing from their last position. Keep in mind that if you hire an individual who needs support in orientation, training, and direction, but you're not prepared to provide it, then you're all but guaranteeing that they will fail. On the other hand, if you're a micro-manager and you hire an individual who is self-directed and can thrive independently, then you might drive away a potentially very productive (and low-maintenance) salesperson if you coddle them too much.

Assessing the culture of your company so that you can best choose new hires that fit within the framework of your operation is another vital preliminary step in interviewing prospective employees. If the culture of your company is not a good match with the person you are interviewing, chances are that person will not succeed.

Also, when interviewing a prospective hire, do your best to determine the culture of the company at which the candidate most recently worked. Is it comparable to the environment they will find in your company? Or will you be able to provide the support they didn't get before? Don't be afraid to assess your own management style as it affects the culture of your company.

Careful appraisal of the personality and skill sets of prospective hires will save you from wishing better decisions were made during the hiring process. Luckily, there are a number of human resources consulting firms, such as the Caliper Corp. and Employee Selection & Development Inc., that specialize in the implementation of specific tools for measuring the skills and traits of potential hires.

The skill assessment tools that these companies offer measure traits such as confidence, compassion, patience, persuasiveness, and long-term goal orientation. They help define a person's inclination to analytical versus intuitive reasoning, a proactive versus a reactive approach, and team-oriented versus independent work attitudes. These qualities help determine the appropriateness of a candidate for particular job types, such as key account sales versus independent account sales, long selling cycle versus short selling cycle, sales manager or salesperson, and new account developer or existing account servicing. Such tools are invaluable when it comes to selection among the final candidates, and can also give you a "road map" for managing and motivating the people you do hire. You can find more information regarding them at www.employeeselect.com and www.caliperonline.com.

Assessment tools are not cheap (between $100 and $350 per assessment), but they can be a great benefit once you've done first screenings of resumes, initial reference checks, and interviews. It's a small price to pay when you consider that replacing an employee can cost a company the equivalent of 90 days of pay for the position. Finding the right person can earn back the cost of the assessment almost immediately, and avoid more costly rounds of hiring in the future.