Many sales managers and recruiters are proud to say that they trust their gut instincts when making hires, but with the number of sales people hitting quota hovering around 58% (CSO Insights), it is worth questioning whether the “gut” helps that much in selecting great sales hires. Ultimately the hiring manager has to live with a
Sales leaders don’t have enough time in the day and it’s costing them. They are busy developing strategies and implementing tactics to drive their companies to the next level, and sometimes the necessary minutiae of managing their team can come in second. But there is help, and it is close by in your company’s human resources
It will probably come as no surprise to sales managers, VPs of sales and business owners that a recent survey shows sales positions are the hardest positions to fill (see below – CareerBuilder Releases List of Hardest-to-Fill Positions). Yet, your sales force is your organization’s lifeblood. No matter how cutting edge your product or how on-point
Sales Managers are supposed to be kingmakers—their job is to inspire and guide sales superstars towards glory – and effective sales managers unlock the potential of their sales team, especially when rewards and retribution alone aren’t driving sales results. They boost their team’s confidence during sales slumps and rally them to work together in the pursuit
Salespeople sell. Sometimes they sell themselves best of all. Resumes are not the only way to measure the value of a salesperson and arguably not even the best way. However, given the volume of resumes recruiters typically receive for a posted sales job, recruiters and HR departments need to understand how to read between the
Over the years I have been exposed to many sales management theories and strategies, some of them conventional and some of them less so. I have also seen many unconventional ideas evolve into mainstream practices as the times change, with varying degrees of success. Ultimately, challenging conventional wisdom is a smart move, if it results
It is commonly accepted that the best sales people are successful wherever and that they go don’t move jobs very often. This is certainly true, but rarely does someone have a perfect career track record in sales. There are a lot of internal and external factors that can get in the way of consistently achieving
Recently I wrapped up a consulting assignment for the VP of one the country’s leading enterprise software companies. During that time, I was around the elite level sales people on his team and I got to thinking about the differences between sales forces that consistently perform at a high level and those that are consistently
When a hiring manager meets what appears to be a perennial top producing sales person, there can be an overwhelming temptation to go into full sales mode to get this person hired – especially if this person is working somewhere else which is almost always the case with top performing sales people (we call these
Consistently high producing salespeople are rare – they represent 5-10% of the total sales population – so leading companies pursue them aggressively and are always looking for an edge to attract better and more reliable salespeople. Top salespeople are also different from average salespeople in that they look for career opportunities differently. Since there is
