Over the years, I’ve learned an extremely valuable lesson that has served me well in my recruiting efforts as a sales management professional. Specifically, as a sales leader, I’ve personally been part of the hiring process for over 250 sales and sales management professionals throughout my 22 year career. In addition, I have trained many more sales and management professionals so I can honestly say that I speak from experience.
I’m going to share this valuable lesson with you because much to my amazement, myriad hiring managers still mistakenly fall into a trap when they recruit as well as train sales and sales management professionals. I often smile in amusement, albeit frustrated amusement, when I see hiring managers post an advertisement for a job search, and the first thing they put at the top of the ad is something along the lines of…“Must have five years medical device sales experience to be considered” or… “Must have five years human resources consulting experience to be considered” as an example.
The #1 mistake hiring managers make when recruiting sales and sales management talent is putting too much emphasis on product knowledge and industry experience (things you can teach), but they do not focus enough of their effort on what I call the intangibles or better defined (the things you can’t teach) when it comes to hiring sales and sales management talent.
Based on my 22 years of professional sales and management experience, often through extraordinary trial and error, I have found there are (12) specific intangibles or traits and attributes top performing sales and sales management professionals possess that I focus on when interviewing potential candidates. Simply stated, these are things you can’t teach! Don’t get me wrong, you can make an attempt to teach them or coach them, but at the end of the day, the individual either has the intangibles/traits/attributes in their DNA or they do not. It’s that simple! For example, I can train a salesperson how to cold call, but I can’t train them to have the desire or work ethic to cold call. Furthermore, I can teach someone how to be a sales manager, but I can’t give them the passion or intelligence to be successful at doing it.
The (12) intangibles/traits/attributes:
Intelligence
Personality
Desire or Work Ethic
Creativity
Attitude
Proven track record of success
Integrity
Passion
Commitment
Appearance or Image
Competitiveness
Perseverance
These 12 intangibles are imperative to success in sales and sales management, and you simply cannot teach them. Let me put it to you this way…
You have a better chance of seeing Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny playing “kick the can” in your back yard than you do trying to teach/coach/train the 12 aforementioned intangibles/traits/attributes.
Too often, hiring managers make the mistake of only hiring people with specific industry experience or a certain number of year’s industry experience or product knowledge, but they do not focus enough time and effort on hiring candidates who possess the traits and attributes you cannot teach. These intangibles dictate a person’s success regardless of how much training or coaching they receive. The beauty is when you do train and coach individuals who possess theses 12 traits, “the sky’s the limit” in terms of what can be accomplished.
Product knowledge and industry experience, or whether you’ve sold a product versus a service, or the size of your Rolodex has nothing to do with a person’s success. Let me repeat…nothing! At best, I call them “nice to haves,” but in the grand scheme of things they really won’t matter, and far too much importance is placed upon them during the recruiting process. Truth be told, many hiring managers or company leaders simply do not know enough to realize they do not “know enough” when it comes to the reality of sales, sales management and leadership.
All you have to do is look at the turnover rate of 1st year salespeople. It’s over 50%!
The intangibles are the key to successful recruiting…
I can teach someone about eCommerce, sales tactics, medical devices, enterprise software, HR consulting or sales strategy. However, I cannot teach a person the intangibles which are absolutely critical for a person to become successful in sales or sales management. By far, this is the #1 mistake CEOs, VPs of Sales and Sales Managers make in their recruiting endeavors in addition to evaluating their internal employees.
Frustration often sets in when a salesperson you hired is failing, but as a leader you can’t do anything about it because the reason they are failing has more to do with what you can’t teach them, than it has to do with what you can teach them.
The reason I hear so many executives complain that sales training doesn’t work is because many of the people being trained do not possess the 12 intangibles/traits/attributes I have outlined already present in their DNA. Training an individual does not also mean they necessarily have the ability to be taught, and then to take it a step further, it doesn’t also mean they have the ability or willingness to take proper action to achieve results once they are trained.
Focus on the intangibles to increase your hiring success rate as well as achieve productivity within your sales organization. Trust me! You will be much better positioned to exceed your overall goals and objectives.
