Why don’t companies make good sales hires?

Have you ever wondered how come there are so many terrible salespeople calling on you? Surely their bosses know they are so awful? How would they let their good name be tarnished by commission-hungry, pushy salespeople who cannot seem to bring in enough business?

Let’s analyse this. Who hired them? It might have been an internal or external HR person. But if they are given a brief to fill, they are hardly to blame for the poor quality of the brief. Who set the brief, made the final offer? Typically the Sales Manager or Sales Director. Surely they know a good salesperson when they see one?

Quite possibly. Often the person in charge of sales is the best salesperson the company has. That was the promotion criteria. Probably unconsciously therefore they are not going to easily hire people better than themselves or their position is under threat. So they hire salespeople with lesser ability, hoping to shape them up under their influence. They want to show added value to the team, so far safer to take on a good salesperson rather than an excellent one.

So if HR cannot easily hire a good salesperson, the sales leader cannot comfortably hire a good salesperson, who can? Senior management probably don’t know what an excellent salesperson looks like. And the salespeople at interview are far better than in the field.

Do you want to be condemned to taking on expensive failed sales hires or do you want help from somebody like Sandler to take you through the “SEARCH” model, help you interview and help you on-board them?