Why Are You Hiring Industry Retreads?

The reason that you have made so many hiring mistakes when hiring salespeople is because you are hiring them for the wrong reasons.

They have a Rolodex or network that you want access to. They already know the business. They work for the competitor. They have industry experience. They have similar industry experience. They are licensed to sell your products already. They are technical experts.

The single thing that is missing here is the most important one…they know how to sell! Would you hire a CPA that didn’t know how to do taxes? Would you hire a doctor who can’t diagnose, or is terrible at surgery? Then why are you hiring salespeople who can’t sell?

As much as you may be kicking yourself as you read this, it is a pretty common way of thinking. Even clients who understand why they need to hire salespeople over industry experts struggle with the concept. It is because we have hired people that we thought could sell instead of those that we know can sell. We looked at their resume and what they claimed they had done. They shared success stories and evidence of past client relationships, and we believed them. They shared war stories from big client deals. When asked how they sell, they seemed to know all of the right answers.

You were snookered. But it isn’t your fault. It happens to everyone.

In the old days, we couldn’t predict whether or not someone could sell, so we used all of the intelligence that we had at our disposal to make our decision. Now with modern assessments, such as the one offered by Objective Management Group, we have nearly (98%) perfect intelligence that answers the single question that we really want to know…can this one sell?

If you know that they can sell, all you have to figure out is how long will it take to teach them your business. That may seem hard to you at this point, but aren’t you better at teaching your people about the business than teaching them how to sell? We find that it will take 1-3 years to teach a non-selling person to sell productively. In most cases salespeople without industry experience are able to ramp up in 8-16 months. While they are ramping up, they are actually bringing in business, which is what you wanted anyway. I’ll bet most of your failures struggled to bring in any business or move any of their accounts over when they joined you.

Here is a fact that you will surely argue: You don’t need any real industry experience or knowledge to sell. In fact, the more that you have, the more difficult it can be to sell, because you are more focused on proving your knowledge base and experience than really focusing on the prospect and what they need from you.

Doubt me? Where did your doctor go to medical school? How much do they know about medicine? How many successful surgeries did they do before yours? How much experience and knowledge do they have? Can’t answer these questions? Why do you give them the credibility to help you live a healthy life?

Salespeople know how to gain credibility without knowledge dumping. They know how to compel someone to make a change. They know how to build a case for something. They know how to gain trust and keep it.

Are you going to hire a salesperson that you know can sell, or are you going to keep bringing in industry retreads that can’t sell? It isn’t hard to do if you decide that you don’t want to keep throwing money away on bad hires.

Brian Kavicky

Connect with Brian Kavicky

For 25 years, Lushin has guided business leaders toward intentional, predictable growth.

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