Many sales managers hiring technical salespeople (for complex solution sales) place primary emphasis on the candidate’s technical expertise or industry knowledge.  They may prioritize a technical background over sales experience or aptitude, thinking that they can always train sales skills later, and that a buyer would prefer a low-key “consultant” to a high-drive salesperson. So, the sales manager at a manufacturing company, for example, may look for someone with an engineering background to fill an account acquisition role.  To be sure, buyers enjoy dealing with salespeople who know their industry well and are adept at answering questions.  However, the

We have received a lot of feedback on our earlier column about the cost of hiring sales candidates who ultimately do not produce to our expectations. Most of the feedback was that we UNDERESTIMATED the cost. We therefore consolidated what we heard and here is how many hiring managers gauge the problem: Cost of advertising for the position Time and cost for resume review Time and cost for phone screens Time and cost for multiple interviews Time and cost for internal and external training Extra time managing problem employee(s) Extra time managing client damage control Difference between poor salesperson’s production

Sales managers often look for candidates with an athletic background, particularly when candidates have limited sales experience.  A former football or basketball player is likely high in competitiveness, the reasoning goes, and would therefore perform well in sales.  Although competitiveness is a critical element of Drive, sales managers need to be careful when interviewing former athletes.  Here is why . . . We need to ask ourselves an important question . . .  Was the sales candidate’s athletic success because of his initiative only, or did he have a coach pushing him to get out and practice each day? If

One of the most exciting moments of the sales recruiting process is receiving positive testing results for a candidate. As we have noted previously, less than 20% of the population is high in Drive.  So, when a candidate scores well on a sales test such as The DriveTest™, it can be very tempting to want to pick up the phone and make an offer.  However, this is when we need to be careful. At this point, the test has done its job… it has helped us to weed out low-potential candidates and allowed us to focus on those with a