Mercenary Mindset- Crafting a Winning Job Description for Salespeople

Job Description for the Mercenary Mindset of Great Sellers.

Hiring salespeople can be a daunting task for any organization large or small. Sales professionals are often likened to mercenaries in the corporate world, driven by financial incentives and constantly on the lookout for better opportunities. So, how do you entice them to your job listing and, more importantly, keep them engaged and motivated to work for your organization? The answer lies in crafting a compelling job description that not only offers lucrative opportunities and benefits, but also outlines a clear trajectory for professional growth within your company.

Understanding the Mercenary Mindset: Great salespeople are motivated by financial rewards and incentives. They thrive in competitive environments where their efforts are directly tied to their earnings. As such, traditional job descriptions that focus solely on the responsibilities of the role may not be enough to attract top talent. To entice sales professionals, you need to highlight the earning potential and advancement opportunities available within your organization.

Crafting the Job Description:

1. Lucrative Compensation Package: Start by outlining the competitive base salary and commission structure offered for the role. Be transparent about the earning potential, including bonuses, incentives, and performance-based rewards. Highlight any additional perks such as company car, expense account, computer, phone or stock options to sweeten the deal.

2. Clear Career Path: Salespeople are ambitious by nature and want to know that their hard work will be recognized and rewarded. Outline a clear career path within your organization, detailing the opportunities for advancement, additional responsibilities, and leadership roles. Emphasize that top performers will have the chance to progress quickly and take on more valued and compensated opportunities.

3. Professional Development Opportunities: Highlight the training and development programs you will make available to help salespeople hone their skills and stay ahead of the competition. Whether it's sales training workshops, mentorship programs, or access to industry conferences, demonstrate your commitment to investing in their professional growth.

4. Supportive Work Environment: Sales can be a high-pressure job, so it's essential to emphasize the supportive culture and team environment within your organization. Highlight any team-building activities, collaborative projects, or supportive management styles that foster camaraderie and success.

5. Company Culture and Values: Showcase your company's values, mission, and culture to attract sales professionals who align with your organization's ethos. Whether it's a commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, or social responsibility, emphasize how your company's values resonate with the ideal candidate.

Crafting a job description for salespeople, in particular, requires more than just listing duties and responsibilities. To attract and retain top talent, you need to appeal to their mercenary mindset by offering lucrative opportunities for earning and advancement. By outlining a clear promotion trajectory, emphasizing professional development, and showcasing your company culture, you can entice sales professionals to join your organization and keep them motivated to stay.

Who Chases Who? The Dance of Recruiting Great Sellers

If you are hiring a salesperson, a perpetual question that is undoubtedly lingering in your mind is, “Who should be the one doing the chasing?”  Is it the responsibility of the hiring manager to seek out and woo potential candidates, or should candidates be the ones actively pursuing the opportunity? The answer, as it turns out, is a delicate balance of both.  Recruiters should be actively identifying talent and prompting interest; however, you must now judge that candidate based on their ability to demonstrate that they are a fit for the role.

Beyond interviews, a candidate's behavior and proactive engagement are key indicators of commitment and interest. Recruiters must assess not just their scripted responses, but the candidate's relentless pursuit of the position.  This is how you know you have a winner.  They will pursue the job the same way they will pursue selling prospects for your company, if given the position.  The true narrative of a candidate's suitability unfolds in their behavior, communication, and proactive engagement throughout the hiring process.  Don’t feed them the answer key as how to win the job…. unless they ask!

Recruitment, in essence, is a two-way street. Recruiters must cast a wide net, attracting diverse candidates to ensure a comprehensive selection. Yet, the real litmus test lies in the candidate's initiative. A candidate who actively seeks information, follows up promptly, and displays genuine eagerness for the role stands out as a promising prospect.

In the realm of sales, where proactivity is a coveted trait, candidates who showcase persistence and initiative during the recruitment process signal their potential success in the role. The recruitment journey, therefore, becomes a joint effort - recruiters identifying potential, and candidates actively pursuing opportunities.

DON’T HIRE Until You First Craft the Ideal Salesperson Avatar

In the fast-paced world of sales, discovering the perfect salesperson is like catching all green lights when you’re running late – rare, but when it happens, it quickly and profoundly changes your revenue trajectory.  It requires discipline, a dash of intuition, and a healthy dose of science. I always find that before I begin the hiring journey, I have to write down the key aspects of the candidate by building my perfect salesperson avatar.  Here are some keys you may want to consider.

Seniority

In strategically building your sales team, the imperative is to precisely delineate the experience level sought. Is the objective to recruit an entry-level candidate, primed for intensive training and rapid development, or a seasoned senior seller, equipped with a proven track record and a network of contacts, for immediate impact. The choice demands a careful analysis of your team dynamics and the specific challenges at hand. A judicious alignment of expertise with organizational objectives will ultimately dictate the success of your recruitment strategy.

The Sales DNA: Unraveling the Genetic Code of a Closer

First and foremost is the Sales DNA – the genetic makeup that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary in the world of sales. It's about having a sales gene that imbues the individual with an insatiable drive to always be first in their peer group while being very handsomely compensated.  They possess a set of habits, traits, and attitudes that make them consistently excel without external input.  This will be revealed through assessments and their interview conduct.

Track Record – Are They a Quota Killer

This is the indisputable proof that separates the great interviewers from great sales talent.    Their potential future at your organization is nicely predicted by their sales behavior in previous roles.  Their experience of successfully achieving or over-achieving previous sales quotas over a substantial period (say 3-5 years) is evidence of their long-term drive rather than episodic success.  Your ideal salesperson should be a quota killer, someone who thrives under pressure and consistently delivers results. If your candidate has a history of turning quotas into mere steppingstones, you're on the right track.

Cultural Alignment: The Secret Sauce of Team

A perfect salesperson doesn't just fit into your organization; they become an integral part of its fabric. Picture your ideal candidate seamlessly blending with your team, embodying your company's values, and enhancing the overall dynamic.  This isn't just about a shared love for remote work. It's about aligning values, work ethic, and a collective vision for success and the expectation of excellence.  A salesperson who not only understands your company culture but also contributes to its growth and evolution is an invaluable asset.

Your Avatar Will Be Your Guide.

So, now that you have well-defined your perfect hire, how do you know when you've found the right candidate?  As quaint as it may seem, it will feel like recognizing a long-lost friend in a crowded room – a gut feeling that transcends resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Trust your instincts but be disciplined to stick to your well-defined avatar.

As you embark on this worthy endeavor, remember, your perfect salesperson isn't just a hire; they're a catalyst for success, a driving force that propels your team toward unprecedented heights.

Experience is not always the key in hiring salespeople!

Finding a great salesperson is a noble quest that few get right.   Yet identifying a rockstar seller is literally a game-changer for any business.   As a buyer of products and services, each of us have worked extensively with salespeople as both a consumer and a business professional.  It is this experience set that we feel fantastically informs our hiring decision.  This is a misguided notion!  Rather, it is a crippling mindset that imbues us with unearned confidence.  Let’s digest that a bit.  How many of those salespeople that you worked with responded to your inquiry?   More importantly, how many found you?  (It is my hearty recommendation that you retain the contact information for this later group!).

According to Crunchbase, reps that don’t do cold outreach have 42% less sales growth.  However, cold calling has only a 2% success rate on average.  That is a huge dollop of rejection that few can endure over the long haul.  The revealing question, then, is what do these persistent cold callers have in common?  The answer is that it isn’t their experience, it is their “Sales DNA”.  It’s not what they learned, its who they are.

Very often as we embark on the arduous task to add or replace a seller, we invariably seek to find industry-experienced sellers with deep contacts among the buying community.  Make no mistake, this is hugely valuable.  But as you are looking to make a hire, it’s critical that one honestly explores where you need to be on the Experience – Sales DNA spectrum.  Ideally, we seek to find an individual that is strong on both measures.  However, the data does not favor that outcome.  In a famous research study of over 2,000,000 salespeople, only 6% were “elite.”  Their success had no known correlation to their industry experience.  It was their “Sales DNA”.  It was not only their ability to do the work – but their drive to do so vigorously and continuously over the long run.  So, it comes down to one clarifying question;

“How quickly and thoroughly can I teach a talented, natural seller to be successful in my business?”

Depending on the competitive advantage for your company’s products/services and your onboarding capabilities, you might have greater long-term success hiring a strong seller with no industry experience than a very experienced (and expensive) sales veteran.  These veterans tend to have great experience with decision makers who, at some point will graduate or retire out of their positions- leaving a veteran with less sway. While a tenacious seller will continually do the required activity to continue to bring new companies into your client portfolio.

Sales assessments are valuable but should only be about 25%-40% of your decision.  It is the sales hiring process that is the magic to creating an unstoppable sales force that will be the envy of your industry!

The problem with your sales team is YOU!

If you are a business owner or a sales manager and you are underwhelmed by your pipeline, conversion, average ticket, or client retention, look no further than the mirror.  it is easy to try to put a Band-Aid on your sales leakage problems with training and consultants. However, all you are doing is asking your sellers to be the type of person they are not. 

The driving force in the sales success of any company, regardless of scale, is the quality of the sales team. If you are suffering from any of these sales maladies mentioned above, it is because you allowed these individuals into your company, and you haven’t replaced them. There is a myriad of reasons that they still have a chair inside your organization, but none more compelling than that you haven’t developed a reliable system to attract, vet and recruit outstanding sellers. The long-term effects of this is a widening aperture in your sales system that is permitting the slow creep of mediocrity to infiltrate you culture.

In the spirit of “Misery loves company”, you might be gratified to learn that you are not alone.  In a study of over 2,000,000 newly minted salespeople, only 6% were considered “Elite” (defined as climbing to the top half of the sales organization within the first 6 months), 20% of that group were good, but took longer to achieve expected results. However, fully 74% of these sales hires were a colossal waste of money. 

So why do we all have such difficulty hiring salespeople? In a FORBES report, it was determined that salespeople are the second most difficult position to hire after the “C’ suite. The reason is simple. Salespeople are a crafty bunch that possess enough finesse and common sense to outsmart most assessment tools and nearly all hiring processes. 

Perhaps you believe that your seller interview questions are profoundly “telling”. The truth is that the candidate was asked those same questions by in their two previous interviews. It is fair to say that some of these questions are very revealing.  But the key to hiring great salespeople is that it is not what they say during the process, but rather what they do. The answers to your great questions will only tell you how they think. It is their pursuit of the position that will tell you what they will do when you give them that chair.

Have you given up on your New Year’s Resolutions yet?

According to an interesting study performed by the University of Scranton and published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, only 64% of surveyed New Year’s resolution-makers kept their commitments for even a month. After six months that percent drops 46%. For those of us over 50, the statistics are pathetic – just 14% of us keep our resolutions for the year. If you are a sprightly twenty-something, the chances that you will keep your resolutions are a whopping 39%. So why is this? Why do we all give up so easily? Two reasons 1) It is often challenging to go it alone, and 2) Change is difficult. This week we will touch briefly on the lonely mindset of self-discipline.

The truth is that nobody can make us change – only we can make that decision. We can choose to stop smoking or eating sweets, or to make the necessary calls to develop new business. These decisions will not happen simply because someone tells us to do something. We are free to make our own decisions. However, we are not free from the consequences of our decisions. If we continue to eat sweets – there are no immediate ramifications. However, this behavior, left unchecked for a protracted period, will certainly result in weight gain and will ultimately have an impact on our overall health. We make choices for the short term but can suffer greatly in the long run.

Here are a couple of obvious strategies that will help you go the distance to achieve your goals.

Chew the Elephant One Bite at a Time. Break your goals into more manageable, measurable mini-goals.
Measure your progress. Keep track of your progress with a chart, diary or other method. This will demonstrate your success and drive you to even greater self-discipline.
Treat yourself. Practice positive reinforcement by giving yourself small (non-conflicting) rewards for each mini-goal achieved.
Really? Make your goals realistic. We often over estimate what we can accomplish in a year and underestimate what we can accomplish in five years. It is the small achievements over a longer period of time that will create dramatic results in our business or in the mirror.
There will be setbacks. Just plan on it. New habits usually take time to form. There is no reason to expect oneself to go from poor business habits to excellent ones without complications. Understand that it will happen and get back to your discipline immediately.
Buddy-Up A very successful approach to success is to publicize your goals so you create cheerleaders while tremendously increasing the cost of failure. If you team up with a friend or business partner with a similar or joint goal, you are likely to drive each other to achievement.

This final piece is extremely powerful. Recently, there was a newly launched app called LifeKraze. The app crowd-sources in order to provide a personal cheering section for keeping (and achieving) personal or professional goals. Call it a coach, mentor, buddy or accountability partner – the truth is that the statistics tell us that we all need one.

This week – tell those you most value what your goals are for 2013 – better yet – take them on the ride with you!

Be your best everyday!

Coach Kirby

Monday Minute – New Year’s Resolutions Gone Bad – Part two.

Last week we began our investigation into the causes of “resolution implosion”. In a Clinical study from the University of Scranton it was found that, depending on the age group, the maintenance of resolutions varied from a low of 14% to a high of 39%. Meaning that, at best, 61% of goal-makers could not maintain their resolve for just one year. This week let’s touch on the second part of this challenge – the difficulty of change.

There is an algebraic expression for change called Gleicher’s Formula. It says:

D x V x F > R

D= dissatisfaction, V=Vision, F= First steps and R= Resistance

Meaning that the product of your dissatisfaction about where you are right now, times your vision of what you could be accomplishing, times the cost and effort of first steps must be greater than the power of your resistance. So to ensure a successful adherence to our resolutions, (change) we must 1) look at your competition and see what is possible and probable with others in your same situation or industry, 2) build out our vision and become emotionally moved by what is possible, 3) identify those crucial, early steps towards making that now built-out vision a reality.

Unfortunately, once you have set your vision – reality gets in the way. Goals are free but the path to them is not. Soon, vision will become clouded by the obstacles that invariably appear. This is where most people become despondent. However the lesson from all the research is that more than anything else, the ability to pick oneself up after faltering is precisely what is required for success in most areas of life.

Set your goals and never let go this year! You might just love where you end up!

Have a tremendous week!

Coach Kirby