Sales Hire Cheat Sheet
In this series we explore different aspects of B2B sales hiring.
The right person in the right role
In this edition we look at:
- why you can’t afford to mis-hire;
- why getting the right person in the right role is key; and
- how the right person could already be in your team.
Roll of the dice?
Sales hiring is one of the most expensive investments many organisations make.
It’s also one of the least predictable. Stats show you have less than a 50% chance of choosing well.
Despite sophisticated processes elsewhere in the business, sales recruitment is often driven by intuition, personality, or past experience rather than evidence.
The result is inconsistent performance, ramp-time delays, and high attrition.
33% of all salespeople are fired or laid off in their first year.
The cost of a mis-hire
At a £100k salary, the direct cost for a mis-hire is £30,000.
But a poor hire can cost three to five times the salary, once you factor in lost onboarding, lost deals and lost opportunity costs.
You also have to factor in the:
- Pipeline damage from deals that never close;
- Slower scaling due to onboarding churn;
- Time wasted managing the mis-hire’s under-performance; and
- Damaged morale amongst the rest of the sales team.
Sales specialist OMG’s data shows that including indirect costs, one wrong hire costs the average organisation nearly £600,000!
Risk of hiring the wrong person is the wrong approach
Liking someone, or pressure from the board to get someone (anyone!) in the seat, are not reason enough to hire the wrong person.
The direct and indirect costs of mis-hiring mean leaders need a defensible framework before they hire anyone. Gut feel is too expensive.
What is the role?
Understanding the role and what it requires should be one of the first things you do.
Why?
Because you may already have the right person for that role within your organisation.
OMG data found that:
- 64% of sales teams are significantly misaligned; and
- 57% of salespeople are in the wrong role.
Click here for more information from OMG on Role Misalignment and its cost to businesses.
Could you realign rather than recruit?
Once you’ve defined the role, look at your existing sales team.
Ask yourself:
- Does anyone within my organisation already have the skills needed for the new sales role?
- If so, are they using them?
- If not, would a better solution be to realign roles, perhaps augmenting existing skills with coaching and training?
An OMG Sales Team Evaluation could help. It measures 21 Sales-Specific Competencies across Tactical Skills, Sales DNA, and Will to Sell. These 21 Competencies statistically correlate to top performance.
An OMG Sales Team Evaluation would give you objective information on whether a sales person:
- has each of these 21 Competencies, and
- is a good fit for a given role.
Right person in the right role
Moving people within your existing team into roles that better fit their skills set can make a huge difference to their performance.
- When a salesperson is in the wrong role, 34% attain quota.
- When a salesperson is in the right role, 60% attain quota.
Achieving even more
If you want to attain even more without recruiting, pairing an OMG Sales Team Evaluation with training:
- drives a 53% revenue increase; and
- moves sellers from <70% to >90% of quota.
Are you ready to switch up your sales team?
Toggle Switch provide evaluations, training and ongoing coaching to existing sales teams and leaders and help sales leaders to find new sales hires.
Get in touch to drive a revenue increase in your sales team or to find your great new sales hire.
Next time
In Sales Hire Cheat Sheet 2, we’ll look at why businesses attract the wrong sales candidates.
