Why Sales Managers Suck at Hiring Sales People

Are your sales managers using sales recruiting as a growth strategy for your company? Are they consistently and proactively building a virtual bench of top sales talent? One of the main challenges we see in our consulting practice is sales managers who struggle when it comes to attracting and retaining the best sales talent available. Here are 5 reasons why many sales managers struggle to effectively hire top sales people.

1. Too Busy- Many sales managers simply have too much on their plate. There are too many “urgent” tasks on their to-do list and the can never catch up. Because they have so much going on, hiring sales people always seems to fall to the bottom of their list.
2. Overly Reactive- As a direct result of number 1 (too busy), they are not proactively managing their sales team. Rather than thinking ahead in terms of covering territories and continuing growth, they react to whatever crisis is right in front of them.
3. Industry Bias- Sales managers tend to stay in their comfort zone by looking for people who come from a similar industry. That makes sense if those sales people can bring customers and strong relationships that help them ramp up quickly. However, we’ve seen many sales managers use that as an excuse to overlook bad habits and weak selling skills.
4. Lousy Interviewers- This could be because sales managers are too busy and overly reactive, or simply because no one has ever trained them how to do it. Many sales manager interviews focus more on bonding and rapport-building to find out if they like the candidate. Is this the kind of person that I would want to work with? Are they like me? Too many managers fail to ask the hard-hitting questions that are going to uncover potential issues and challenges sales people are going to encounter in the field.
5. Bad Onboarding- The single most important step to a successful new hire is an effective onboarding plan. Very few managers do this. This may be because no one has told them how to do this so they just let human resources dictate what needs to happen. It also doesn’t help that they are “too busy” to really pay attention. More often than not, it’s because they have waited too long to get a sales person in place. When this happens the new sales person is walking into a desperate situation. The overwhelmed sales manager just sort of throws them into the fire, instead of bringing them on the right way allowing them to: effectively learn the product, understand the market, learn about the competition, and build a quality pipeline.

If your sales managers fall into any of these categories – what can you do to change this?

1. Slow Down and Do It Right- take the time to implement best practices like Topgrading or our Sales Talent Acquisition Routine (STAR hiring system). Your sales managers will have a much better success rate at hiring and onboarding successful sales people using these systems.
2. Build a Virtual Bench- Successful sales managers should work tirelessly to build a network of top-performing sales people. Overtime they should build and maintain relationships with these sales people so they can contact them if and when you're ready to hire. That way they’ve already established rapport and you can reach out to them when the time is right.
3. Attract the Best- Make sure that you've built the right kind of environment. Is your opportunity attractive? Is your compensation right? Is there a growth opportunity? Is there opportunity for learning and development? Are they excited about the opportunity to come work for your company?
4. Contact Intelligent Conversations- We're here to help! Whether you need us to help you implement a system like our Topgrading or STAR hiring system, or if you want us to just do it for you, we can help you attract and retain the best possible sales people.