Quick Win + Pro Tip: Don't Make the #1 Hiring Mistake Every Organization Seems to Make

The biggest hiring mistake every organization seems to make can be summed up as putting the right people in the wrong seats.

The very best hunter in the world won’t succeed if you’re primarily expecting them to expand existing accounts. The opposite is also true: a farmer that could really expand your footprint with loyal customers will be hindered by expectations of signing new customers each week.

The answer is hiring the right people for the right roles. If you know you need a hunter, exclusively look to hire one. If your hunters are doing great, but you’re stalling with existing customers, make sure you target farmers in your hiring process.

It sounds simple enough. So what’s the catch?

Sales people are, by nature, good at selling themselves. When customers choose to work with a new company, they’re buying the relationship with the salesperson just as much as they’re buying the product or service. Being able to convince customers of their value is part of what makes them so good at their jobs.

Of course, in a job interview, if you ask somebody if they’re a hunter or a farmer, this means you may not get a completely accurate answer - and you may not realize it.

This happens for two reasons. First, the sales person themself doesn’t really know if they’re better at hunting or farming. Maybe they’ve been successful in the past without thinking too much about whether or not that success was coming from new contacts or existing contacts.

And, of course, the second reason: they want to get this job. It’s only natural for people, in sales or other disciplines, to make themselves look like an attractive candidate during a job interview (who isn’t guilty of telling a hiring manager what they want to hear?) When asked if they’re a hunter or a farmer, or if they prefer starting new accounts or growing existing ones, is it really all that surprising that some folks will say they don’t have a preference? Or what they think you want to hear?

Well, great. You’re probably thinking. Where does that leave me? Am I destined to only maybe hire the right person?

Of course not. There are plenty of tools you can use to help you understand how prospective employees will best fit into your sales team. Namely, a sales assessment.

There are a variety of sales assessment tools and tests that can help you cut through curated interview answers and understand how somebody will really fit into your team. At Improving Sales Performance, we use The Sales Achiever, as we believe the variety of personality dimensions and mental aptitudes is particularly effective. We’ve seen firsthand how sales assessments help leaders mitigate risks and get who they really need from the hiring process.

Luckily, the hiring process isn’t the only way a sales assessment can boost the performance of your sales team.

If your current team is full of sales professionals who just aren’t performing as well as you had hoped or think they are capable of, it’s not a bad idea to have your entire team take assessments as well. You may find that the problems you’re having might not be who is on your team, but with the roles some key players are in. The results may help you start to understand why your team is having challenges and start to fix them. Not to mention, when the time does come to hire new talent, it’ll be much easier to identify what gaps you need to fill.

If you’re curious about how The Sales Achiever works and how you can apply it to your team, send us a note via our contact form and we’ll share some insights.

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