Growing up, I was always amazed by my dad's ability as a manager to get blue collar workers to work harder for him than they had ever worked for anybody else. In his typically understated fashion, my dad explained to me that it was simple to get results from somebody--you just had to figure out what he was good at doing and then put him in the right job. "After all," he said, "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, you will spend your whole life believing the fish is stupid."
Growing a team of sales people is the primary struggle for small business owners in America. There is no other subject that can raise the hackles of otherwise normal, friendly people so quickly. A simple question about sales can send many business people over the edge. They throw up their hands and in an exasperated voice say, "I don't know why this happens. These salespeople looked so good in the interview and they're not producing the right kind of numbers." But let's be honest, anybody can look good on a two-hour date.
Your business is operating exactly the way you have designed it. And it is staffed by people who are selected by the interview process you have created. In other words, maybe the sales people aren't to blame, just how you hire them.
There are many different types of salespeople and each is great in their own way. Some salespeople are hunters. They typically need little supervision; they are able to go out and find new prospects and will quickly sort suspects from prospects. But hunters, for all of their strengths, are rarely effective managing the account once it has been landed. In fact, unlike account managers, hunters have little or no patience for the relationship building that taking care of long- term clients requires.
The skills of a hunter are not those of an account manager. Likewise, great commodity salespeople do not easily step into the role of unique-value salespeople. One of the most important things we help our clients with is realizing what type of greatness they are interviewing. We help prevent hiring mistakes. We work to create a process and use tools that allow business owners to "look under the hood" and know if the skill set they are interviewing for is the skill set that they are actually looking to hire.
After all, sometimes you can put the right salesperson in the wrong sales job. And when that happens, you can spend your days wondering why the fish you hired can't climb trees.
Are you looking to grow your business? Give us a call and let's take a look at the match you have created between your people and their jobs.
We should talk.
Contact Matt Nettleton, Sandler Training, DTB at matt.nettleton@sandler.com or 317-695-8549.
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