While, finding the best staff is never easy, there are more options open to sales management than ever before. There are recruitment consultants operating in most industry sectors and verticals. Most important of all are the sales recruitment specialists, consultants that not only understand their verticals, but understand selling, and what genuine talent looks like.

 

 

The last point is an important one. Sales recruitment consultants need to be able to assess a candidate’s ability. BMS uses a basic scoring system to identify some core competencies. Graham Halewood, Marketing Manager at BMS, says:”There are some generic areas that we look for. For example presentation is always important. Sales reps are there to represent their companies, so they have to be well presented.

 

He continues:”We also look for competencies such as how articulate the individual is, whether they were able to take control of the conversation, whether they established their objectives adequately and how well they listened.”

 

The ability to look for these skills and to evaluate them against other candidates is arguably where the sales recruitment company can add massive value for its clients.

 

From the Sales Director point of view, Kerrin MacPhie, Sales Director at BT Convention Centre Liverpool, uses her experience of working with different sales professionals.  “I do not have a specific list of things I look for,” she says. “I tend to go by my gut feel. One never gets a second chance to make a first impression and that is what will influence me greatly”.

 

MacPhie also looks to understand more about the candidate by some good questioning of the individual, “I go for questions that cannot be answered with yes or no, I also ask them what they would you do if they were successful, and then I ask what they would do after that. This really focuses the candidate or can knock them balance”.

 

Rob Scott, Managing Director of Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment believes that although many thought leaders in sales speak about good listening skills as the best indicator of sales talent, there is in fact much more to it than that. He explains: “That old adage that listening is the most important skill is a bit benign. My Nan’s got great listening skills but she’s no great salesperson! The key is possessing fantastic questioning skills to really get to the bottom of how they can help“.

 

 

So what problems can occur that stop a sales director and their chosen recruitment company from working effectively together? “Sometimes, where third parties are involved this can cause some problems. BMS does work with third parties, but it’s important that a consultant can have a dialogue with the sales management team, that they understand the individuals’ needs,” says Halewood. He points to his company’s relationship as a particularly good example of this.

 

Scott also believes that sales managers make some fundamental errors. He explains: “Many inexperienced employer clients will purely look at a CV and regardless of our recommendations will reject the candidate on that basis. Some companies are guilty of ‘lazy recruitment’ in that they set out to only hire candidates from their competitors when in fact their best candidate may not even come from the same industry”.

 

 

When selecting the best candidate, there are many factors to consider. For example does the company want to have a candidate with lots of experience within the vertical, or are they looking for someone with the best skills? Halewood suggests:”Sales directors need define their ‘must haves’ and their ‘nice to haves’, so that the consultant can make a better assessment of the candidate’s ability to fulfil the role. They should also be clear how soon they expect a return on the recruitment investment as this will affect the sort of candidate they should be looking for”.

 

 

MacPhie also pays key attention to this element. She says: ”I would expect past experience as standard. Other than that, anything goes, as the world is full of many different behavioural styles and it would be detrimental to business to have the same type of people in a sales team”

 

This is a particularly interesting point that many sales directors and managers look to cover. Do you want a team of individuals that have the same style of sales, or will the business benefit from having different ideas, backgrounds and influences?

 

However, the candidate themselves can be their own worst enemy by missing out on basics such as understanding the company they are interviewing for, or more importantly the job they will be doing. MacPhie described the worst thing a sales candidate can say when going for a role in the events industry: “For me it is telling me how many events they have organised. Many people think that a sales role is very events related – it is not.”

 

Scott adds that there are some basic ways of showing success, rather than just talking about it. “Real talent needs to be measured over a period of time,” he explains. “Regardless of how a sales professional behaves in an interview it is essential for us to have access to tangible evidence in the form of sales figures to give us some indication that they can directly impact sales for a company over a given period of time.”

 

As we head into 2010, there looks to be more opportunity for candidates seeking work, but Halewood believes that for the best sales professionals, there will always have been opportunity. He says: “In 2008 the market was candidate driven, with companies having to really promote their  organisations to get the best staff. In 2009 the client dictated the market. We don’t believe that the quality of sales professionals was reduced, but that it was just more difficult to find the best staff for our clients. In 2010 the swing is going back towards the candidate.”

 

MacPhie also comments on the value of good sales professionals. “It is tough finding good sales people,” she says. “So if I ever come upon someone who I feel is a real diamond I will do what I can to create a role. You can never have too many good sales people”.