Sales Performance: What Profiles to Recruit and How to Evaluate Them? (1/3)

For example, in 2009, CEB, an American organization bringing together influencers and the greatest “thinkers” in the sales function, conducted a field study to identify the “secret” of sales professionals who succeed in selling in a context of repeated crisis, facing customers who have developed a strong aversion to risk and purchasing. This study revealed the following finding: there indeed exists an exceptional sales profile that achieves its objectives despite difficult sales contexts. This profile is that of the Challenger (Neil Rackham, 2011).

This article aims to explore the inextricable paradox in which Sales and Human Resources Departments are currently immersed regarding recruitment, and why the methods employed until now have shown their limitations. It will finally propose an ideal sales profile (“The Challenger”) and the best ways to identify this type of profile during a recruitment process.

This first article presents the “recruitment tension” currently affecting sales functions, between, on the one hand, the systematic recruitment of identical profiles, and on the other hand, the search for the unicorn.

The Inextricable Paradox of Sales Recruitment

The era of traveling salesmen crisscrossing the United States at the end of the 19th century, selling bottles of “Snake Oil” (snake oil) supposedly curing all ailments to gullible farmers, is over (G. Hawkins, 2017). The time for improvisation is over: the skills required to achieve objectives and add value to customers are built step by step, and not all sales professionals possess them.

Poaching resources from competitors and seeking immediately operational profiles have been an integral part of a security reflex and the norm since the recurring economic difficulties of the 2000-2010 decade. However, it is simplistic to think that a sales professional who performs well at a competitor will automatically do so in another company. The unpredictable human factor partially negates this logic: this sales professional, recognized by their peers and valued by their Sales Director, may not necessarily grasp the intricacies of your product, may not adapt to your team, and who knows… might even reject your management style before slamming the door shut. As in botany, there are soils suited to every seed… This conservative reflex leads to a standardization of Sales Departments, and methodologies and discourses repeated ad nauseam, making any differentiation of speeches, approaches, and behaviors impossible.

In contrast to this Pavlovian cloning reflex, the dream persists. Where is this fabled “unicorn” that so many dream of hiding? Does it even exist? And – to paraphrase E. Kant – what are we permitted to hope for in recruitment? Pondering these questions and seeking answers, Sales Directors and Human Resources Directors are redoubling their efforts, strengthening their filters and criteria to try and find the gem that will finally boost performance.

This is an approach that needs to be defined well before the recruitment process! Because on this subject, there is no room for error, defined by a cost/time ratio: the costs incurred by a hire are not amortized if an employee leaves the company less than 12 months after their arrival.

• The inflexibility of hiring in France makes every recruitment a daunting prospect, despite probationary periods almost systematically renewed in all companies and sectors.
• The cost to pay (severance pay or dismissal compensation) to let an employee go can be prohibitive, especially since companies fear setting precedents with other employees.

In this inextricable context, companies are often forced into questionable maneuvers to remove an employee deemed underperforming or problematic, at the risk of legal disputes, and beyond that, of demotivating and “disgusting” other employees, and irreversibly tarnishing their employer brand. These are all hidden costs from which the company does not emerge unscathed.

As a consequence of this dilemma, numerous methodologies have been developed to limit the number of “clones” recruited (for example, the 4S method or “recruiting-mix”: Sourcing-Selection-Seduction-Sincerity), while Human Resources Departments, for their part, implemented numerous and costly training programs to develop key skills, perceived as necessary to accelerate the performance of sales teams. Yet, the question of recruitment – this elusive topic! – continues to be a talking point: searches for “how to recruit a good sales professional” are flourishing on Google, and articles reporting recruitment difficulties are still abundant (for example: “How to recruit a good B2B sales professional in a context of sales talent shortage?” published in 2018). What is the profile of the “best sales professional”? Is there a winning formula to identify and recruit them?

The next article will explore the profile of sales professionals achieving the best performance despite a difficult market context.

Other Articles You might be Interested In

• Sales Performance: What Profiles to Recruit and How to Identify Them? (2/3)
• Sales Performance: What Profiles to Recruit and How to Choose Them? (3/3)