By C. Lee Smith
If you hire the wrong person for your open sales position, the decision can seriously set back your company’s position in the marketplace. We’ve calculated the average cost of a bad sales hire to be more than $177,000. To avoid this mistake, you should use a sales candidate assessment during your hiring process. This is especially true if you’re looking for a sales candidate who will fit your Challenger role.
What Is a Sales Candidate Assessment?
A sales candidate assessment is a standardized behavioral assessment, such as the one offered in the TeamTraitTMplatform. These assessments present a set of questions to candidates being recruited for a sales position. The assessment can be taken in person or remotely, but it usually requires logging in to a platform. The questions include a focus on past work behavior and personal motivation, and they also assess a candidate’s skill and will to sell.
Why Should Managers Hire for Fit?
In the Voice of the Sales Manager survey produced by SalesFuel, the typical sales manager noted they experience a 30% turnover rate every year. One reason people leave is because sales managers don’t hire for fit when they onboard sales reps. Interviews won’t give you what you everything you need when considering fit, but a formal sales candidate assessment will.
Types of Sales Candidate Assessments
To find the best fit between a prospective employee and the open sales position, use customized assessments. To begin, recruiters should work with the assessment provider, such as TeamTrait, to review the job description. With a customized job description, the assessments will be scored to match the skills and behavioral traits the recruiter is looking for.
What Position Are You Hiring For?
You know what position you’re hiring for, but did you know that your candidates can fall into a range of broad sales professional categories?
Hard Workers and Relationship Builders
For best results, hiring managers should consider their company’s selling culture and the selling environment their new reps will encounter. In a low-complexity selling environment, hard workers make up 26% of high performers, according to Dixon and Adamson, authors of “The Challenger Sale.”
These team members, always ready to go the extra mile, do well when they are selling to an existing customer or when they work in an industry that doesn’t require in-depth technical or scientific knowledge. They will work tirelessly, to get the job done.
Relationship builders are quick to serve customers, but that may not fit the needs of a company looking to quickly grow sales.
Challengers and the New B2B Selling Environment
In the new B2B selling environment, research shows that over 60% of buyers would prefer a rep-free buying experience. They don’t necessarily appreciate what a relationship builder can bring to them.
Today’s prospects are accustomed to researching solutions to their problems. They check out online resources to educate themselves. Only when they have built a list of potential solutions do they reach out to a solution provider. They’ve also researched specific sellers in advance, according to our B2B BuyerSCAN findings.
These prospects raise the bar for sellers. Specifically, sales managers need high performers. According to Dixon and Adamson, 54% of high performers have the Challenger profile.
What Challengers Do Differently
Challengers will not spend time building relationships. Back in the day, a relationship builder was quick to serve customers, but that is not always the most profitable sales strategy.
Dixon and Adamson explain that Challengers use three “T’s” of selling. They:
- “teach for differentiation”
- “tailor the message for resonance”
- “take control”
As they work to close dealers, Challengers must be careful not to alienate prospects. After all, nearly 32% of business owners who participated in SalesFuel’s B2B BuyerSCAN survey reported that the top behavior they disliked from sales reps is being repeatedly pushed to make a purchase before they’re ready.
In the world of solution selling, the Challenger rep will avoid giving price discounts and will instead offer other valued features. They’ll encourage the prospect to consider the rapid changes in the marketplace as a way to speed up the sales process without bullying.
Challenger reps can be a valuable asset to any organization. To find these individuals, hiring managers should use a challenger assessment.
How to Evaluate Sales Candidates Effectively
Recruiters must use several tools to effectively evaluate sales candidates. They typically review the resume to determine whether the candidate meets the required qualifications. As part of the sales candidate testing, they should require the top applicants to take behavioral assessments. These assessments will score candidates using the standard questions. Personality traits, workplace behavior and motivation are a few of the details that the assessments evaluate. Finally, recruiters should interview the top candidates.
Conclusion
On the topic of assessments for hiring sales managers, the question is no longer “if”; it’s “when.” Pre-hire sales candidate testing is mandatory for today’s businesses. With the cost of a bad B2B sales hire now soaring, businesses must use salesperson assessments. The assessment results yield objective scores that help recruiters and sales managers find their next sales star.
