5 Common Problems While Hiring Salespeople
Sales is the lifeline of any business.
But when you get down to hiring one, it seems almost impossible to find the person you are looking for. Even with numerous options, you seem to be at a loss. Maybe they are not driven, passionate, or from your industry or when they tick all the boxes, you cannot afford them!
Why is that?
Not everyone is cut out for sales. And finding the salespeople that fit your exact business requirement can be challenging. And this makes hiring the right kind of salespeople really really tough and time-consuming.
On the flip side, while not having good salespeople has its pitfalls, hiring salespeople who are the wrong fit can be very expensive for any organisation.
5 common problems organisations face while hiring salespeople
- Underperformance after hiring someone seemingly qualified salespeople
- Not finding industry-specific people
- Not able to find someone with the required skill sets
- Finding the right people but cannot afford them
- Attrition: Finding the right people, hiring them, training them, and then they leave!
Though organisations spend a lot of time and money hiring the right people, they make some mistakes during and post the hiring process. These mistakes end up costing the organisation a lot more than you would think!
How much?
It is hard to arrive at the exact numbers, but according to some estimates, a bad sales hire costs 50-75% of the hire’s annual salary. That means an employee who makes $50,000 annually costs between $25,000 and $37,500 to replace.
According to acquirent.com, recruiting is expensive; the low-end average cost to hire directly for companies is $4129. On the high end, using a placement firm can cost you upwards of $9,000.
What are the reasons behind these foreseeable problems?
And here’s how can FlexiBees help you!
- Right people, wrong time: You might find the right people who seem to fit the bill and promise excellent results based on their experience, but they can still be the wrong choice for your organisation if you get them at the wrong time. This usually happens when companies are in the early stages of setting up their businesses. You need to match the salesperson to the state of the sales process. You might be in the exploratory phase at the early stages and need to find people who enjoy that kind of investigative sales. If you hire seasoned salespeople who expect the process and the systems to be in order, it might not be the right match for you.
What could work: Experience does count in sales. But sometimes, you need to find someone who can experiment, learn and figure things out, and eventually create processes. It would also help if they can work within budgets and not cost too much as the organisation is in its early stages.
- Importance of industry expertise: Though industry expertise is crucial to a role, it is not everything. If someone is in sales or marketing of fashion goods, they might be better equipped with on-field knowledge of how things work, how to talk to potential customers, what their customers want, etc. But that being said, industry expertise is often overrated, and usually, equally good candidates get passed up, resulting in missed opportunities.
What could work: Being open to great salespeople and remaining industry agnostic.
- Gut feeling or intuition: Hiring based on gut feeling is the most common reason for failure post-hiring. No matter how good you think, you are with evaluating people.
What could work: It could help to determine the required sales competencies, the characteristics and the traits necessary for success. You could also pad it with a psychometric assessment and a behavioural interview.
- Culture fit: You might want a certain kind of person who can work well with the others in your team, but it shouldn’t mean that all your salespeople think or act the same way. The downside of having good cultural fit candidates is lack of diversity. In sales, you are trying to appeal to a large group of people who often have varied personalities, preferences and tastes.
What could work: If you find a great salesperson who might not seem like they are a good fit for your organisation culturally, then ask yourself, ‘What can they do differently to contribute and add value to your current sales process?’ Aim for a diverse team to build a well-rounded sales team.
- Hiring Only One: Many start-ups or small organisations cannot afford to hire more than one salesperson. And often think that hiring one great salesperson will solve their business challenge. But hiring more than one salesperson has its benefits.
What could work: Hiring in pairs so that you can cut down on costs of training, create healthy competition and have a team that can help each other out. This could also work when you are trying to figure out why something worked well or failed - is it the process or the salesperson? With one person, it becomes difficult to determine.
How FlexiBees can help:
- We will understand your exact need, what your organisation needs and go through numerous candidates to match the right talent to your business needs through our deep vetting process.
- We will talk to the candidate to evaluate them and understand their situation and commitment to the role being offered.
- We will do our due diligence to make the hiring based on facts and not feelings.
- Apart from evaluating the skill set required, we will also talk to the candidate to understand their personal life, preferences, availability and constraints, so there are no surprises post-hiring.
- We offer organisations options to pay-per-need basis or project-basis so that it is cost-effective and affordable.
Over the years, we have placed hundreds of salespeople across different industries and sectors and know what works. Read here if you want to see a few examples of how we helped some organisations find the right people for their teams .
If your business needs experienced flexible sales talent via part-time and project-based models, then do reach out to us.
