> If there's one thing you should hire for, it's intellectual acumen, a high “figure shit out” quotient with the ability to grind
I think this is true in general. I've worked with highly intelligent, but less-motivated people, and you're always waiting for that magical moment when they come out of their lethargy and become a 100x worker. And that moment usually never happens.
"General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, the present chief of the German Army, has a method of selecting officers which strikes us as being highly original and peculiarly un-Prussian. According to Exchange, a Berlin newspaper has printed the following as his answer to a query as to how he judged his officers: “I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.
Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.”
In my experience, there are 2 groups of sales reps that can be distinguished with this question (assuming an honest answer). There aren't many reps in a middle ground between the two either.
There's the hyper-organized salesperson, their calendar is regimented to the point that every hour is tied to some revenue-generating activity. Their room, like their desk, office, and car (if they're in an outside sales role) will be equally organized. There is variation and I've generalized some common traits, but the organized rep will fit in a role that requires attention to detail, time management, and new business.
The other type of rep is the "wing it", off the cuff rep. They are quick to respond to any request and although they aren't spending every minute selling, they prefer to juggle a number of tasks at once. A messy room can help narrow their personality down. The "in-the-moment" rep is a good fit for an fast paced role that needs the rep to constantly adapt and respond quickly to customer concerns.
Is one question going to tell you all of that? No, but it is a useful tool for building a profile of their personality and selling style but you'll need a lot more than one answer to base it on.
It's trying to figure out if they're a J or a P in the myers-briggs. cc438 has the better than, but yeah, the guy is trying to figure out their work style.
> You need to ask for actual proof — screenshots of activity graphs and leaderboards directly from their org's CRM, for example. If you're lucky, some of these screenshots will show both where your candidate landed on the leaderboard and the names of the other high-rankers.
Isn't this a marker of both gullibility and unscrupulousness? Would the author be okay with his current employees taking similar screenshots out of CRM and sharing those screenshots with other prospective employers?
Yea not sure about this, can often go against either contract or legal rules with internal company info.
Most companies do maintain sales performance for each candidate however and this is usually safe to ask for. It wont let you compare across the whole company but at least you can verify their actual numbers as the company tracks them.
>Isn't this a marker of both gullibility and unscrupulousness?
Companies that take these kinds of reports seriously will usually use a second source to verify the information. My old employer always tried to interview 2 candidates from the same company and region so they can compare the rankings and data presented by the candidates. There was also an informal network of information sharing as everyone had worked for everyone else in the industry at some point and had contacts they could reach out to. Plus, prestigious recognitions, things like Chariman's/President's clubs for top reps, usually get listed in some publicly available form (ours was in our quarterly fluff magazine available on our website).
Now is it ethical? I've noticed that there's a recognized line in sales culture between information concerning a rep's personal performance and proprietary company information. Things like stack rankings (scrubbed of $ figures), activity stats, close ratios, etc are considered kosher by everyone as they don't reveal anything that could realistically damage the company. Things like a rep's list of contacts, anything with revenue figures, etc are frowned upon as they are considered unethical for a variety of reasons. It shows the candidate is willing to damage their employer and knowing that data puts the hiring company in a bad legal position.
Salespeople are judged on their performance and their performance is unique in that it can be quantified in hard numbers. Sales culture has a high level of tolerance for sharing of relevant information as it benefits everyone involved. Candidates get objective proof of their value to a potential employer and employers get objective information, making their hiring decision truly informed instead of a subjective crapshoot like you find in elsewhere.
It's possibly the worst hiring advice I've ever seen posted on here (despite the rest of the article being relatively good)
If you ask this as part of a job interview process, you're signalling to the applicants that (i) you don't trust the answers they're giving you (ii) you don't trust your own ability to assess whether their communication is commensurate with their resume boasts (iii) you expect them to breach their employer's trust by sharing confidential sales figures in order to get the job.
If you're giving those signals in the interview, good salespeople will run a mile.
Average salespeople might still know their CRM system well enough to be able to run the statistic that paints them in the best possible light. And even if they can't prove they topped the activity stats for the outbound East Coast FMCG team last month (whilst they were on a final warning for poor figures), there's always Photoshop.
>We also looked for proactive junior staff out of companies like LinkedIn who were ready for the next step, but not afforded the opportunity.
This is the more efficient way of hiring a sales team IMO. I've been in both categories and although I've only been in the game for a few years, I've learned the pitfalls of the "fresh grad" approach.
The author is right in considering sales "Mission Critical" for startups and other small businesses looking to grow and then goes on to explain the various ways in which an open or ineffective sales position will damage the position of the company. Despite that display of wisdom, they advocate a "fresh grad" approach which is just about the fastest way to ensure high turnover and low productivity. Every salesperson has to start somewhere and a fresh graduate with a sales personality and love for the job often be the best kind of salesperson for this kind of role for the reasons stated by the author. The problem is that candidates can't know if they'll like the world of sales until they've lived in it. Even if they have an amazing ability to filter out applicants without "the right stuff", they'll still end up with a high % of new reps that just don't like the responsibilities of their role.
That can manifest itself in a lack of interest for the industry (boy did I hate copiers, talk about a dead-end market), a lack of interest in the product (some people love sales but hate selling intangibles like services), a mismatch in the selling style required by the market (relationship vs. technical), or a preference for stable income (depends on compensation structure but sales can be very feast or famine).
The company I work for now faced this issue and we've had incredible success stemming from the switch to the strategy of hiring young reps with a few years of experience. We're all "fresh" enough to go after new business with enthusiasm but we were also a known quantity in that we had all proven that we would stick it out in sales. Prior to this switch, we had 50% turnover for all the reasons stated above (some reps wanted to sell tangible products, others wanted a relationship sales style, others wanted a guaranteed salary, and other realized marketing or operations was a better fit for their personality) but none of the "new group" has left in the past 12 months and I doubt anyone will for a while.
The post-2008 stagnation has created climate with a lot of talented reps stuck near the bottom of the ladder. Offer them the next rung or an honest path toward advancement and they'll jump over in a heartbeat. Let the churn n' burn companies (ADP, Cintas, office equipment dealers/manufacturers) do the hard work of weeding out the fresh grads that won't cut it or don't want in. You avoid the biggest risks and although you'll have to pay more, you'll be more confident that you're getting value out of that "Mission Critical" sales position.
Haha...this whole article...."we got a bunch of cheap and hungry kids to sell our product that pretty much sells itself to other kids just like them and they did it! Yay us!"
Now why don't you try this out in an industry you actually need domain knowledge in and let us know how it works out.
Actually, this is correct. I know because I've built two companies that match your description and it did indeed work that way.
The problem is that a company built like that will eventually hit an equilibrium point wherein the natural, organic market plateaus. This may not be a problem, but if for any reason you want to grow beyond that you will need to cross over to the dark side and start dealing with salespeople.
Thanks for the validation. I was surprised that I got to -3 within 5 minutes of posting. I agree that the dark side of sales is forcing/tricking people into buying things that they don't necessarily need or want, which happens once you attempt to expand outside that natural market for your product.
> Not skimping when negotiating fees. If you try to talk a recruiter down to 20% or 17.5% of a first-year compensation fee, you're actually incentivizing them to only show you candidates they don't think they can place elsewhere.
True - better service always commands higher fees. Offer to pay a full 30% if they promise to deliver and make me happy. * Hat-tip Stuart Diamond.
There were some definite red flags in the article:
"Even a win rate of 35% means you lost 65% of your deals. Remaining upbeat in the face of micro-failures is key"
This is a total misconception of sales at its core. What if a sales person closed his 10 largest deals worth multi-millions and the rest got away? Is losing those other smaller deals making up your mythical 65% considered a failure? Hardly. Sales isn't about percentages, it's about generating revenue - period. Thinking like this is dangerous.
"i.e. sales staffs that are looking to jump onto their next rocket ship."
Not sure this is great advice. Why would I want a guy who keeps jumping ship to the next big thing? If anything, you want someone who's been at a larger startup who wants more stability as opposed to the "get in and get out" type of sales person who's more likely to leave you high and dry if things aren't working out the first two months - making you having to start the process all over again.
"Find people who have artifacts of the type of achievement you're looking for: quota attainment, activity metrics, etc. Note that salespeople are used to, well, selling — so don't get spun"
These salespeople tend to come at a cost.
If you have people getting into president's club and consistently performing, they're going to cost you. There's only two types of sales people - the mediocre kind and the high performing kind. As you stated, you don't want mediocre salespeople, you want the chart toppers. These people know they are good at what they do and will demand a higher salary, more benefits and bigger percentage of the company. They also know how to negotiate. Remember, they're sales people so expect a fight on how much they're going to demand if you really want their skills.
"Another good screening tool is a mini homework assignment involving account research and voicemail pitching. At the end of the written screen, I ask candidates to leave me a 30-second voicemail pitching TalentBin as if I were the head of recruiting at Airbnb"
When I was in sales, I was taught specifically to not leave voice mails, for several reasons. If you're asking me to pitch you over voice mail, that's a red flag in my mind. If you want me to do my homework and then come back for an impromptu sales pitch, or do a simulated cold call over the phone that's fine - but leave a voice mail? Not an ideal way to judge someone's sales ability at all.
This is generally very sound advice. There is one part that I take issue with though.
>We also looked for proactive junior staff out of companies like LinkedIn who were ready for the next step, but not afforded the opportunity
>A candidate may have worked in sales, but if they were an account manager tending existing customers, they may not be cut out to be an account executive acquiring new business. Just because someone has made 80 sales calls a day in a prior job doesn't mean they can demo and close. Make sure candidates have the expertise you need.
These two points contradict each other, and I think it is a very important issue. If you are not willing to allow a junior person a better opportunity immediately (hiring them into a promotion) then you have to compensate them better compared to the current company for the same position (short of intangibles.)
Often times, larger companies will have a more deliberate and organized sales process that is time-based. This creates scenarios where candidates that are otherwise qualified for the next step (Market Development Rep --> Account Executive) have a seemingly artificial ceiling preventing them from that role at their current company. While it probably makes sense at the larger company for a Market Rep to be promoted after 18-24 months, this person may be very capable of the next level earlier.
If you can successfully find driven junior level people who have this type of artificial ceiling, you can hire very valuable sales people. This also means you are going to have to take a risk that they can perform on the next level, but you can also hedge this risk by offering slightly less total compensation for the opportunity _now_.
Totally right! Goal of this was not to say "don't hire them" but instead "authenticate the acumen."
Also, the non-abridged chapter for the book talks about exactly this:
"But there is a caveat when it comes to more junior staff. Many of these industry bellwethers have the infrastructure to support solid sales training programs and to instrument good sales behaviors, like high calling and emailing activity. So looking there for junior sales staff, like market development reps, who are ready to move on to a closing role could make sense. Just be cautious that the potential hire hits your other requirements, as many of these larger organizations have a lower bar for other important criteria."
Those statements don't necessarily contradict each other. For example, there are a lot of junior sales development (or business development) reps that have these artificial ceilings put on them where it takes a lot longer to get promoted into a true closing role. Their skillsets are still quite aligned with what you'd want in a closing rep in that they have to prospect, cold-call and drum up business in a similar hunting fashion as that of a true closing rep.
On the other hand, you do have to be wary of those that are extremely used to having inbound flow for their calls or were more of account managers. It's a completely different style of sell- more farming and less hunting. For earlier stage companies, you almost always are looking for hunter-types, and that's what the author is trying to point out.
tl;dr: Hire up-and-coming SDRs/BDRs whose growth pattern is too limited at larger companies but avoid farmers when what you actually need are those with the hunter gene in them.
>we focused all our energy on landing new, hungry grads out of high-caliber universities like Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA and more — with preference to athletes and others who had demonstrated grit and success on a team.
All they did was replicate the Financial Industry model. Goldman et al. do exactly this, nothing new or hacker about that at all.
27 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 62.5 ms ] threadI think this is true in general. I've worked with highly intelligent, but less-motivated people, and you're always waiting for that magical moment when they come out of their lethargy and become a 100x worker. And that moment usually never happens.
Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.”
Ability to answer random questions? Ability to compose a narrative? Ability to deal with seemingly arbitrary BS?
There's the hyper-organized salesperson, their calendar is regimented to the point that every hour is tied to some revenue-generating activity. Their room, like their desk, office, and car (if they're in an outside sales role) will be equally organized. There is variation and I've generalized some common traits, but the organized rep will fit in a role that requires attention to detail, time management, and new business.
The other type of rep is the "wing it", off the cuff rep. They are quick to respond to any request and although they aren't spending every minute selling, they prefer to juggle a number of tasks at once. A messy room can help narrow their personality down. The "in-the-moment" rep is a good fit for an fast paced role that needs the rep to constantly adapt and respond quickly to customer concerns.
Is one question going to tell you all of that? No, but it is a useful tool for building a profile of their personality and selling style but you'll need a lot more than one answer to base it on.
Isn't this a marker of both gullibility and unscrupulousness? Would the author be okay with his current employees taking similar screenshots out of CRM and sharing those screenshots with other prospective employers?
Most companies do maintain sales performance for each candidate however and this is usually safe to ask for. It wont let you compare across the whole company but at least you can verify their actual numbers as the company tracks them.
Companies that take these kinds of reports seriously will usually use a second source to verify the information. My old employer always tried to interview 2 candidates from the same company and region so they can compare the rankings and data presented by the candidates. There was also an informal network of information sharing as everyone had worked for everyone else in the industry at some point and had contacts they could reach out to. Plus, prestigious recognitions, things like Chariman's/President's clubs for top reps, usually get listed in some publicly available form (ours was in our quarterly fluff magazine available on our website).
Now is it ethical? I've noticed that there's a recognized line in sales culture between information concerning a rep's personal performance and proprietary company information. Things like stack rankings (scrubbed of $ figures), activity stats, close ratios, etc are considered kosher by everyone as they don't reveal anything that could realistically damage the company. Things like a rep's list of contacts, anything with revenue figures, etc are frowned upon as they are considered unethical for a variety of reasons. It shows the candidate is willing to damage their employer and knowing that data puts the hiring company in a bad legal position.
Salespeople are judged on their performance and their performance is unique in that it can be quantified in hard numbers. Sales culture has a high level of tolerance for sharing of relevant information as it benefits everyone involved. Candidates get objective proof of their value to a potential employer and employers get objective information, making their hiring decision truly informed instead of a subjective crapshoot like you find in elsewhere.
If you ask this as part of a job interview process, you're signalling to the applicants that (i) you don't trust the answers they're giving you (ii) you don't trust your own ability to assess whether their communication is commensurate with their resume boasts (iii) you expect them to breach their employer's trust by sharing confidential sales figures in order to get the job.
If you're giving those signals in the interview, good salespeople will run a mile.
Average salespeople might still know their CRM system well enough to be able to run the statistic that paints them in the best possible light. And even if they can't prove they topped the activity stats for the outbound East Coast FMCG team last month (whilst they were on a final warning for poor figures), there's always Photoshop.
This is the more efficient way of hiring a sales team IMO. I've been in both categories and although I've only been in the game for a few years, I've learned the pitfalls of the "fresh grad" approach.
The author is right in considering sales "Mission Critical" for startups and other small businesses looking to grow and then goes on to explain the various ways in which an open or ineffective sales position will damage the position of the company. Despite that display of wisdom, they advocate a "fresh grad" approach which is just about the fastest way to ensure high turnover and low productivity. Every salesperson has to start somewhere and a fresh graduate with a sales personality and love for the job often be the best kind of salesperson for this kind of role for the reasons stated by the author. The problem is that candidates can't know if they'll like the world of sales until they've lived in it. Even if they have an amazing ability to filter out applicants without "the right stuff", they'll still end up with a high % of new reps that just don't like the responsibilities of their role.
That can manifest itself in a lack of interest for the industry (boy did I hate copiers, talk about a dead-end market), a lack of interest in the product (some people love sales but hate selling intangibles like services), a mismatch in the selling style required by the market (relationship vs. technical), or a preference for stable income (depends on compensation structure but sales can be very feast or famine).
The company I work for now faced this issue and we've had incredible success stemming from the switch to the strategy of hiring young reps with a few years of experience. We're all "fresh" enough to go after new business with enthusiasm but we were also a known quantity in that we had all proven that we would stick it out in sales. Prior to this switch, we had 50% turnover for all the reasons stated above (some reps wanted to sell tangible products, others wanted a relationship sales style, others wanted a guaranteed salary, and other realized marketing or operations was a better fit for their personality) but none of the "new group" has left in the past 12 months and I doubt anyone will for a while.
The post-2008 stagnation has created climate with a lot of talented reps stuck near the bottom of the ladder. Offer them the next rung or an honest path toward advancement and they'll jump over in a heartbeat. Let the churn n' burn companies (ADP, Cintas, office equipment dealers/manufacturers) do the hard work of weeding out the fresh grads that won't cut it or don't want in. You avoid the biggest risks and although you'll have to pay more, you'll be more confident that you're getting value out of that "Mission Critical" sales position.
Now why don't you try this out in an industry you actually need domain knowledge in and let us know how it works out.
1. Build a great product.
2. Find people with a good attitude that are genuinely excited about the product.
3. Hire those people.
4. Give them the chance to talk to other people about how excited they are about the product.
5. Track metrics and provide sales-based bonuses but don't overincentivize/gamify the sales process.
6. Enjoy healthy, sustainable sales growth, happy customers, happy employees.
Disclaimer: I have little to no experience in sales. This just seems like common sense to me.
The problem is that a company built like that will eventually hit an equilibrium point wherein the natural, organic market plateaus. This may not be a problem, but if for any reason you want to grow beyond that you will need to cross over to the dark side and start dealing with salespeople.
True - better service always commands higher fees. Offer to pay a full 30% if they promise to deliver and make me happy. * Hat-tip Stuart Diamond.
"Even a win rate of 35% means you lost 65% of your deals. Remaining upbeat in the face of micro-failures is key"
This is a total misconception of sales at its core. What if a sales person closed his 10 largest deals worth multi-millions and the rest got away? Is losing those other smaller deals making up your mythical 65% considered a failure? Hardly. Sales isn't about percentages, it's about generating revenue - period. Thinking like this is dangerous.
"i.e. sales staffs that are looking to jump onto their next rocket ship."
Not sure this is great advice. Why would I want a guy who keeps jumping ship to the next big thing? If anything, you want someone who's been at a larger startup who wants more stability as opposed to the "get in and get out" type of sales person who's more likely to leave you high and dry if things aren't working out the first two months - making you having to start the process all over again.
"Find people who have artifacts of the type of achievement you're looking for: quota attainment, activity metrics, etc. Note that salespeople are used to, well, selling — so don't get spun"
These salespeople tend to come at a cost.
If you have people getting into president's club and consistently performing, they're going to cost you. There's only two types of sales people - the mediocre kind and the high performing kind. As you stated, you don't want mediocre salespeople, you want the chart toppers. These people know they are good at what they do and will demand a higher salary, more benefits and bigger percentage of the company. They also know how to negotiate. Remember, they're sales people so expect a fight on how much they're going to demand if you really want their skills.
"Another good screening tool is a mini homework assignment involving account research and voicemail pitching. At the end of the written screen, I ask candidates to leave me a 30-second voicemail pitching TalentBin as if I were the head of recruiting at Airbnb"
When I was in sales, I was taught specifically to not leave voice mails, for several reasons. If you're asking me to pitch you over voice mail, that's a red flag in my mind. If you want me to do my homework and then come back for an impromptu sales pitch, or do a simulated cold call over the phone that's fine - but leave a voice mail? Not an ideal way to judge someone's sales ability at all.
>We also looked for proactive junior staff out of companies like LinkedIn who were ready for the next step, but not afforded the opportunity
>A candidate may have worked in sales, but if they were an account manager tending existing customers, they may not be cut out to be an account executive acquiring new business. Just because someone has made 80 sales calls a day in a prior job doesn't mean they can demo and close. Make sure candidates have the expertise you need.
These two points contradict each other, and I think it is a very important issue. If you are not willing to allow a junior person a better opportunity immediately (hiring them into a promotion) then you have to compensate them better compared to the current company for the same position (short of intangibles.)
Often times, larger companies will have a more deliberate and organized sales process that is time-based. This creates scenarios where candidates that are otherwise qualified for the next step (Market Development Rep --> Account Executive) have a seemingly artificial ceiling preventing them from that role at their current company. While it probably makes sense at the larger company for a Market Rep to be promoted after 18-24 months, this person may be very capable of the next level earlier.
If you can successfully find driven junior level people who have this type of artificial ceiling, you can hire very valuable sales people. This also means you are going to have to take a risk that they can perform on the next level, but you can also hedge this risk by offering slightly less total compensation for the opportunity _now_.
Also, the non-abridged chapter for the book talks about exactly this:
"But there is a caveat when it comes to more junior staff. Many of these industry bellwethers have the infrastructure to support solid sales training programs and to instrument good sales behaviors, like high calling and emailing activity. So looking there for junior sales staff, like market development reps, who are ready to move on to a closing role could make sense. Just be cautious that the potential hire hits your other requirements, as many of these larger organizations have a lower bar for other important criteria."
Great point!
On the other hand, you do have to be wary of those that are extremely used to having inbound flow for their calls or were more of account managers. It's a completely different style of sell- more farming and less hunting. For earlier stage companies, you almost always are looking for hunter-types, and that's what the author is trying to point out.
tl;dr: Hire up-and-coming SDRs/BDRs whose growth pattern is too limited at larger companies but avoid farmers when what you actually need are those with the hunter gene in them.
All they did was replicate the Financial Industry model. Goldman et al. do exactly this, nothing new or hacker about that at all.