How to Hire Top Sales People

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If you are not familiar with Pareto Principle, more commonly known as the 80/20 rule, its basic premise is that 80% of any output will be generated by only 20% of the total input utilized.

Look at your sales team.  Is 80% of your revenues generated by 20% of your reps?   Are you spending 80% of your time managing the 80% of the reps who are not producing?  Have trained and trained your team, without significant results?

The #1 best way to improve your sales team’s performance is to hire sales performers.

When hiring sales talent, drop experience from your criteria list.  That’s right, I said DROP it. Remove it from your required skill set because your top producing sales individual is not going to be the individual with 10+ years’ experience.  It’s going to be the individual willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

According to The Harvard Business School’s recently conducted studythey found that top sellers possess the following character traits:

  • 100% acceptance of responsibility for results
  • Above-average ambition and desire to succeed
  • Above-average willpower and determination;
  • Self-discipline
  • Intensely goal-oriented
  • High level of customer empathy
  • Impeccably honest
  • Does not take “no” personally
  • Has the ability to approach strangers, even when it is uncomfortable to them

Does your sales team exhibit these traits?  If not, you probably have the wrong people on your team.  Stop wasting your time on the 80% who won’t produce.  And, start hiring the 20% who will.

 

 

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