Born to Sell

Developing sales leadership excellence is complex and involves performance factors beyond product knowledge, sales techniques, CRMs and sales funnels. At the core, however, it is more about understanding the inborn qualities of naturally talented sales reps who are instinctively and obsessively driven to influence customer behavior, and then creating teams of only those people. Anyone can be a sales rep, but relatively few will regularly eclipse all others. These peak performers typically comprise the top 20 percent of a team. Does this apply at your company? Would profits improve if the bottom 80 percent of your team sold more like the top 20 percent? If so, following is guidance for more predictably identifying, hiring and developing peak performers for your sales team.

Hire Natural Skill

Business leaders should seek out sales talent possessing both a natural passion for selling and the competencies closely aligned with their specific sales processes, but they must also understand this—people are not born to sell. Some are, however, born with unique personal qualities supporting an ability to achieve high levels of competence in a particular field, sales or otherwise, with minimum practice. Personal qualities and natural talents are hard-wired from birth, and cannot be really acquired. While training can greatly enhance these talents in people who possess them, it can only take those who do not so far. Fortunate people are hired for jobs exploiting inborn gifts and natural passions; others are doomed to experience work as a burden, typically languishing in the bottom 80 percent. All reps can be defined by what they know, their learned abilities for impacting a sales process, and the inborn personal attributes that will motivate them toward success. Interviews too frequently focus on knowledge, skills and past experiences, rather than identifying the existence of vital personal qualities that instinctively drive naturally talented salespeople. Past performance only predicts future results when inborn personal qualities and acquired skills or knowledge closely align with a complementary sales process.

Align Talent with Your Process

Different sales processes demand unique sales talents and competencies. Some require short-cycle super-closers; others demand reps that can develop and nurture customers over time. While many reps can perform any sales process reasonably well in the short term, reps are generally more satisfied, and productive, driving sales processes closely aligned with their unique attributes. These reps get the job done, require less supervision, maintain stamina, and usually achieve consistently higher results. Those in the top 20 percent have fun on the job. Some great reps thrive on meeting new prospects, closing deals quickly and moving on. These reps typically exhibit high levels of ego drive, urgency and assertiveness. Alternatively, these specific qualities would make them impatient and bored if required to develop long-term customer relationships or manage protracted sales processes.

Identify Instinctive Qualities

Naturally talented sales people are driven to change minds. These naturals are instinctively led to persuade, yet they exude the finesse of a consultative, customer-focused problem solver rather than the traits of a pushy rep chasing a commission. A close alignment of inborn qualities to your sales process will increases your hiring success probabilities, and help you develop a peak-performing sales team. To optimize hiring, learn to recognize these inborn personal qualities exhibited by naturally talented sales reps.

• Ego-drive, assertiveness, aggressiveness, gregariousness, idea-orientation, empathy
   
• Sociability, self-structure, skepticism, cautiousness, abstract-reasoning, risk-taking
   
• Flexibility, thoroughness, ego-strength, external structure, urgency, accommodation
   

Specific levels and combinations of these natural talents are required for an effective match with specific sales processes. While super-closers draw on extremely high levels of ego drive and assertiveness, long-term business developers, though possessing appropriate levels of these qualities, also require higher levels of accommodation and empathy to provide the stamina for protracted sales processes. The personal qualities of naturally talented sales reps can be explored in an interview, but unless your last name is Freud or Maslow, proven predictive hiring tests should be used.

Test to Predict Potential

Discovering the presence and appropriate mix of 20 vital personal qualities during an interview is virtually impossible. Candidates may appear extroverted during an interview, but they may only be displaying this type of behavior during your discussion. Unless you are a psychologist with vast experience studying the personal qualities of peak-performing sales reps, use a predictive hiring test. These cost-effective, highly predictive tests do not tell you who to hire, but they can help you accurately identify reps with the inborn traits your sales processes require. Match this natural talent with effective skills and knowledge and you have the formula for a top-20-percent rep. Personality tests can be customized for your specific sales process, and hiring without this insight is a risky practice, frequently leading to expensive hiring mistakes.

Plan for Personalities

Personality test results can also be the foundation for creating coaching and development plans. No rep is a perfect personality match for any job, and weaknesses are sometimes hidden. An early understanding of personality strengths and developmental opportunities supports ongoing professional development. While personal qualities are inborn and do not change, when reps are aware of weaknesses they can develop methods to offset them. Reps with low self-structure can adopt detailed territory coverage tools, or an overly aggressive rep could attend assertiveness training. A common mistake of sales leaders is managing all reps in the same way, too often trying to develop a salesforce of clones who all follow the same set processes. An understanding of each rep’s personal qualities supports a unique management approach addressing specific weaknesses, without over-management. A highly self-structured manager will likely insist that reps adopt the manager’s organization methods; yet most great reps are also self-structured and will be annoyed if directed to adopt the manager’s methods. Jack Welch said, “Measure your people and take action on those who don’t measure up,” and “Lead change before you have to.” Great advice for upgrading your team to only peak performers. This article is the first in a seven-part series. Each segment will focus on retail and marketing techniques to promote profitability.

Creating Peak Performance Demands Focus on People First

• Hire only natural-born sales talent with personal qualities and competencies closely aligned with your sales process; train them appropriately; maximize selling time; and maintain an environment where they feel motivated, appreciated, fairly compensated, professionally growing and happy.
   
• Use predictive personal qualities tests to identify reps that can instinctively and naturally drive your sales process.
   
• Upgrade poor and average reps; make room for more naturally talented sales excellence.