The weakest salespeople usually look great in the interview and just that alone makes it extra hard to find strong top producers.
Weak salespeople are good at talking to people and building rapport. They know how to tell a good story, how to listen and make you feel good about them.
In short, they’re good, they’re good at interviewing.
But being a good interviewer tells you nothing about whether they can sell.
When I’m interviewing sales candidates, I look for two things:
Empathy and ego strength.
The best salespeople have a sincere interest in helping people. They want to understand a client’s problems and they will put themselves in the buyer’s shows. They are great listeners because they know that’s the best way to help their client.
If you met sales candidates like this, you’ll walk out of the interview thinking, Customers are going to love this guy.
And that’s why it’s easy to fool hiring managers, because weak salespeople have high empathy too.
But just because your customers like them, that doesn’t mean they’ll buy from them.
The other side of salespeople is ego strength.
I like to think of ego strength as rejection armor.
Salespeople get told no, a lot, so they need a high degree of ego strength. They leave messages that never get returned, they get hung up on, stood up for sales calls, and have to deal with losing a sale after three months of work, but that’s the job.
Now, a weak salesperson can make two prospecting calls in the morning, get rejected twice, and be done selling for the day. And because they don’t want to pick up the phone, they find something else to do. Anything that’s not sales, because to them selling equals rejection.
That’s not a top producer.
And I get it because no one loves to get rejected.
But when a top producer gets told no, she makes the next call.
Not because rejection doesn’t bother her, it just doesn’t control what she does next.
That’s a very different thing.
And you won’t discover weak salespeople simply by asking, “How do you handle rejection?”
What do you think they’re going to say?
“I’m terrible at it”? Of course not.
Anytime I’m interviewing sales candidates I put pressure on them in the interview, because if they can’t handle it now, they’ll fail miserably if I hire them.
Here’s two things I say to every sales candidate.
1. I tell them I don’t think they’re a top producer
At some point during the first interview, I’ll say something like:
“I’m not seeing top producer.”
And I’ll say it whether I think they are or aren’t, but I’m just listening for how they handle rejection.
If they say, “Well, okay. I understand.” That tells me they have weak ego strength.
But I want to hear them bite back or push back and say something like, “What makes you say that?” or “I disagree. Let me tell you why.”
Now we have something to work with and can go deeper, but if they collapse after a little pressure, what do you think they’re going to do if I hired them and they get rejected on their first sales call?
2. I ask them what they did after they lost a sale
I don’t want to know how they felt about losing a sale, but what did they do next. And I’ll ask them to walk me through a sale they thought they had but lost it.
I want to know what happened and what they did afterward.
I’m listening very closely to see who or what they blame.
Some will take ten minutes explaining why it was the prospect’s fault. Stuff like, the price was too high, or they couldn’t get it approved, or the competition was less, etc.
Maybe all of that is true, but I don’t care about any of it.
I want to know what they did next. Did they learn anything? Did they call another prospect? Did they plan to revisit that account in six months?
Good salespeople lose deals too, but they know it’s part of the business and don’t take it personally.
I’m not looking for someone who never gets knocked down, I’m looking for someone who gets back up.
And that’s why it’s so easy to hire the wrong people for a sales role.
Most people applying for the job can be likable, thoughtful and genuinely interested in helping people.
Everything about them can make you feel like you’ve struck gold, but if they don’t have the ego strength to keep going after the fifth time they get rejected, nothing else matters.
That’s the part I think most hiring managers miss.
They hire people because they seem nice and likeable.
But nice and likeable does not equal sales revenue.
That’s why I always look for ego strength in the interview instead of putting them on the job to wait and see if they fall flat on their face.
Find out now, not later.
Keep playing the long game!
When you start a business, nobody hands you a manual. That’s why I write The Long Game.
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