In this article, Christer B Jansson writes about the challenge of recruiting salespeople. Most of the people I talk to, think it is difficult to find salespeople and in Stockholm area it is almost impossible without paying outrageously high wages. That’s what many people I talk to say today. So how can you improve your situation when facing with this challenge?
It is not only difficult to find salespeople that are in short supply, but also other labor in many places in Sweden. It is a constant topic for entrepreneurs and the local municipalities. Here I am writing about some suggestions that should improve your ability to find salespeople for your company.
Below I will mention the facts from the 15,000 sales reluctance tests (SPQ Gold/FSA) we have done so far in Sweden that measure salespeople’s motivation, desire to perform, goal diffusion, performance anxiety and 16 types of sales obstacles. A behavioral test that, instead of saying that a salesperson is yellow, empathetic, listening, goal-oriented, tells about whether the person will make 20 visits a week or make 30 calls a day, etc.
Extremely high salary – If you say so, I think it stands for you. Salespeople must draw in money for the company by (a little simplified) doing a good needs analysis of customers and prospects so that the customer or potential customer sees the value and profit of buying from the company the seller represents. The value of the money the seller pulls in should reflect the salary in some way. Commission is usually combined with fixed salary and in some companies only fixed salary. There are professions where the selling person has 100% commission such as brokers, consultants in smaller companies to take a few examples.
Facts, among other things, based on our 15,000 tests . Our studies show that 55% of US salespeople are motivated by making money. During the pandemic, there has been a massive change as a lot of women applied to the sales industry in the US to make money as the commissions are very high. Working for 100% commission is not uncommon.
In the approx. 15,000 tests we did with our sales obstacle test, it turns out that only 23% of Swedish salespeople are motivated by money to perform. The other salespeople are triggered by factors such as free work without control, only to perform and develop myself. So what does your reward system look like? Attracts the salespeople you want. The salespeople you are looking for are the salespeople who also perform, so they will be worth the salary you pay. Do you know what triggers your salespeople to perform? Do they want short-term or long-term rewards?
More facts. High performing salespeople are often competitive, one manager told me. I have doubted that claim for many years. However, our studies show that it is true to a certain extent. For some it is an individual ie – I have to perform while for others it is to perform for the team. Is selling an individual job or teamwork and do you choose a reward system that favors what you want to get out of your salespeople. The salespeople I call Competitive are the salespeople who have a sales style that is more closing oriented than other salespeople. In our selling style test with six different sales styles, those who are close-minded come out extremely much higher on Motivation and desire to perform than salespeople with other Sales Styles.
If we sum up this part, the solution becomes; do you have the right reward system to find the salespeople you want and want to keep?
Difficult to find Salespeople who know our industry (it is so unique). In other words, experience is important. In some industries, a certain educational background is important to be able to understand what I sell and to be able to talk to customers. If it’s more experience I’m looking for, how much more important is that than talent, i.e. a person with the right conditions to become a successful salesperson.
The facts in our studies show that in the short term (slightly different in different industries) the experienced salesperson performs better. As soon as the talent gets the right training, they will overtake the experienced salesperson, our studies show again. This means that if you have a good system for recruiting the right talent for sales and a good onboarding program that takes into account the needs of different talents, it just takes a little longer and you feed your sales organization with the salespeople you need to then supplement externally where necessary.
Summarizing this part, do you have a system for finding talent? A selection system that captures these talents as well as a good sales training program/onboarding program for these people? It costs money, some say, and I say it’s less expensive than running out of salespeople or recruiting low-performing salespeople and missing out on high-performing ones. Our studies show that 12% of the salespeople we tested do not want to talk to people and a total of 20% thought it was so much work that they would instead like to have another job. Not recruited properly – yes, most likely.
Salesperson turnover is too high . There are entire industries that consume young salespeople who can never imagine a sales job again. Sad and makes me sad. Those companies probably don’t read Saleseffect so maybe I don’t need to worry about it in this article.
Young people change more often . There are several reasons why the turnover of sellers is too high, and I will mention a few common ones here that can be remedied relatively easily. Young people change jobs more often these days and that is true among some. Have you found out why they change jobs so you know what you need to change to make them stay longer? Because they will move but you might be able to get the ones you want back if you set it up right. Know of a major company that offered those who wanted to travel, part-time work at their foreign offices so they could travel and at the same time make a living in the country they were in at the time. A bit difficult, however, for us smaller companies if we don’t have an extremely good network abroad.
A company we work with said that if a newly hired salesperson makes it through the first two years, they stay. The company has experienced, talented managers, so if they only get the right wood, the people they recruit will become incredibly talented salespeople. The reason the turnover was too high in the first two years was that those who quit, could not cope with the number of customer visits that are made every week.
As soon as we introduced to also check if the Seller will be able to make 20 customer visits a week (different in different industries), the number who did not make it through the first two years dropped drastically.
Another reason is lack of leadership . By that I don’t mean obvious cases like destructive leadership, substandard unethical values, a wrong view of what sales is and other bad forms of leadership. I assume leaders who are competent and still have a large turnover. One could be that the leadership style you have does not fit the sales style my salespeople have and they therefore need a different leadership. Another reason you don’t know anything about Sales Obstacles or even deny that they exist so the environment my sellers live in exacerbates their problems.
Another is that you, as a manager, do not have the time or commitment to connect the company’s goals with what drives each individual salesperson, so they are passionate about succeeding in their goals. In other words, you may have too much of your own work so you don’t have time to coach and lead your salespeople. Seen so many who have tried to lead and support their salespeople via Excel sheet, emails and think it should work. You need to be present and in the field from time to time.
Flaws in the Selection Process – In the selection process of salepeople, you may be using the wrong factors. There will be more hen we like and some we don’t like. Again as all sales research shows, it’s not about personality (which is important from other aspects) but being normal as most people are statistically and doing the job. So what we need to find are people who are motivated to sell, like to perform and don’t find it difficult to take the initiative to contact people they don’t know in order to represent the company in the role of Salesperson or whatever title they have as responsible for a certain part of the company’s revenue.
Prejudices about Sellers . Last thought to bring up. How do you view salespeople in your company? A few years ago, I read an editor at a newspaper who poured out his anger and contempt on these salespeople who contacted him when he came back from vacation and were like a pack of hungry wolves. Wonder how the salespeople at his company reacted to this message.
We measure in our test something we call Role Denial, i.e. it is shameful to be a seller and sellers with this problem also require more Sales Support than other sellers (i.e. they cost more than other sellers) and they also tend to become professional visitors, which reduces revenue. They also quit faster than other sellers so you get a higher recruitment rate if you recruit sellers with this barrier. So how do you view your professional women and men that you hired to manage your revenue?
Summary – Do you, at your company, have the business culture and view of leadership that supports your salespeople, develops them, rewards them, strengthens them in their work versus the waste, you consume people.
Your reputation in the market : How well your company is known by sellers and what sellers say about being employed by you? Do you represent a company that invests in its salespeople, that gives them a good working climate, good training, gives fair pay for performance, and am I considered as an employed salesperson to be important to the company or a necessary evil. During the time I lived in Malta, a company wanted to publish an article in Malta’s newspaper that they were working with me. I of course answered yes and wondered what the purpose of the article was. -“It was to show that we invest in training for our staff”. In other words, to attract more people to look for work with them.
In summary. There is a lot to do in most companies to ensure that Salespeople want to work for them and want to stay as a salesperson and develop as a salesperson year after year. Many companies depend on personal selling and many goods and services need personal selling in order to be sold in the market. Do you have the business culture that makes salespeople want to work with you, stay for a long time and perform excellently while developing both as people and in their profession as a Salesperson? Because fundamentally, if we don’t sell, the company ceases to exist.
Concluding with my quote . People are rarely wrong – sometimes they’re just in the wrong place.
