A good salesperson is hard to find

The odds that your company's next great sales rainmaker suddenly will show up on your doorstep are slim.

That's because there's a vast component to selling that includes listening, relationship-building and intuition - all qualities that are difficult to measure during the hiring process.

Hiring managers without a sales background often don't get it, according to Curt Nelson of Cedar Rapids. Nelson, now director of the Entrepreneurial Development Center of Iowa, was a sales trainer early in his career.

Finding, hiring and retaining top sales talent is the biggest staffing challenge any business faces, Nelson argued in his recent book, “The Recipe for Business Success.”

“The biggest mistake people make when they don't have a sales background is that they simply don't know what to look for,” Nelson said in an interview.

Such managers might be tempted to hire the candidate who speaks the most convincingly about their skills and background. Look instead for the candidates that model the skill they will need most in selling - the ability to ask good questions, and listen carefully to their prospect - Nelson says.

“A successful sales person, they will want to know about the job,” Nelson said. “ They're going to come with a list of questions.”

Phil Wasta is looking nationally for a rainmaker to sell for his office furnishings business, Pioneer Workspace Solutions in Cedar Rapids. He knows it won't be easy.

He's prepared a lengthy and detailed job description, and plans to require the applicant to undergo multiple interviews and take an assessment to determine if he or she fits the profile of the company's ideal candidate.

Why go to so much trouble?

“The outside sales people, the account representatives, are the life blood of our organization,” Wasta said.

Wasta said the company's sales positions are more technical and demanding than many, as they sell work space systems made up of parts that have to be configured for a specific space from a variety of components and suppliers. Everything has to be correctly configured to fit the space, ordered correctly, delivered on time and installed correctly.

Therefore, successful sales professionals must work with designers and installers, clients and management.

No less importantly, they must understand the art of cold calling - engaging new clients and assessing whether Pioneer can make a sale.

Wasta ticked off a list of characteristics he's seeking in a candidate. It's a long one.

“Outgoing, friendly, problem solver, track record of being successful, creative problem solver, and some background that indicated they work well on a team,” Wasta said.

Oh, and one big one - the ability to manage repeated rejection.

Sales is on some level a numbers game, Wasta said, so a successful seller must be able to tell himself that each rejection brings him closer to the eventual sale. That's easy to say, he added, but harder to do after a sales process that can sometimes stretch into months of effort.

Jason Siefken, as CEO of SOS Sales Help in Cedar Rapids, provides direct sales help to growing businesses. Some of the best employees, he said, are stay-at-home moms who work by telephone from their own residences.

They defy the stereotype of the forceful, fast-talking sales rep, but Siefken said they are perfect for the present age in which consumers don't want to be overwhelmed.

In fact, Siefken disputed the whole notion of “born sellers.” He believes that sales is a set of skills that most people can learn if they are motivated and intelligent.

“A good salesperson listens effectively and can ask a series of questions to get the individual they are trying to learn about to engage,” Siefken said. “It's not domination.”

While Wasta likes profile testing, Siefken believes he can learn enough about the candidate through interviewing. He prefers to ask them about challenging situations they've encountered and how they handled those situations.

Nelson noted small businesses in particular rarely have the luxury of taking time to train a salesperson. So he recommended the hiring process look at records of meeting sales goals consistently over a significant period of time.

On his “Recipe for Business Success” website - recipeforbusinesssuccess.com - Nelson offers a list of questions to ask hiring prospects. They include, “What is the most important part of your selling process” and “What is your close rate for sales prospects taken beyond two contacts?”

The type of skills needed vary widely from one type of sales position to another, Nelson said.

“The kind of person who might be a great sales person at IBM with all their sales support might not be good at a startup,” he said.

Siefken shuns assessments but believes that having the candidate interview with a variety of groups they would interact with within a company can greatly improve the odds of good hires.

Wasta relies on an assessment called Predictive Index - there are many other assessment tools available - to help determine if the candidate's personality suits the ideal profile at Pioneer. Almost every candidate is skeptical about the ability of the profile to evaluate his or her personality as it relates to the job, he said.

He later shares their scores and surveys them on their own view of the results' accuracy.

“On a 10-point scale, virtually every one of them has ranked it at seven or above, and most rank its accuracy at eight or nine,” Wasta said.

Still, Wasta likes to maintain some flexibility in his hiring expectations. He finds that different candidates have different selling styles, and some even have distinct preferences for the kinds of product lines they're most comfortable selling.