Should you hire a salesperson? 5 questions to ask yourself first

The fallacy. Hiring leads to linear increase of revenues

You hired a salesperson. Six or eight months later, you've spent €/£80K in salary, lost three months of a senior leader's time onboarding them and revenue is flat. Does this sound familiar?

There is a widely held belief that hiring a salesperson leads to a linear increase in revenue. One new sales rep = new revenue equal to quota. The reality is that hiring a new salesperson leads, more often than not, to added costs. Not added revenues.

So before your next hire, here are five questions I ask every CEO and CRO I work with.

1 - Have you done a root cause analysis of your last sales hiring failure?

If a previous hire didn't work out and you haven't looked hard at why, don't hire again. And by root cause, I don't mean blaming the rep you let go. I mean a deep, honest look at your sales system - the onboarding, the sales management approach, the support structure, the processes, the methodology. What was broken? What have you fixed? If the answer is nothing, you're about to replay the same failure at a higher cost. You can pressure-test your sales system here.

2 - Are your existing reps performing?

If your current team isn't at or near quota, why would you add someone new into that environment? Adding headcount to a broken system doesn't fix the system, it only scales the problem. Before hiring, focus on turning your B players into B+. A 10% improvement of efficiency can lead to a 33% increase in revenue. See here for more.

And turn your C players into B players? Or make the harder call on the Cs. Then hire.

3 - Are you still starting with the CV?

If your hiring process opens with a CV screen - or if you use the services of a recruiter filtering on his or her "experience", chances are you will miss on potentially great sales candidates or consider poor performers. Most CVs today are AI-polished to the point of being interchangeable. And when a sales hire fails, it's never because of what was on the CV. It's because of lack of desire or weak sales DNA. Yet, these don't show up in a CV. Assess your candidates even before considering their CVs, use a sales dedicated talent analytics assessment instead. Start there, not with the CV.

4 - Do you know what competencies you're hiring for - and how you'll test them?

"Hiring a sales rep" is like "Hiring a footballer" or "Hiring a rugbyman". In football you have wingers, midfielders, goal keeper, striker, etc... The same applies in sales. If you hire, do you hire someone selling transactionally, selling ticket values of €10k, €50k, €100k, more? Is he selling B2B, B2G, complex selling, who does he need to be used to talk to, etc... Hire specifically. Bases on specific competencies.

And then, do you have a documented, score-carded recruitment process? If not, you'll improvise in interviews and rely on gut feel. Define the ideal sales person, the competencies, build the scorecard, then hire.

5 - Do you have a dedicated sales onboarding process?

Not a general, HR company onboarding - a sales-specific one. Do you know exactly what you'll ask for in the first 30, 60, and 90 days? If not, don't hire yet. Build the onboarding first. A rep dropped into an undefined first 90 days will cost you months of lost ramp time and, most likely, their resignation.

Success in sales hiring is multifactorial (long article on this here). You might succeed without this but then it's a result of luck and isn't replicable.

Which of these five is the weakest link in your current approach?

And if you want to pressure-test your full sales hiring process before your next hire, get in touch for a straightforward, no holds barred conversation.