What You Don't Know About Your Sales Hires Is Putting Your Revenue At Risk

Hiring the right salespeople is crucial to developing an effective and dynamic sales force. Developing an effective sales force is the most important job a leader has because your sales force is the vehicle through which you serve the world. No sales, no company. No company, no need for employees. Poor sales, poor company. Poor companies tend to have poor service, which also leads to no customers. You get where I'm going here.

There is an ideal candidate profile for every sales role and every sales leadership role in your company. For each role, there is a right mix of skills and sales DNA that, if your sales hire possesses it, will make them likely to be an exceptional producer.

But there's a caveat here. And it's a big one. There are also certain combinations of weaknesses that will prevent even the most skilled salespeople from performing. That's not good news. And, even worse than that, those weaknesses are not obvious to either the salesperson or to management. That doesn't mean that you won't notice their manifestation. You will. Their wrath is completely observable if you dare to look. Finding the roots and pulling them out once and for all is the real work.

Salespeople and sales leaders with these detrimental hidden weaknesses will consistently underachieve. Everybody has weaknesses but certain combinations cause your salespeople to lose all of their sales power so they can't ask the next right question, execute the next step in the process, or manage their sales behaviors effectively. This tends to create a catastrophic series of management events, which are meant to help but only exacerbate the chipping away of revenue, margin, and accountability in the organization. This leads to apathy, excuse making, mediocrity, and the unspoken decision that comes with a loss of leadership vision. What decision, you ask? The decision of leadership to accept things as they are because "it is what it is".

Yikes! No sadder words have ever been spoken in a boardroom or in a sales meeting than these. In fact, I recently took a long walk with an old friend and mentor who told me he believes people who tend to repeat the phrase "it is what it is" as a mantra when life gets hard, lack the ability to be introspective and are mistaking real acceptance for giving up.  

Have you given up on having an overachieving sales organization?

Have you given up on your vision or your BHAG and find yourself settling for less than you know is possible?

Do you keep your real goals private and only share the easy "reachable" targets with your board and your team?

What if "it is what it is" is just a place you find yourself in this moment?

What if you could objectively evaluate "what is" and create a roadmap to What's Possible?

What would you do if you found out the information you need to effectively run your sales organization is within reach?

All you have to do is make a decision and take the first step.

Don't give up. Reclaim your vision. Live your dream. Serve the world.

I help CEOs, presidents, and entrepreneurs of fast-growth companies significantly grow and optimize their businesses - double the growth in half the time. In addition to providing tools, and strategies, and consulting for revenue growth, my company, Align Strategic, also recruits sales and sales leadership talent with guaranteed results. Find out more about all the ways we help elite CEOs grow revenue here.