Hiring top-tier sales representatives is one of the biggest challenges businesses face, regardless of industry. The right sales team can drive revenue, build strong customer relationships, and contribute to a company’s long-term success. However, finding and retaining reliable, talented sales professionals is no easy task.
In this post, we’re going to talk about are some of the most common challenges and how sales managers or their partners in H.R. can overcome them.
Why is the Talent Pool So Tight?
The truth is that people go into sales for different reasons, and often for very different reasons than people go into other kinds of careers.
Sales is not profession that many people choose. On the contrary, sales chooses them. After that choice is made, only a small group of salespeople will reach their full potential.
Ask a few salespeople you know how they got into their jobs. Most of them will tell you that they somehow “fell into it”, or they were unemployed (maybe even desperate) and the sales jobs had a low entry barrier, or they were in attracted to sales after realizing they wanted to earn more money than in previous jobs they’d held.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 19% of college degrees issued in 2022 went to business majors. While that’s a healthy number, consider that of those business major graduates, most are focused on accounting, finance, general management and other non-sales related fields.
College Factual reports that in the 2020–2021 academic year, U.S. institutions awarded approximately 1,177 bachelor’s degrees in professional sales.
To put this into perspective, during the same period, about two million bachelor’s degrees were earned by graduates across all fields. This means that Professional Sales degrees accounted for just about 0.06% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded.
A higher percentage of college students major in marketing, business administration, and communications. Many of them may eventually choose sales as a career, but they have qualifications that allow for keeping their options open.
Most People Don’t Want Sales Jobs
Sales roles are not widely considered as prestigious or desirable.
The title “sales” can conjure up images of dishonest practices, rejection, and desperation (think of the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, which has surely discouraged thousands of people from working in sales). It can also conjure up images of the professional elite, which may seem unrealistic.
Here are a few more common complaints from workers that shy away from sales:
- Afraid of not being paid commissions by an employer
- Low to no base salaries
- Getting hung up on or having doors shut on them
- Dealing with a toxic sales team
It’s a stressful, high-pressure field. If salespeople fail, a whole company can fail. No sales, no revenue, no money for operational salaries and general overhead.
For the same reasons, when salespeople are successful, it’s very rewarding. They’re revered as rainmakers and can change lives. So, the question becomes, how do we focus on the positive aspects of the field? And how do we reduce the negatives to attract good people and make them want to stay?
Addressing the Issues at Hand
Luckily, there are ways to reduce employer risk and employee dissatisfaction from entry level reps all the way to the C-Suite. Hiring teams must first identify which of the most common issues (shared below) are disrupting their hiring goals, then work together to apply the best possible solution.
Let’s talk about the top five sales recruiting problems that exist today, and some useful ideas for eliminating them.
1. High Turnover Rates
Sales is a high-pressure field with a notoriously high turnover rate. Sales professionals often complain that unrealistic quotas, inadequate training, or lack of growth potential are additional causes of stress and job dissatisfaction. As a result, they’re frequently on the lookout for better opportunities, and may look to leave the sales profession altogether. These dynamics result in frequent turnover, disrupting sales performance and increasing hiring and training costs.
Potential Solutions: Improve retention by setting realistic goals, offering mentorship programs, and providing clear career advancement paths. Invest in employee development and create a stable work environment for consistent performers. By taking these actions, you as an employer can significantly improve job satisfaction and loyalty.
2. Identifying Genuine Talent
A decent sales candidate will talk a good game in interviews but may fail to deliver results in a real-world sales environment. It’s difficult to gauge a sales rep’s ability based on a résumé or a few conversations. It can also be hard to verify their true track record or references.
Potential Solutions: Implement skills-based assessments, role-playing exercises, or hands-on methods to evaluate a candidate’s actual performance before making a final hiring decision. Checking candidate reputations with contacts in your own network can also be helpful.
For example, Telesales Gurus runs a paid working interview for all sales candidates to assess cold-calling and CRM skills. This process reveals important aspects of personality and working style, allowing the hiring team to make more informed decisions. It also helps candidates determine if the role they’re interviewing for is a good fit for them.
3. Balancing Soft and Hard Skills
Great salespeople usually have the ability to communicate, solve problems, and build relationships. Some reps may have the technical sales skills but lack the emotional intelligence to connect with clients effectively. In some industries, technical skills or product knowledge may be the first priority and in others, interpersonal skills might be more valuable.
Potential Solutions: Determine what skills are most important for your industry and customer base. This will make it easier to home in on the types of sales reps best suited for your buyer base and can prevent you from searching for the wrong candidates. Or expecting an exact mix of hard and soft skills which may be too hard to find.
Depending on your industry, you may be able to hire based on soft skills and train on hard skills. Or you may be able to hire a candidate that isn’t typically sales but has technical skills of immense value. At minimum you’ll want any sales rep you hire to be dependable, and coachable. Behavioral interview questions can help uncover these traits.
4. Cultural Fit and Motivation
Not every skilled salesperson is the right fit for a company’s culture or long-term vision. A rep may be motivated solely by commissions, which could lead to short-term wins but long-term instability. In fact, when hiring sales reps, you want to ensure that they are motivated by achievable rewards and have a main motivation totally outside money.
Potential Solutions: Clearly define company values and look for candidates who align with them. Ask questions about their motivations: Besides pay, what benefits or features of the role has attracted them, and how does it service their personal interests? Invite other team members to interview and ask question about their interactions, positive and negative to for gauge cultural fit and prevent future misalignment.
5. The Cost of Hiring and Training
Finding the right sales talent requires a significant investment in recruitment, onboarding, and training. Completely independent of salary, these costs can easily range from between $5,000-$15,000 per hire. It goes without saying that a poor hiring decision can lead to wasted resources and lost sales opportunities.
Potential Solutions: Streamline the hiring process by using data-driven recruitment strategies and partnering with professional recruiters who specialize in sales. Develop comprehensive onboarding programs to set new hires up for success from day one.
Most of all, think of the Chinese proverb: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now. With this proverb in mind, begin developing a great network of sales and marketing professional TODAY. This will allow you to make more referral-based hires. Hiring this way is much less costly, plus, referrals are around 80% more likely than non-referral hires to stick with the company for two years or longer.
Reflection
While hiring reliable and talented sales reps is challenging, HR and sales leadership can work together and improve their success rates by refining their recruitment and retention strategies. Focusing on skills, motivation, cultural fit, and career development, companies can build strong sales teams that drive long-term growth.
Need help with hiring for your sales team? Book a time to chat with us today: Free Consultation