Hiring Commissioned Salespeople? Don’t Use a Scientific Selection Process

I ran across an interesting post from a fellow blogger the other day. He plaintively described the dreadful failure rate of newly-hired commissioned salespeople. Over three-quarters of his new hires were tanking in the first three months. Obviously, he felt the need to reassess his interview technique.

He concluded that he'd been interviewing as if his company had the greater risk, and therefore he hedged his bets to reduce risk to the company—it had not worked. Trying a new paradigm, he structured the interview as though all the risk was on the candidate. It makes sense. When a commissioned salesperson flunks at his job, he doesn't get paid.

To put his revelation into practice, he began talking to the sales candidates like he would talk to a partner. His newly formatted interview included discussion of the company's development, industry trends, success and failure rates, and similar matters. He then evaluated the candidates' strengths and pitfalls as if looking for a partner.

What was the outcome? He called it "significantly more effective" than the scientific process they'd been using.

Equally interesting were the views in the comment section that followed. The consensus agreed that commissioned salesperson interviews are some of the toughest, and they added other insights as well.

The business partner approach works because most good salesmen don't like bosses. They want to be their own boss, so interviewing in a manner that brings out traits of self-sufficiency helps in the selection process. One commentator went so far as to suggest that the real sales manager of any good salesperson is their "significant other." He likes to have a portion of the hiring process include an interview with the family unit to get them on board.

Several posters lamented that all the great salesmen seem to already be out selling, but that excuse seems like the whine of the dateless college coed complaining that all the great guys are already married. Several comments said having clearly defined expectations helps, and that reality holds in continuing this analogy—the girl doesn't know what kind of man she wants, all she knows is that she wants a date. Is it little wonder that hiring commissioned salespeople with that attitude has results similar to dating services?

The original blogger was struggling to find his balance of art and science in the hiring process. It is a battle we all face.