Free Move When Extending A Job Offer

We talk a lot about “free moves,” which are, essentially, questions your salespeople should be asking at certain points in a qualifying process. They are natural, enlightening questions that help bring a deeper level of clarity to a conversation.

Today’s job market is quite tight and strong candidates are in demand. You have to prepare for multiple offers going to your top candidates. If you have identified them as strong, it is most likely that another company (or more) has done the same. However, there is a qualifying principle from selling that works effectively when extending job offers.

Here is the principle - you can prequalify your candidate (or prospect in selling) before extending the offer (or proposal in selling). It is a free move which means you should take it.

Here is an example from Chief Revenue Officer:

Assuming we meet and extend an offer that includes these provisions…and satisfy your questions regarding the offer, what happens at the end of our discussion?

It is a simple, appropriate question. Here is more from the book:

You want to hear a response that clearly speaks to accepting the offer. If that is not forthcoming, this may not be your candidate for two reasons:

1. Salespeople who can’t make a decision usually can’t get prospects to make decisions either.

2. If the candidate is thinking about taking your offer and going shopping, this is where you’ll discover it, and you can now prevent that from happening.

Again, it is a free move and one that will be most enlightening to your qualifying of the candidate’s interest. The second move is to solidify the candidate’s commitment to your offer. If they are strong, their current employer may not want to lose them. This fact means that you should place the thought of a counter offer in their mind.

An example:

When you give your notice to your current employer, how do you expect them to respond? When they attempt to make a counter offer to you, what do you anticipate your response will be?

Think of this as training…you are training your future salesperson to anticipate the employer’s response and to be prepared to dismiss it. If the candidate is sold on your opportunity, they will follow through with a rejection of the counter offer.

One secondary benefit is that you are setting the expectation that their current employer will provide a counter offer. If the candidate is a bit shaky or unsure, they will steel their resolve to leave when an expected counter offer does not materialize.

These are free moves with tremendous returns. Use them whenever possible and contact us for more moves you may be missing.

The End-of-Year Race

The annual end-of-year race is about to commence right after Labor Day.  The finish line resides somewhere within the holiday season.  This period represents the closing of the revenue year and will determine success (or something short of that).

The importance of this time period is clear.  Do you have all of your tools aligned to make the final revenue push?  If we may be so bold, here are a trio of recommendations for all CROs heading into the race.

Bankable Forecast - this is the most important aspect of the race. Can you take your forecast to the bank?  If not, you need your team to perform a real-world purge of the forecast for the remainder of the year.  You must know what is closing in the time period to make the right adjustments to your game plan.

Bench Strength - your team may be facing some unexpected turnover.  The economy is roaring and salespeople are confident in finding new opportunities.  When is a popular time to make a change?  Many salespeople will make a move right before the holiday season to leverage time off with family and friends.  Others will wait until early in Q1 to cash in their variable compensation (commissions, bonuses, etc.).  Either way, you need to have a plan for building a strong bench in case turnover occurs in your team.

Results-Driven Incentive Plans - next year's compensation plans will be on your list during the race.  You have to recognize effort and reward results with a plan that drives the behaviors you need in each role.  The mix of salary, commission, bonuses, spiffs and more needs to be designed for a Jan. 1 launch date.

Clearly, there are other topics for all CROs this time of year, but these 3 tasks will cover a good portion of your 2019 foundation.  If you need help on any of these topics, we are here to help.

The Key to Finding Sales Talent in Tight Markets

A sub-4% unemployment rate leads to a difficult sales hiring market.  So what can you do when you need to expand, or upgrade, your existing sales team?  Here is a unique approach to finding the strongest salespeople in the tightest labor markets.

Hire Talent Over Experience

I know, it sounds cliche, but it is fundamental to successful sales hiring in any market. This approach is counter-intuitive to most CROs. The stereotypical approach is to find someone from your industry and hire them away from your competition.  Bad approach.  Sure, there are strong salespeople in your industry, but you won't know, for certain, what makes them successful in their current position.  It may be the company, the culture, the support, the leads...a distinct difference that could preclude them from being successful in your company.

Talent will outperform experience.  Guaranteed.  You can teach them about your "stuff", your market and your solution.  You probably have scores of people who can train them on those previous topics in a relatively short time period.  What you can't teach them quickly is how to sell.  A certain irony exists in sales hiring in that many (most?) CROs hire salespeople without looking at their sales ability.  Industry experience becomes the preeminent criteria for hiring even before sales ability/talent.

Many CROs are unaware that you can measure sales ability.  We have assessments that will tell you about the candidates talent, skills and drive to sell in your role.  If you can withdraw from the intoxicating appeal of experience, you can broaden your talent pool.  This expansive view allows you to look into other industries to find sales talent with transferable skills.

Most CRO's Don't Know This Important Ratio

Seems simple, but here it is:

Let me offer up some definitions of each box:

Connects: Cold contact from a list or similar resource

Suspects: Contacted and have general need or use for your product/service

Prospects: Qualified for need, budget & buying time

Quotes: Formal proposal to do business

Close: Completed order in response to quote

Again, this is a simple concept, but it is of great consequence when hiring salespeople.  We call it the Connects-to-Close ratio and it defines many of the parameters you need to use in your hiring efforts. 

There are many layers to the ratio that impact the sales skills, selling style and aptitudes to measure in any candidate.  Instead of getting lost in those weeds, let me boil it down to the essence of why you need to know this ratio:

You cannot ask a new salesperson to do something 10, 50, 100 times without first being able to explain it one time.

Candidate Question: What Leads to Failure?

The title of this post is one of my favorite questions to hear from a candidate in an interview, especially in sales.

Monster’s website has a good article on 4 questions for candidates to ask.  I still like the failure question as it is as good a qualifying question any candidate can ask.  The author adds this from a candidate’s perspective:

“This question allows you to get a good feel about the values of the company.

…

Making sure that the company’s values are aligned with yours is one of the most important elements to check out in the interview process.”

Exactly right.  Candidates should be asking about failures in the role especially if the hire is a replacement.

Here is why – in psychological terms, we know that people are far more accurate in describing themselves in the negative (i.e. what they are not as opposed to what they are).  This principle carries over in this particular interview question.  Asking what led to failure will provide a far more revealing answer than asking what leads to success (though still important to know at some point).

When you are hiring salespeople, the answer to this question should roll off your tongue.  The key is not to focus singularly on the former salesperson who failed, but to take a macro view of the situation.  The rationale for this approach is to provide a less personal and more strategic an answer.

CRO Rule #10 - Use Interviews as Simulations

CRO Success Rule #10:
Candidate interviews need to be a simulation of the sale you expect them to conduct.

We have arrived at our final CRO Success rule and it is an important one.  Bad sales hiring happens for many reasons, but there are “free moves” you can use to enhance your hiring success.  One of them is the interview.  Too often we see hiring managers who simply want to have a discussion about a candidate’s resume along with telling them about the position, the company, the benefit plan, etc.   Bad move.

The better approach is to mirror your typical sale in the initial interview.  Sales interviews do not need to be comfortable, easy-going discussions.  Instead, match the parameters of your typical sale.  Have multiple people in the interview if they will have to sell to a group.  Be somewhat short and curt with them if your prospects are typically in a hurry and not eager to talk to a salesperson.  Interrupt the candidate, drill down on their answers, ask for deeper clarification…all of these moves are free.  You would be wise to incorporate them into your hiring process so you can see the candidates in action.

CRO Rule #9 - Hire Stronger

CRO Success Rule #9
Every time there is an open sales position, the next new hire needs to be at least as strong as the best sales person you currently have or have ever employed.

Every CRO, and I mean every CRO, has a sales hiring horror story.  I contend that hiring salespeople is the toughest hire any company faces.  The simple reason is this – even “bad” salespeople can fake it long enough to get through the traditional sales hiring process.

The solution?  Don’t use a traditional sales hiring process.

We have developed a complete, unique sales hiring process that screens out the cute puppy to borrow a turn of phrase from my book.  Bad sales hires are extremely expensive to any company with not only hard costs but with the greater loss of opportunity costs.

To build a world-class sales team, you have to hire stronger salespeople.