Why should specialty sales and marketing companies take a second look at how they hire sales reps?
Saterfiel: Typically, when a sales force fails to achieve desired results, the company establishes sales training programs and ultimately replaces the lowest-performing reps. Its a never-ending cycle. In most companies, 80 percent of the sales seem to come from 20 percent of the sales force. While the objective has always been to try to clone the top 30 percent, that never seems to happen. If a competitor manages to target and hire away those top sales producers, what happens to the companys bottom line? The results can be devastating. What we really need to do is to strengthen the selection process. I once had a friend who claimed to be the best interviewer around. Whats the success rate for a really good interviewer? About five years ago, the Society for Human Resource Management did a study in which human resource managers were asked about certain HR functions and how valid their decisions were. Most rated recruiting as the top function. The majority of the professional recruiters r
