As a sales leader or CRO, you know how costly hiring mistakes are. One wrong choice can lead to damaged relationships with prospects and clients, lost revenue, and lower team morale, tarnishing your reputation as a leader. Your problem isn’t about your ability to hire “rockstars”; it’s about avoiding bad hires.
Striving to hire star tech sales professionals is difficult for the following reasons:
- Star performers are less likely to leave organizations where they are excelling.
- Star performance in one environment doesn’t ensure equal success in yours.
Another flaw in the “rockstar hunting” mentality is that many top revenue producers have character issues that negatively impact your team’s culture.
The reality is that the key to steady revenue growth for tech sales teams is avoiding two critical hiring mistakes: Low Performers and Bad Character Fits. Here’s how to spot these problems to build a team that consistently delivers for your company.
Low Performers vs. High Performers: Spotting Red Flags Early
- Understanding Low Performers: Low performers often have the basic skills and experience for the role but lack the drive or consistency to meet high standards. They may coast along, expending minimal effort, with occasional bursts in production when pressed. As a sales leader, you’re responsible for providing an environment that’s conducive to success, but motivation is ultimately an internal process.
- How to Identify Low Performers: Ask about specific achievements and challenges they’ve encountered. Look for signs of self-motivation—have they consistently found ways to improve and contribute beyond the minimum requirements? High performers, even at junior levels, will often have stories of proactive problem-solving and learning from mistakes. Beware candidates who have a “just enough to get by” mentality and whose failures were always due to forces outside themselves.
- Practical Advice: Develop pre-planned interview questions to understand how candidates have handled sales and consistency obstacles in the past. Concentrate on open-ended questions that start with “how”, “what”, and “why” that force candidates to dig into the reality of what they’ve done in the past.
Stay away from questions that start with “Tell me about a time when you….” since just coming up with an example is not indicative of their normal behavior, and they can usually make up stories that are not accurate.
Also, keep a simple hiring journal where you record your initial thoughts on each candidate. After each hire, evaluate how your initial impressions align with actual performance. Patterns will emerge over time, helping you refine your hiring instincts.
2. Character Fit: Focus on alignment with your culture
- The Risk of a Bad Character Fit: Top performers whose attitudes and values don’t fit your organization’s culture may deliver favorable results in the short term.. However, their impact on your team’s morale and collaboration over time can be toxic. Bad character fits can create silos and alienate customers and prospects. And their cultural impacts can cause you to lose salespeople. Even if they are a top producer, is it worth this negativity?
- Spotting Character Issues: During interviews, ask about past team conflicts and how they managed them. Look for genuine accountability—did they approach conflicts with a mindset of resolution and growth? Give them challenging scenarios they would face at your company and ask how they would respond to them and why they would take their approach. A candidate’s response to questions about teamwork and challenges provides valuable insight into how well they fit your organization’s culture..
- Practical Advice: Develop a character alignment assessment for each candidate. Start with a list of your team’s core values and how you want people to demonstrate these values in their day-to-day jobs. Develop questions using the advice given in the “spotting character issues” bullet above. Take notes during your interview. After the interview, rate the candidate on each of your core values.
By asking each candidate the same cultural assessment questions, you have a consistent and objective measure for fit within your environment. Consistently testing for cultural fit can weed out hires that may be top performers but would harm your environment and offset their productivity contributions.
Conclusion
Success in hiring technical sales professionals doesn’t come from hoping to land your next superstar. It’s about avoiding hiring people most likely to fail: Low Performers and Bad Character Fits. By following the practical advice above, you can build a sales team of consistent, solid performers who positively contribute to your culture.
When you create this type of team, rockstars who are enjoyable for you to work with and who set a positive example for others can emerge. As a Sales Leader, this provides your organization with a clear competitive edge in achieving sustainable, long-term growth.
