My Golden Rules for Hiring B2B Salespeople: A Baker's Dozen
By Michael J Griffin CEO of ELAvate
Mike’s Note: Over the past +30 years, I have been hiring B2B salespeople. I have learned some important guidelines or rules when interviewing, selecting and on boarding both successful people and some disasters! My baker’s dozen (13 rules) focuses more on the hiring and selection. In another blog I will tackle onboarding. Here they are and the rules have personal tips from me.
1. You the Sales Manager Need to Be Prepared
Don’t wing it. Prepare a list of questions you want to ask before any interview. Develop and map out a process checklist that you and your other interviewers must follow. DO NOT depend on the HR team to screen candidates for you. 99% of HR people do not understand let alone how to sell in a B2B environment. Do the screening yourself and possibly with the help of AI with criteria you input. Just remember how expensive a wrong B2B choice costs, or how positively impactful a solid B2B salesperson can be to you and your team targets. Don’t forget to gain candidate agreement to record the interview.
2. Prioritize Probing Mastery and Curiosity Over Closing Techniques
Top B2B closers are actually top discovery, probing reps. Assess whether they can uncover latent pain points, quantify the financial impact of doing nothing, and build a compelling business case before ever introducing a solution. This is “old hat” but works: have the salesperson sell you a pen or bicycle. Watch their attitude and body language: do they freak out when you ask them to sell, or do they take on the challenge with a smile. The best salespeople I ever hired effectively probed and displayed curiosity rather than push the product. Another idea is to give them a B2B selling skill mastery test that focuses on their knowledge employing the different types of probes: Can they demonstrate the SPIN or COIN probing process? ELAvate now uses the Salesably Sales AI Studio that tests and gives feedback on B2B selling skills of a potential candidate – we want a pass score of 70-80%.
3. Never Hire for Just Resume Experience or the Client List They Say They Have
Resume or CV’s are starting points. What you want is “proof” of what is printed in their resume. Our Focused Interviewing workshop by Learning International taught me to obtain relevant proof across the candidate Knowledge, Competence/Skill, Attitude, and Working Environment. Secondly, some candidates say they can bring impressive profitable clients if they are hired. I have never seen this happen. Verify true accountability of deals they brought in: beware "We" vs. "I." When asking about past wins and target achievements, listen closely to whether they take personal ownership of the mechanics of the deal or hide behind team efforts and favourable territory conditions. I made a very bad hire one time falling for the big deal that had “we” and soon found out it wasn’t the candidate’s skill or effort but the team.
4. Screen for Coachability
Run a short role-play scenario as mentioned during the interview, provide immediate constructive feedback, and see how they react to your feedback. A candidate who accepts and incorporates feedback on the fly demonstrates high learning agility. Ask them about their past sales managers and how they coached the candidate. Ask for who was their best boss and why, and, who was their worst boss and why. You might ask them what makes a “bad sales coach.” DANGER! Any candidate who bad mouthed a past boss was a disaster hire for my team. Do not hire reps who bad mouth past bosses or companies. Finally, explain a professional mistake or failure in your life and how you “failed forward.” Then ask the candidate to share a mistake they have made in their career and what did they learn. Defensive candidates rarely improve on the job. Curious, adaptive ones compound.
5. Assess Multi-Stakeholder Personality Navigation Skills
Korn Ferry says the average B2B deal involves at least 6 decision-makers and is increasing. Look for candidate experience in mapping buying committees, identifying users, champions vs. economic buyers, and handling internal political friction within client accounts. Successful B2B reps have excellent EQ that allows them to communicate and adapt to different stakeholder personalities, behaviors, motivators and concerns. Have them explain how they navigated and closed a multi-stakeholder account. It may also be important to assess their ability to confidently interact with board level CXO’s. At ELAvate, we employ TTISI assessment profiles to gain real insight into a candidate’s DISC communication style, his/her Emotional Intelligence, and the Motivators that drive their desire and ability to build trusting relationships then sell across different types of decision makers and influencers.
6. Look for High Internal Motivation and Growth Mindset
Let’s give you a golden nugget: I have found the motivation and desire to sell can be a big determinate of B2B sales success. Long B2B sales cycles involve self-directed work, self-prospecting, and continuous learning about changing market conditions. Top reps are internally driven to be efficient masters at time management and being a proactive visionary in their trade rather than reliant on pressure from the boss, peers or KPI’s. How might ELAvate measure this? Our TTISI Motivator/Driving Forces profile has one specific motivator that directly correlates with sales success – The Utilitarian Motivator. These people are driven by practical results that maximise efficiency of their time, talent and energy to get a positive ROI. I never hire a salesperson with a low utilitarian score.
7. Test for Business Acumen Over Pure Pitching
This one is easy for me because I am a business owner and entrepreneur. Modern B2B buyers don't need a product push presenter; they need a trusted business advisor especially when selling and relationship building at the shareholder CXO level. Candidates must understand financial metrics (ROI, payback period, TCO) and be comfortable speaking the language of C-suite stakeholders. Can your candidate sell to buyer problems and needs at the board level? Here I look for salesperson who see him/herself not as salesperson, but as a business person who can discuss business needs with a customer. You may want them to explain how in their previous job they pricing products, calculate gross profit of deals AND how they negotiated a complex deal. Can they explain and interpret a P+L or balance sheet?
8. Check for Intellectual honesty and Integrity.
Salespeople who overpromise, inflate pipeline forecasts, or bend the truth create churn, affect team motivation and possible legal risk. Ask about a time they told a customer "no" or admitted a product gap, and watch for reflexive spin. Secondly, the profiles and assessments I have mentioned can have subtle honesty checkers if you are trained to use them. Watch for how honest they are when you ask for “proof” of their resume claims. There is no such thing as a perfect candidate – can your candidate admit mistakes?
9. Ensure Candidate Alignment with Your Specific Sales Cycle and Market?
A high-volume, 30-day transactional rep often struggles in an 18-month enterprise cycle, and vice versa. Match the candidate's past deal complexity, deal size, and velocity with your company’s go-to-market criteria. Key elements I want to confirm with my candidates: Are the Hunters or Farmers? How is their resilience to longer sales cycles? How might they adapt and build relationships in the market and level they will sell to? The best tool I have found to employ for this are the Sparkhire Chally Sales Profile assessments. Chally’s extensive research has custom profiles for different types of B2B salespeople. These profiles are predictive in nature and provide percentile scores against salespeople across the world. I also like that Chally profiles have identified the top 5 -7 “thoroughbred” competencies that are a must for different sales positions.
10. Make sure their motivations and values fit your culture.
Ask what they want from their next role and what a great year looks like financially. Misalignment on commission structure, autonomy, pace, or management or team synergy style is a leading cause of early attrition. Here is a simple test I learned from Dr. Peter Drucker. Ask yourself “Would I want this person to be a coach or big brother or sister to my child?” What does your gut tell you? You may also want him or her to meet your team over a coffee and observe what happens. BUT…Avoid hiring clones of your current team. Look for candidates who bring diverse industry perspectives, different problem-solving approaches, and fresh ideas that elevate the performance of the entire team.
11. Evaluate Rigorous Process, Pipeline and CRM Discipline
High-performing B2B sales organizations rely on clean data, accurate forecasting, and repeatable processes. Verify that candidates view CRM management as a personal performance tool rather than an administrative burden. This may also include self- learning on LMS, attending team meetings, and agreeing to the job description and KPI’s. This requires simple questions and possible explanations by you to make these tasks clear and concise. Not complying causes you the sales manager a monthly headache.
12. Use checklists, structured interviews, assessments and multiple evaluators.
Ask every candidate the same core questions, score against agreed criteria, and have interviewers assess independently before comparing notes. This reduces bias and gut-feel errors. Ensure all manager evaluators are trained and agree on a consistent process. Apples to apples not apples to durians! I have checklists and processes I use. If you want me to share and discuss, email below.
13. Plan the ramp up & onboarding before you make the offer.
Even great hires fail without a clear onboarding process and KPI’s, align ramp expectations, achievable early milestones, and you, the manager have time to coach. Tell candidates what their first 90 days look like, and be honest about territory, leads, and quota realism. Make sure this is a checklist type of document that is easily coachable by you on a weekly basis.
Final thoughts from Mike: The costliest hiring mistake in sales is speed without rigor. A bad rep burns territory, pipeline, much cash and eats precious management time for months. It's almost always cheaper to wait for the right person than to fix the wrong one. Secondly, try experimenting with AI. For example, you can ask AI to give you interview questions to ask for each of these golden rules of interviewing. Thirdly, contact me if you want to train your sales managers in our acclaimed Focused Interviewing workshop.
Hope these guidelines were helpful!
Michael J Griffin
CEO & Founder of ELAvate
Global Sales Productivity Coach
michael.griffin@elavateglobal.com
+65-91194008 (WhatsApp)