Don't Hire Fool's Gold!

The easiest way for a startup to SABOTAGE its revenue plan is by hiring fool's gold reps. These are reps who look good but aren't. Here are three steps to avoid hiring fools gold:

One: Don't aim too high with your hiring criteria.

Many startups want reps with a long track record AND tons of talent.

But they're offering those reps a lateral move: "You've been a great enterprise AE before, come be a great enterprise AE for us."

Put yourself in the AE's shoes: If you've been a great enterprise AE before and you're looking for a lateral move... why take the risk of going to a startup?

Why not lateral to a more established company with higher comp and more certainty?

Sure, some AEs with long track records and tons of talent love the excitement of a startup.

But they'll be outnumbered by fool's gold: the reps who look great on paper but can't deliver.

Two: Craft screening questions for your recruiter that get reps who puff on their resumes out of your process early.

These are reps who aren't lying exactly... they're just vague.

Imagine a candidate who says they did “technology business development and account management.”

Did that rep sell a software product like yours or were they a post-sale support person for a (high tech!) machine tool manufacturer who helped with a few upsells to existing accounts?

Here's an example set of questions you can give your recruiter to screen these folks out:

Were they an account executive closing new business software deals? (Yes)

Were they actually an SDR who set appointments for someone else? (No)

Were they a customer success manager renewing existing accounts? (No)

Were they a channel manager who helped third parties sell the product? (No)

Were they selling a hardware product, like laptops or servers? (No)

Were they selling a financial product, like mortgages or insurance? (No)

Three: Make your experience criteria as low as you reasonably can.

You want the reps who have tons of talent, are jazzed about the upside you can offer them, and have *enough* experience.

How much is that?

There's a huge benefit to having one year of closing experience.

But the value of experience declines after that.

Three years of sales experience is substantially better than one year. Five years is somewhat better than three years – particularly if you sell complex enterprise deals.

But requiring more than five years of experience is usually a bad idea.

Past that point, you’re probably excluding too many talented hidden-gem sales reps to make it worth it.

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If you liked this article, have a look at our piece on Action-Focused Onboarding to see how to set your new hires up for success. You can also check out the P.S.I. Selling Content Page for more insights on sales communication, strategy, and leadership.

Want to build a sales process that proves value and a team that can execute? Get in touch.

For more about the author, check out Mike's bio.