8 years ago
April 18, 2016

Why You Can’t Afford to Make Sales Hiring Mistakes

Sales hiring mistakes will cost you in several ways, like wasted time and turnover costs. Check out why you cannot afford to make them.

Rhys Metler

Why_You_Cant_Afford_to_Make_Sales_Hiring_Mistakes

Sales managers understand the struggle well. Trying to find and hire great new sales people who will consistently work hard, exceed sales targets, and be an asset to your team is no easy task. Sales positions are some of the most difficult to hire for. You’ve probably made sales hiring mistakes in the past and filled empty positions with unqualified, unmotivated sales people who weren’t a good match to your organization.

Though far too common, sales hiring mistakes can become quite costly. Hiring the wrong candidates, whether because you were under a time crunch, you didn’t have any qualified candidates and ended up settling, or your gut instinct was wrong, can lead to a lot of wasted time and money.

The truth is you just can’t afford to make sales hiring mistakes. Here’s why.

Recruiting Twice for One Position

Going through the recruiting and hiring process can be time consuming. The time spent on activities such as reviewing resumes, performing background checks, and interviewing candidates can add up to a hefty sum. Furthermore, these activities can take you away from your other daily responsibilities, reducing your overall productivity. Plus, there are some direct costs that need to be paid, such as advertisement, skills assessments, and background checks.

But you go through the lengthy process and pay these costs because you have open positions to fill and it’s an investment worth making.

Unfortunately though, if you make sales hiring mistakes and end up having to let go of your new hire and find a new sales person, you’ll be spending double the amount of time and money on the hiring process for one position. And that’s just a waste. You need to hire the right talent the first time around to ensure that you can reduce your recruitment costs.

Training Is Costly

To give your new hires the best shot at success within your sales team, you will naturally spend some time on training. Every organization is different. You might hire a trainer, pay for seminars, and print materials. Or you might get your other sales people to take the new hires under their wings. But even still, you’re paying for those sales people’s salaries and you need them to be productive and make sales in order to bring in revenue, and training doesn’t allow for much of that. And on top of sales training, you might have orientation, health and safety training, and other types of on-the-job training sessions that you have to pay for.

Though training new hires can result in a better return on your investment, all of the costs you put into it become a waste if they quit or are let go soon after. This is a common consequence that comes with making sales hiring mistakes.

Low Morale Is Harmful

When you have a high turnover in sales due to sales hiring mistakes, the feeling will reverberate throughout the entire department. Your other sales people likely started to build relationships with your new hires and then they’re suddenly gone. In addition, they might be stressed because they spent so much time and effort training their new coworkers only for it to be wasted. All they end up left with is a pile of work that didn’t get finished during that time. Plus, while you find a suitable replacement, you will likely add extra duties and responsibilities onto your sales people, creating an overworked sales team with low morale. Your top performers could start to consider leaving because of all of these issues, and you certainly can’t afford for that to happen.

Avoiding sales hiring mistakes is critical, not only to avoid additional recruitment costs and training costs, but to keep your sales team happy and satisfied, and thus, productive.

 

Rhys Metler

Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.

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