roblewis
Newbie
Posts: 32
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« on: August 15, 2008, 12:27:59 PM » |
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One of the biggest mistakes new companies make in the equipment industry is hiring the wrong sales team. They do not let their existing sales and support team meet the potential new hire before making the decision, leaving them unable to give input. This meeting could prove to be a tremendous benefit.
Most equipment companies have less than five sales reps in any location and around 3 support personnel for those sales, so it is not that hard to achieve a quick meeting and this could be modified to fit other industries as well.
Most managers I have had experience with feel that hiring is their decision and should not have anything to do with their existing team, and any judgment calls should be on them. While from a managerial standpoint, that is correct, they overlook one thing: logic. Your sales and support team knows more about being in the current "trenches" than your manager. Any good manager can make the call based on their experience, but I actually had one manager who had not been in the field since the time he had to use payphones to make calls and newspaper to find leads. How current can his knowledge on the position truly be? This also allows the team to see if there are any potential clashes, conflicts, or issues and in the case of the equipment industry gives them the knowledge to check out their reputation.
The equipment industry is kind of like a small association, you are either a "lifer' or you are a "fly by night". To give you an idea of how small the winding is:
Fifteen hundred miles away from my previous position, I am in an interview with Caterpillar in NY. The General Manager is looking over my resume and says "oh, you're the one! You are THAT guy?" Confused, I look at him and ask him what he means. He was referencing my non-compete battle from Florida. Yeah, it's that small of a world. I got the position, after interviewing with six different people, in the same day. I was one of forty applicants.
Many companies make the same mistakes over and over again, but alternating between the same two: inexperience and uber-experience. It completely depends on your objective for your sales team, but the mistake is easily made. If you are a startup, you don't need the best money can buy. You need the person who most fits your company, your goals, your budget, and ultimately your support team. At one company, we had a team who just made the company look bad because we made more sales than the company could keep up with. Goal met: Pay half a million dollars a year for a five person sales team and still look bad. On the other hand, I had worked with a company who had a tremendous support staff, extremely large fleet, and unlimited finance for lead generation. They had on problem, they liked to hire young and inexperience sales staff that could not produce enough to keep the doors open. Goal met: save money on sales staff and close multiple branches.
These are all temporary mistakes ad we did overcome all of them, but there lies a deep lesson: Pay attention to your needs, your capabilities and more importantly, your team, after all most teams view their co-workers as a "family". Alienate any one of them and it's like a poison pill that spreads throughout your organization until you cut that portion off. The resulting collateral damage could prove catastrophic. Keep your team in the loop, involved in the hiring process and you will see amazing results!!
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