Why do we have salespeople that can’t hack it? How do people who don't belong in sales wind up running a multi-million dollar territory for a company? We have discovered the most prevalent hiring mistake was the poor performers were hired for their industry knowledge. Conversely, we have found that the majority of the top tier salespeople in most organizations have experience in at least one other industry or another company department. They are real salespeople- whether selling a product or a new way to be more productive in their department. What they sell is just a detail. Sales ability trumps industry knowledge more often than not in sales performance. Much more often than not.

Why do businesses hire people with industry knowledge? The theory is that industry knowledge- which includes knowing the industry language, players, and trends- can be transformed into instant sales without any appreciable training because they already “know” the business.

In order to get away from industry experience hiring bias, you have to approach the hiring process different than your industry as a culture does. You have to look for real sales talent. You have to look for people who know how to sell before they walk in your door. With no standards or formal development programs for salespeople, you have to think differently about finding real sales talent. A stellar book written about effective hiring practice was not written specifically for that purpose. Nonetheless, Michael Lewis’ Moneyball (2003 by WW Norton) is a gem when it comes to thinking about who to hire. Moneyball shows how Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics do a better job drafting quality players than most other teams in baseball- and they do it with one of the lowest payroll budgets in baseball. They make the playoffs more often than teams with much, much larger payrolls. And the point here is NOT to reduce pay to get good salespeople. It’s how to define, evaluate, select, and develop real talent versus perceived potential talent. The basis of the Athletics’ success is the non-traditional player selection philosophy of their General Manager, Billy Beane. Following are some excerpts from the book with narrative comments:

First, Billy tears down the conventional industry-skills thinking of the traditional-thinking baseball scouts.

…On the white board closest to Billy, the Big Board, there is space for 60 players. One by one he takes the names of the players the old scouts have fallen in love with (the ones with the “tools”) and picks apart their flaws. The first time he does this an old scout protests. “The guy’s an athlete, Billy,” the old scout says. “There’s a lot of upside there.”

“He can’t hit,” says Billy.

“He’s not that bad a hitter,” says the old scout.

“Yeah, what happens when he doesn’t know a fastball is coming?” asks Billy.

“He’s a tools guy,” says the old scout, defensively. The old scouts aren’t built to argue; they’re built to agree. They’re a part of the tightly woven class of former baseball players (industry people).

In every industry we hear the same things from all the old scouts who have been in the business for a long time. It doesn’t matter what industry- banking, healthcare, electrical distribution, systems integration, industrial automation, print advertising, or food service- the “old scouts” of each industry think the same. Take, for example, industrial automation. Working with sales managers in industrial automation, we’ll ask, “What are your hiring criteria for salespeople?”

They respond, “First, they must be technically competent- they must be engineers.” (The guy’s an athlete, Billy.)

Then we ask, “What’s your biggest challenge with your sales team?”

“They don’t know how to close.” (They can’t hit.)

Then we ask, “Are you going to train your salespeople this year?”

They respond, “Yes. We’re going to give them product training (make them a better athlete). “

Us: “Are you going to do any sales skills training?”

Response: “No, we don’t have time or the budget for that.”

So, at the end of the year, the salespeople will be even more knowledgeable about the products they already know (better athletically), but still haven’t learned how to dig up, engage, and close a deal (hit). It’s so ironic, because they aren’t paid to engineer, they’re paid to hit (get orders).

…..”My only question,” says Billy, “is, if he’s that good a hitter, why doesn’t he hit better?”

“The swing my need some work. You have to reinvent him. But he can hit.”

“Pro baseball’s not real good at reinventing guys,” says Billy…..

By the time a corporation hires a salesperson, that person has gone through the most influential era of their life already and their habits are formed- good and bad. They either have a passion for sales already or they don’t. If they have a passion for sales, they get up and get out every day without adult supervision, they dig up new opportunities, find ways around obstacles, work on self-improvement, and pull themselves back up off the deck after getting flattened. These people are hitters- they don’t get mad when they strike out- they wonder how it happened and fix it the next time.

As far as hiring the Industry Specialists (the guys with “the tools”) is concerned, consider this: maybe they’ve been in the industry so long because they actually couldn’t sell in any other industry. In other words, they aren’t salespeople. Real salespeople have sales instincts, street smarts, and are the consummate road warriors. What industry they come from has nothing to do with their sales ability.