How to Hire the Best Sales Staff for Higher Revenue, Seattle Business Coach Terry Corbell

Dec. 3, 2012 - PRLog -- Despite their quests for higher sales, Seattle Business Coach Terry Corbell says companies often unknowingly commit a critical error in hiring sales representatives, which results in lower revenue.

Since 1992, Mr. Corbell has been providing clients with proven solutions for maximum profits.

“Businesses will short circuit their sales efforts by making a grave miscalculation in evaluating candidates for their sales teams,” says the longtime business-performance consultant (http://www.bizcoachinfo.com).

“This means they hire the wrong people in a challenging economy,” says the profit professional who publishes The Biz Coach, a business-coaching portal with hundreds of articles.  

Mr. Corbell has long recommended metrics for success. Instead, he maintains companies unknowingly settle for mediocrity.

He was delighted to read an academic study published in the December 2012 issue of the American Sociological Review. Entitled, “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms,” it was authored by Lauren A. Rivera of Northwestern University.

“Of course, employers are looking for people who have the baseline of skills to effectively do the job,” wrote author Lauren A. Rivera of Northwestern University regarding her study, Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms.

“But, beyond that, employers really want people who they will bond with, who they will feel good around, who will be their friend and maybe even their romantic partner,” she added. “As a result, employers don’t necessarily hire the most skilled candidates.”

The professor interviewed 120 respondents at banks, investment banks, law firms and management consulting firms. Her study was published in the December 2012 issue of the American Sociological Review.

She reports the respondents hire the applicants who appear to be a cultural fit in their organizations. Ordinarily, that would be a profitable idea – if they had been hiring right in the first place.

“It is important to note that this does not mean employers are hiring unqualified people,” the professor wrote in the study. “But, my findings demonstrate that – in many respects – employers hire in a manner more closely resembling the choice of friends or romantic partners than how one might expect employers to select new workers.”

Acknowledging that there are differences between inside and outside sales environments, Mr. Corbell advises thinking in conceptual terms about recruiting and hiring.

“Certainly, you need to have a list of the sales job’s prerequisites. For each candidate, create a balance sheet – a list of the pros and cons. Never rush into hiring someone,” he adds. “Don’t mistakenly hire salespeople who talk a lot and who appear to have sparkling personalities.”  

Mr. Corbell advises looking for 11 attributes in candidates at http://www.bizcoachinfo.com/archives/13071.

He lists the 12 errors to avoid in performance evaluations at http://www.bizcoachinfo.com/archives/1414.