If you’ve seen the film adaptation of David Mamet’s play “Glengarry Glen Ross,” you’re no doubt familiar with Alec Baldwin’s infamous scene in which he delivers one of the most memorable motivational sales speeches of all time. If you’ve worked in sales at any point in the 14 years since the movie came out, chances are you or someone you know could recite snippets of Baldwin’s speech, or at least some of the key phrases (“coffee is for closers!”). For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, Baldwin plays a real estate shark (albeit briefly: he only appears on screen for less than 10 minutes) brought in by fellow brokers Mitch and Murray to assemble their sales team and implement the guidelines. for the monthly sales contest. The top two salespeople get to keep their jobs while everyone else is canned. At the end of his tirade, Baldwin answers Ed Harris’s question as to why he is there. “I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me for a favor,” Baldwin sneers. “But I said the real favor is to take my advice and fire your (rear end) because a loser is a loser.” Discarded meeting. Hard? Absolutely. Motivational? Sure, he motivated unproductive reps to take action, but not the actions Mitch and Murray would have expected (you have to watch the movie to see what truly desperate people will do under these circumstances). The first five minutes of the film clearly establish that the entire sales department, with the exception of great producer Al Pacino (nominated for an Academy Award for his role), has already begun the downward mortal spiral that many salespeople go through. once the industry depletion is over. started to install. For those of you with sales management experience who have seen the movie, you probably recognize that the intent of the sales meeting at the fictional Rio Rancho Properties was not to motivate reps to sell; it was to motivate them to leave. Mitch and Murray’s reasoning: Turn up the pressure to an unbearable level and the resulting war of attrition will weed out those who can’t take the heat, thus saving management from having to face the unpleasant tasks of confronting reps with regarding their lack of production or finishing them in person.
For many sales managers in companies of all sizes, turnover is a way of life. Dealing with performance issues comes with the territory: either you address it with your reps individually, or someone will address yours with you. Whether a sales rep leaves voluntarily or is escorted to the door by security, it’s a painful process to watch someone go from excited candidate to promising newcomer, to frustrated rep, to underperformer to ultimate victim. . I have yet to meet a manager who wouldn’t rank those laid off at the bottom of his list of the “most rewarding aspects” of his job. Looking back on the interview process, most sales managers will admit that they recognized the red flags that ultimately led to the undoing of a particular candidate once they became an employee, but for some reason overlooked them. high or minimized. I’ve spoken with sales managers and business owners who, after an exhausting parade of failed hires and firings, have come to the conclusion (incorrectly, I might add) that it’s virtually impossible for them to predict whether or not a candidate will be successful. success in your organization based on a handful of interviews. “Salespeople are professional interviewers, right? Aren’t they trained to tell you exactly what you want to hear?” So they have as their motto a recruiting strategy that is to set up some rough hiring guidelines (ie a bachelor’s degree, minimum 2 years of sales experience), attract the first person who looks presentable, throw them a bunch of dead and/or disgruntled leads, put them on a phone and if they go down production in the first 90 days, get rid of them. Recruiting the RIGHT people is no easy task, so it’s understandable how this scattered philosophy could be embraced. My advice would be if you want each workday to feel like a week as you usher in your own demise, jump into this strategy right away.
While this is an extreme example, most hiring managers would acknowledge that there have been times when they have overlooked critical flaws in background, character, etc. of a candidate. simply because they were desperate for someone to fill the position, only to see it blow up in their faces along the way. If you’re the type of manager who quickly takes action upon realizing he made a bad hiring decision (and by that I mean firing the employee), then I applaud you. There’s nothing worse than watching someone struggle just to collect a paycheck. But wouldn’t life have been easier if you hadn’t hired them in the first place? One of the keys to successful recruiting (particularly in sales, where candidate criteria can be more subjective than with other roles) is to pay close attention to your instincts and if something about a candidate doesn’t sit well with you, move on. to another candidate! If you’re a person with many pet peeves, you’d better do your best to determine early on in the interview process whether or not a particular candidate has the potential to drive you crazy. You can save yourself a lot of frustration by recognizing those subtle indicators of future “rescindable” actions. Here are a handful I keep in mind when interviewing sales candidates:
The inaccessible candidate. It annoys me when I can’t connect with a sales candidate on their cell phone after 2-3 attempts. If I can’t get through to them after a reasonable number of tries, why should I assume that one of their leads or customers could? I can appreciate not answering calls from blocked numbers, but I don’t think refusing to answer because they don’t recognize the phone number is a legitimate excuse. Who can say that I am not a client reference?
The candidate who becomes too affable, too quickly. Like many of our clients, sales representatives in our industry are essentially consultants: we don’t sell a product, and the services we provide are highly customized to our clients’ needs. Additionally, our firm operates on a retained basis (whereas the majority of our industry is made up of contingent firms), so in order for us to justify an upfront recruitment fee, it is imperative that we establish credibility and capability early on. relationship. Our clients see us as professional consultants and solution providers first and foremost. If a personal relationship develops beyond the scope of our duties, great, though, for our clients to hire us to discuss deep-sea fishing, my nephew’s wedding, and whether or not the Marlins can pull a rabbit out of a hat. this Saturday vs. puppies If this is the route a candidate takes in an attempt to immediately establish a relationship with me, what makes me think he or she will act any differently towards one of my clients? There’s a time and a place for those conversations — just make sure they’re not in the first 15 minutes of our initial conversation (that is, of course, unless you bring up the Marlins’ current winning streak).
The Pleasant Candidate. It always annoys me when someone sits across from you, looks you in the eye, and agrees 100% with everything you say. It’s one thing if I’m at a cocktail party chatting with the wife of my co-worker whom I just met. Another thing is when I’m having a serious business conversation with a person I’m considering recommending to my client or adding to my own team. If you’re interviewing a candidate who seems to agree with everything he says, you have a “yes man” on your hands or you’re talking over his head and they’re too intimidated to say it. There’s an old business cliché that if you have two people within an organization who think exactly alike, you have too many people. Either way, you should keep looking.
The blame game. Most people leave their jobs either because they don’t get along with their immediate supervisor or because they just don’t like what they’re doing on the 8 to 5 every day. That’s understandable; I think all of us have been there at one time or another. The problem I have is when a candidate constantly points the finger at someone or something that got in the way of their success, thus forcing them to look for a new line of work. This is particularly concerning when you have a candidate with a less than consistent work history (2+ jobs in the last 5 years). “The job was not as described” is a way of saying “I did not fully investigate the opportunity.” “The company was not financially strong” in the candidate’s mind is better than saying “I couldn’t do my due diligence and research because I was desperate for work.” “My boss had unrealistic expectations.” They probably should have figured out what those expectations were before accepting the position.
