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According to the figures from Statistics New Zealand’s 2006 Census, there were 186,057 New Zealanders employed in sales roles as at March that year. That figure was almost one tenth of the total workforce and included all categories of sales representatives such as territory managers, account managers and business development managers, plus, agents, retail salespeople, telesales people and sales support people.

That’s a lot of salespeople, even without taking into account the sales people from the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, those in sales management positions, and the unofficial sales people of nearly every small business – the business owners themselves – who aren’t included in the figure

above.

It would be fair to say that most businesses rely on at least one salesperson, if not a team of sales people, to seek out new opportunities, solve their customers’ problems, and ultimately grow their customer and revenue base.

Yet despite the importance of salespeople to our businesses and economy, most employers still have absolutely no idea about how to hire successful sales people.

And in addition to the fierce competition for New Zealand’s top sellers, by far the greatest challenge that employers face, is the task of determining which applicants can and will sell, and which applicants are just good at selling themselves. Most managers can relate to hiring salespeople who turned out to be less than the stars they appeared to be during the interview process.

While the business costs of poor hiring decisions have been well documented, hiring the wrong salespeople is even more costly. This is because in addition to the increase in overheads normally associated with hiring new staff, the business also relies on the salespeople it’s hired, to bring in the revenue needed to cover those overheads.

This makes hiring successful sales people not only one of management’s biggest responsibilities, but also one of their biggest headaches.

So why is picking good salespeople so difficult and what can businesses do to improve their chances of success?

Firstly, being able to identify good salespeople requires that the hirer has some expertise in what it takes to succeed in sales. This is not the case in many companies with salespeople being hired by decision makers who have never sold a thing in their lives, let alone taken the time to study professional selling and what it takes to be successful.

This scenario is especially common in small businesses where the business owners often come from technical backgrounds and are often the “brains” behind the products or services the business is selling. Unfortunately though, selling requires much more than technical expertise or knowledge of a product, so it’s essential that business owners and managers ensure that the person hiring the salespeople for their company is the most qualified person to do so, especially if it’s not them.

Secondly, the real qualities and characteristics required for success in sales are all intangible qualities and therefore cannot be seen or represented on a CV.