Lee Salz is a Featured Columnist for The Business Journals.
When you are in front of prospects, you preach how no one offers better solutions than your company. You give prospects soliloquies on why they should leave their current supplier and buy your firm’s products or services. During sales meetings, the salespeople rally around being the industry leader.
I applaud the passion in those words. But one action that executives take seems contradictory to the “we are the best” perception. In most companies, when it comes time to recruit salespeople, where do they go to find them? To the competition!
If your company is the best, why do you want their people?
When I ask executives about the reasons for pursuing this sales hiring strategy, I hear statements like, “No sales onboarding is needed because they already know how to sell in our industry,” or “Since they were successful with our competitor, success with us is guaranteed.” Some even believe that a new recruit will bring a bunch of clients with them.