[davismwfl]

For engineers it is tough to hire a position that is not something you can easily ask quantitative questions. Instead with sales you need to mix a few things together to hire the right person.

1. Figure out who the primary person or type of person they will be selling to. e.g. are they selling to C level execs or engineers?

2. Are you selling enterprise software that requires a lot of hand holding? Or are you selling simple deals?

3. What is your deal flow like, do you have solid leads but need closers, or do you need lead generators?

I mention these because I would recruit different types of people depending on the answers to at least these. In general too, if someone makes you feel uncomfortable when you are talking to them rather on the phone or in person, your customers will also feel uncomfortable. I don't care how good their resume is, if you have any feeling of uneasy or being uncomfortable then you don't hire. You are hiring a people person who's job it is to make people feel at ease and open their wallets, they should be able to make you comfortable and interact with you.

I always make them sell me their last software or product. And then I make them flip the script and sell me the competitor to their prior product. This helps me see if they see all sides of the products they are selling and how well researched they are. Then I will give them my product/software pitch and then tell them to sell me on it. They should be able to put a good effort to sell you your software without having a huge background in it, even if it is complex. I also ask them to tell me the holes they see where competitors could attack my product offering.

If you want more ideas, you can shoot me an email or respond here with more details and I'll give you at least my experience and some more specific ideas.

Also lead generating sales staff is different then closers. You can of course get someone that can do both, but it is a hard job to do both efficiently for a growing business.

[dwgetjwehg]

So with salespeople, it's important to meet in person?

Would you say that a 5 min convo in person trumps looking at a resume?

[davismwfl]

In my opinion in person for a sales person is crucial. But I wouldn't rule out someone immediately just because they were remote to me. Phone conversations, Skype calls etc all can work wonders and also let you see how their phone communication skills are. But in the end I always want to meet sales people in person as they are the face of your company to clients and impressions are hard to do over.

Sales in the end is all about people, so it has everything to do with communication, empathy, inquisitiveness and humility. The best sales people I have met are not the slick assholes we all hate, instead they are the people that can show humility, empathize with clients and communicate effectively across different groups of people.