

Ask HN: How to hire sales people - pantsd

I'm working on a project targeted towards SMB mostly, although it could go the enterprise route. How do you go about hiring sales people? Craigslist?
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russell
A salesman once told me, "Any salesman, no matter how bad, can sell himself to
an engineer." You really need someone you trust to evaluate the candidates.
Find successful entrepreneurs in your area and have their VP of sales help.
Exercise your network. Enlist your SO, neighbors. VC's might help. I'm not
kidding. An ad on Craigslist will probably attract some slick scum.

More advice from the salesman. Hire a salesman driving a Mercedes. The
payments will keep him motivated. I once hired a salesman driving a beater and
got performance commensurate with his car.

We are supposed to be gender neutral in this world, but I think that women
beat us males in people skills, and sales is very much people skills. If
nothing else, run your candidate by a sharp woman.

EDIT: When I wrote this I was thinking of direct sales, which is hugely
expensive. I strongly recommend against it. Been there. Done that. I found
telemarketing with skilled salespeople to be much more cost effective. And I
really mean skilled, well trained, and well paid. Serve yourself is the most
cost effective of all.

Disclaimer: I have run sales, but I dont pretend that I was any good at it.

~~~
joe_bleau
I've seen more than a few salesmen that did their best work selling themselves
into the job, but never live up to that initial impression. I now realize that
I can't spot the fakers.

Agree on women in technical sales, as long as they're competent. Among the
vendors that call on me, some of the best use women for outside sales. OTOH,
the saleswomen that don't know the tech/product/business are really
frustrating, more so than the clueless salesmen. (Not sure why--maybe the ones
I've run across come off as especially whiny or needy?)

------
mburnett
Summary: Tricky sales people can _sell_ the fact they are good at a lot of
things. How do you figure out what type of people they really are? By tracking
the energy that interviewees have around their responses and digging deeper,
people will inevitably reveal the behaviors and principles they live by day-
to-day.

\----

When trying to hire someone you may find that you are looking for a particular
type of person (maybe someone who works well in teams or, instead, is more of
a performer on their own). To learn more about the way the person is (I mean
they way _really_ are, not just what they sell about themselves) try these
steps:

1\. Ask them questions that might reveal one of the characteristics (Are you
better at working on teams or by yourself?)

2\. They will usually answer “both” and try to sell you on it

3\. Ask them to recall some productive/highlighting/significant experiences in
working alone

4\. Then ask the same for working in teams

This obviously doesn't cover the whole process, but can be a helpful
technique.

5\. Feel a sense of energy coming from each response

6\. Ask the base question again (“Teams or alone?”) and see which they give
more weight to.

7\. Assess how strong you can confirm a conclusion of which they truly prefer

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tocomment
That's a great question. I'd love to hear some answers.

I'd also like to know how to decide between hiring sales people and selling a
product online (self serve), or can both be done simultaineously?

A product we're considering could really be sold either way.

~~~
russell
As I said here, I recommend online sales. Sales and marketing can eat 50% of
your revenues, and it is very hard for engineers to pick good salespeople.

