When to Choose Skills Over Experience

Whenever there’s a sales opening, most sales managers want to hire someone who has demonstrated success in their industry. The assumption is with a little product training they can hit the ground running.

And when that person has not only consistently achieved quota but has a few President Club awards on their resume, it’s easy to get excited.

At that point we tend to slow down the questioning and switch into “sell mode” on the job opportunity. After all, we want to make sure we nab this star before someone else does.

Industry experience + stellar results = Great fit.

Not always.

Earlier in my career, while working for a small, growing tech firm, I was looking to add another senior sales executive to our team.

A recruiter sent me an IBM sales rep’s resume. He had experience in our industry, made his numbers his first 5 years and absolutely crushed them the last two. On paper he was exactly who we were looking for.

In the interview, my first question was the obvious one. Why would he want to leave IBM, where he was doing so well, for our little company? He had his answer down – a chance to make more money, get promoted sooner, make a significant contribution, etc.

We talked a bit more and although he looked good and sounded good, something still didn’t feel right.

So I asked him to tell me about the deals he won in the last 2 years, those big number years. Turns out most of the revenue came from big upgrades in his client base that hit all at once. And, his big new logo sale came from a company that had just hired a VP of IT, who was a diehard big blue guy, from another company.

OK, less impressive but not a deal breaker. So I asked him about his competitive strategy on those deals. Even less impressive.

Sadly, the more I peeled the onion back the less I saw what I needed – a competitive street fighter. Our company didn’t have the name recognition, reputation or resources of an IBM.

We didn’t hire him.

And I learned a valuable lesson. Even the ideal candidate must be checked out. You have to go beneath the surface and do your due diligence, no matter what, because all is not what it appears to be. You just can’t afford to shortcut the process. Ever.

Something else happened. That was the start of my transformation to preferring skills over experience. I’d rather have someone with great skills in a related industry than someone with average skills in my industry. I’ve found, as have my clients, that it’s faster and easier to teach industry knowledge than selling skills.

I believe the probability of success is higher with a skilled person gaining knowledge than a knowledgeable person getting more skilled. Most skills are transferrable. If the candidate is a great listener and is great at discovery today, it’s a good bet they’ll be that tomorrow.

No, you won’t get competitive knowledge when they leave a rival of yours, but you do get street knowledge. And, usually, an eagerness to learn, a burst of energy, and great “why” questions about process both inside your company and with clients & prospects.

Of course when you find great industry knowledge combined with great results and great skills, you’ve got a great candidate. But they don’t come along everyday. So, what’s your interviewing strategy when you have someone lacking one of those qualities?

Industry experience with strong results – Confirm they have the skills and strategic ability you need for the position. Are they a lone wolf when you need a team player? Were they supported by a ton of resources and here they won’t have that?

Industry experience with mediocre or inconsistent results – Test for underlying skills. They may have them but used a poor process. Find out if the strategies and processes used, were driven by the rep, or by the manager or company. If that’s the case, and they’ve been in the industry for 3 years or less, there’s time to change their approach and they may be worth a shot.

Strong results in another niche or industry – Confirm they have the skills and strategic ability you need for the position. Find out how motivated they are to gain functional expertise in your industry.

All candidates – Test for skills and hear how they think. Give them a competitive sales scenario and ask what they’d do first. Tell them you want to crack a new market and ask them what are some of the things they’d do in the first 30 days. Ask what were 2-3 toughest objections they received and how they answered them. This is where you should most of your time in an interview.

Until next time…

Bob

P.S. If you like these newsletters and want to work more closely with me, just send me an email: [email protected] and we can schedule a brief, no-cost consult. We offer low cost mini-courses, deep flagship courses and coaching for those who sell or manage those selling complex technology-based solutions.