Due to the acute shortage of experienced, good sales people, more and more companies are looking to hiring such sales people (and sales managers too) through headhunters. Unfortunately, most of the results are quite disappointing.

The purpose of companies engaging headhunters is usually to seek direct and alternative ways to source for good candidates. Alternative in the sense that the candidate will not be reading about the position in recruitment ads. Instead, companies hope that headhunters will have a large pool of ready candidates, and in lieu of that, can actually make the cold-calls and poach the right candidates from other companies.

Unfortunately, many headhunters, including some international ones, tend to be rather passive in the hiring process. If they have a good pool of suitable people, that's great. If not, they simply take out an advertisement and publicise the vacancy, something which the hiring company could have done by themselves anyway.

In many cases, the consultants working for the headhunters tend to be also very junior, and may not have the right exposure to decide what will make a good fit for the hiring company. They may be susceptible to manipulation by some candidates, and in some cases, even willfully recommend the hiring company to meet up with less-than-qualified candidates, just to prove hey are doing their jobs.

As a result, most headhunters don't really add value to the hiring companies. That's no to say that all headhunters are bad. There will be times that headhunters can save time and resources while providing candidates that fit at the same time. It's a question about how you evaluate and choose whom to work with.

Here's a list of questions that you may want to ask yourself, or the prospective headhunter, before you decide hiring them:

* How is the track record of the headhunter? How many sales or sales management positions have they filled in the past year? Can they give you references from their other clients for similar positions?

* Do they understand your business, and the qualities and behaviours needed to succeed for the candidates? Will they know if the candidate will fit into your unique sales culture?

* Do the consultants have real work experience, or are they fresh out of school? Do they have a structured interview process that allows them to identify the good-fits from the rest?

* Do they pro-actively solicit good candidates in your industry? If yes, how well do they perform for such pro-active recruitment?

* Do they guarantee you a time frame for the search?

* Will you be updated regularly on the progress?

* Do they make reference checks? How do they make them? (note: your competitor will be most delighted if you were to hire their worst performing sales person, and hence may give glowing references!)

While engaging headhunters may save some time and resources, there is still a lot of groundwork to be done in the initial process. Headhunters should not be perceived as the "all cure" that solves all your hiring problems in an instant. Instead, the good headhunters will be your partners in identifying and planning for your long-term hiring needs.

When faced with declining sales and missed targets, many companies opt to hire a "sales superstar", one whom will do the wonders and rev up sales single-handedly. Unfortunately, most companies almost always end up with mediocre results at best, and sheer disappointment in most cases.

In fact, the notion of trying to hire a "sales superstar" is a mistake itself. Here's why:

The Elusive Sales Superstar

Usually, the term "sales superstar" refers to an ultra-aggressive sales person who simply doesn't take "no" for an answer, and is just fantastic in generating great sales results real quick. This kind of sales person represents only about 1-2% of the entire sales population.

As such they are very difficult to find. But finding them is just the beginning of more challenges. You will face issues such as:

1. Sales superstars are highly paid individuals, and to entice them to work for you will mean you will have to pay even more, for both fixed and variable pays;

2. As most sales superstars are currently happily making money with their current employers, and hence that means you will have to proactively reach out to them. The usual employment ads won't work, and even most headhunters don't go around poaching candidates. In worse scenarios, you get candidates who claim to be sales superstars, but are far from it;

3. The sales superstar you hire may or may not fit into the way you sell, or into your company culture. If that happens, and it quite frequently does, you simply end up with a very expensive dud!

Even when you hire THE sales superstar who's producing good results for you, you'll still face 2 possibilities:

1. Despite your sales superstar's Herculean effort, you still are not able to stem the tide of declining sales;

2. Due to your sales superstar's good efforts, you have now seen sales increasing as a result.

Most companies who have hired a sales superstar will eventually find that to increase sales and profits on more sustained basis, you will need a lot more than an individual's effort, and thus diminishing the sales superstar's impact on the bottom line.

However, it is the 2nd consequence that poses the most danger to the company. If you have one sales person who can single-handedly turn the tide for you, then you may have a situation where a significant amount of sales are held in the hands of just one person. If that is the case, your company may be taken hostage by this individual easily, i.e. whatever he/ she demands, you'll have to oblige, or else he/ she will just bring all your major customers to the competitor.

Why Not Build a High-Performing Sales Team Instead

Rather than hoping to find an saviour in the form of a sales superstar, what companies can do is to make sure that all sales persons hired are first equipped and then train in the skills that make them good sales people in your unique sales culture.

While you are highly unlikely to groom sales superstars in your own company, you may actually build a team that collectively produces much more than a superstar ever will. Here's how it works:

1. Compare the best performing sales person(s) with the rest (the middle and worst performing) in your company. Find out what are the qualities or behaviours that are ONLY present in the best people, which the rest are not doing;

2. Structure the interview processes where you look for past performance whereby the candidate has demonstrated such ideal qualities or behaviours;

3. If the qualities or behaviours can be learnt, structure your sales training such that everyone on your team can learn and internalise them.

Due to the acute shortage of experienced, good sales people, more and more companies are looking to hiring such sales people (and sales managers too) through headhunters. Unfortunately, most of the results are quite disappointing.

The purpose of companies engaging headhunters is usually to seek direct and alternative ways to source for good candidates. Alternative in the sense that the candidate will not be reading about the position in recruitment ads. Instead, companies hope that headhunters will have a large pool of ready candidates, and in lieu of that, can actually make the cold-calls and poach the right candidates from other companies.

Unfortunately, many headhunters, including some international ones, tend to be rather passive in the hiring process. If they have a good pool of suitable people, that's great. If not, they simply take out an advertisement and publicise the vacancy, something which the hiring company could have done by themselves anyway.

In many cases, the consultants working for the headhunters tend to be also very junior, and may not have the right exposure to decide what will make a good fit for the hiring company. They may be susceptible to manipulation by some candidates, and in some cases, even willfully recommend the hiring company to meet up with less-than-qualified candidates, just to prove hey are doing their jobs.

As a result, most headhunters don't really add value to the hiring companies. That's no to say that all headhunters are bad. There will be times that headhunters can save time and resources while providing candidates that fit at the same time. It's a question about how you evaluate and choose whom to work with.

Here's a list of questions that you may want to ask yourself, or the prospective headhunter, before you decide hiring them:

* How is the track record of the headhunter? How many sales or sales management positions have they filled in the past year? Can they give you references from their other clients for similar positions?

* Do they understand your business, and the qualities and behaviours needed to succeed for the candidates? Will they know if the candidate will fit into your unique sales culture?

* Do the consultants have real work experience, or are they fresh out of school? Do they have a structured interview process that allows them to identify the good-fits from the rest?

* Do they pro-actively solicit good candidates in your industry? If yes, how well do they perform for such pro-active recruitment?

* Do they guarantee you a time frame for the search?

* Will you be updated regularly on the progress?

* Do they make reference checks? How do they make them? (note: your competitor will be most delighted if you were to hire their worst performing sales person, and hence may give glowing references!)

While engaging headhunters may save some time and resources, there is still a lot of groundwork to be done in the initial process. Headhunters should not be perceived as the "all cure" that solves all your hiring problems in an instant. Instead, the good headhunters will be your partners in identifying and planning for your long-term hiring needs.

When faced with declining sales and missed targets, many companies opt to hire a "sales superstar", one whom will do the wonders and rev up sales single-handedly. Unfortunately, most companies almost always end up with mediocre results at best, and sheer disappointment in most cases.

In fact, the notion of trying to hire a "sales superstar" is a mistake itself. Here's why:

The Elusive Sales Superstar

Usually, the term "sales superstar" refers to an ultra-aggressive sales person who simply doesn't take "no" for an answer, and is just fantastic in generating great sales results real quick. This kind of sales person represents only about 1-2% of the entire sales population.

As such they are very difficult to find. But finding them is just the beginning of more challenges. You will face issues such as:

1. Sales superstars are highly paid individuals, and to entice them to work for you will mean you will have to pay even more, for both fixed and variable pays;

2. As most sales superstars are currently happily making money with their current employers, and hence that means you will have to proactively reach out to them. The usual employment ads won't work, and even most headhunters don't go around poaching candidates. In worse scenarios, you get candidates who claim to be sales superstars, but are far from it;

3. The sales superstar you hire may or may not fit into the way you sell, or into your company culture. If that happens, and it quite frequently does, you simply end up with a very expensive dud!

Even when you hire THE sales superstar who's producing good results for you, you'll still face 2 possibilities:

1. Despite your sales superstar's Herculean effort, you still are not able to stem the tide of declining sales;

2. Due to your sales superstar's good efforts, you have now seen sales increasing as a result.

Most companies who have hired a sales superstar will eventually find that to increase sales and profits on more sustained basis, you will need a lot more than an individual's effort, and thus diminishing the sales superstar's impact on the bottom line.

However, it is the 2nd consequence that poses the most danger to the company. If you have one sales person who can single-handedly turn the tide for you, then you may have a situation where a significant amount of sales are held in the hands of just one person. If that is the case, your company may be taken hostage by this individual easily, i.e. whatever he/ she demands, you'll have to oblige, or else he/ she will just bring all your major customers to the competitor.

Why Not Build a High-Performing Sales Team Instead

Rather than hoping to find an saviour in the form of a sales superstar, what companies can do is to make sure that all sales persons hired are first equipped and then train in the skills that make them good sales people in your unique sales culture.

While you are highly unlikely to groom sales superstars in your own company, you may actually build a team that collectively produces much more than a superstar ever will. Here's how it works:

1. Compare the best performing sales person(s) with the rest (the middle and worst performing) in your company. Find out what are the qualities or behaviours that are ONLY present in the best people, which the rest are not doing;

2. Structure the interview processes where you look for past performance whereby the candidate has demonstrated such ideal qualities or behaviours;

3. If the qualities or behaviours can be learnt, structure your sales training such that everyone on your team can learn and internalise them.

Due to the acute shortage of experienced, good sales people, more and more companies are looking to hiring such sales people (and sales managers too) through headhunters. Unfortunately, most of the results are quite disappointing.

The purpose of companies engaging headhunters is usually to seek direct and alternative ways to source for good candidates. Alternative in the sense that the candidate will not be reading about the position in recruitment ads. Instead, companies hope that headhunters will have a large pool of ready candidates, and in lieu of that, can actually make the cold-calls and poach the right candidates from other companies.

Unfortunately, many headhunters, including some international ones, tend to be rather passive in the hiring process. If they have a good pool of suitable people, that's great. If not, they simply take out an advertisement and publicise the vacancy, something which the hiring company could have done by themselves anyway.

In many cases, the consultants working for the headhunters tend to be also very junior, and may not have the right exposure to decide what will make a good fit for the hiring company. They may be susceptible to manipulation by some candidates, and in some cases, even willfully recommend the hiring company to meet up with less-than-qualified candidates, just to prove hey are doing their jobs.

As a result, most headhunters don't really add value to the hiring companies. That's no to say that all headhunters are bad. There will be times that headhunters can save time and resources while providing candidates that fit at the same time. It's a question about how you evaluate and choose whom to work with.

Here's a list of questions that you may want to ask yourself, or the prospective headhunter, before you decide hiring them:

* How is the track record of the headhunter? How many sales or sales management positions have they filled in the past year? Can they give you references from their other clients for similar positions?

* Do they understand your business, and the qualities and behaviours needed to succeed for the candidates? Will they know if the candidate will fit into your unique sales culture?

* Do the consultants have real work experience, or are they fresh out of school? Do they have a structured interview process that allows them to identify the good-fits from the rest?

* Do they pro-actively solicit good candidates in your industry? If yes, how well do they perform for such pro-active recruitment?

* Do they guarantee you a time frame for the search?

* Will you be updated regularly on the progress?

* Do they make reference checks? How do they make them? (note: your competitor will be most delighted if you were to hire their worst performing sales person, and hence may give glowing references!)

While engaging headhunters may save some time and resources, there is still a lot of groundwork to be done in the initial process. Headhunters should not be perceived as the "all cure" that solves all your hiring problems in an instant. Instead, the good headhunters will be your partners in identifying and planning for your long-term hiring needs.

When faced with declining sales and missed targets, many companies opt to hire a "sales superstar", one whom will do the wonders and rev up sales single-handedly. Unfortunately, most companies almost always end up with mediocre results at best, and sheer disappointment in most cases.

In fact, the notion of trying to hire a "sales superstar" is a mistake itself. Here's why:

The Elusive Sales Superstar

Usually, the term "sales superstar" refers to an ultra-aggressive sales person who simply doesn't take "no" for an answer, and is just fantastic in generating great sales results real quick. This kind of sales person represents only about 1-2% of the entire sales population.

As such they are very difficult to find. But finding them is just the beginning of more challenges. You will face issues such as:

1. Sales superstars are highly paid individuals, and to entice them to work for you will mean you will have to pay even more, for both fixed and variable pays;
2. As most sales superstars are currently happily making money with their current employers, and hence that means you will have to proactively reach out to them. The usual employment ads won't work, and even most headhunters don't go around poaching candidates. In worse scenarios, you get candidates who claim to be sales superstars, but are far from it;
3. The sales superstar you hire may or may not fit into the way you sell, or into your company culture. If that happens, and it quite frequently does, you simply end up with a very expensive dud!

Even when you hire THE sales superstar who's producing good results for you, you'll still face 2 possibilities:

1. Despite your sales superstar's Herculean effort, you still are not able to stem the tide of declining sales;
2. Due to your sales superstar's good efforts, you have now seen sales increasing as a result.

Most companies who have hired a sales superstar will eventually find that to increase sales and profits on more sustained basis, you will need a lot more than an individual's effort, and thus diminishing the sales superstar's impact on the bottom line.

However, it is the 2nd consequence that poses the most danger to the company. If you have one sales person who can single-handedly turn the tide for you, then you may have a situation where a significant amount of sales are held in the hands of just one person. If that is the case, your company may be taken hostage by this individual easily, i.e. whatever he/ she demands, you'll have to oblige, or else he/ she will just bring all your major customers to the competitor.

Why Not Build a High-Performing Sales Team Instead

Rather than hoping to find an saviour in the form of a sales superstar, what companies can do is to make sure that all sales persons hired are first equipped and then train in the skills that make them good sales people in your unique sales culture.

While you are highly unlikely to groom sales superstars in your own company, you may actually build a team that collectively produces much more than a superstar ever will. Here's how it works:

1. Compare the best performing sales person(s) with the rest (the middle and worst performing) in your company. Find out what are the qualities or behaviours that are ONLY present in the best people, which the rest are not doing;
2. Structure the interview processes where you look for past performance whereby the candidate has demonstrated such ideal qualities or behaviours;
3. If the qualities or behaviours can be learnt, structure your sales training such that everyone on your team can learn and internalise them.

In doing so, while you may not have sales superstars eventually, but you will get a team of sales people who are performing well above average.

Now, what if you are unhappy with the performance of the entire sales team, and in your view, there really isn't any quality or behaviour that you want your staff to emulate from your best sales person, there's still hope.

The HR Chally Group is a leader in the field of sales staff research, and they have identified the ideal qualities and behaviours that are needed for each of the separate pre-determined 14 sales and 8 management position categories.

The Sales Superstar Isn't Going to be Your Next Sales Manager

Some companies may now be thinking that if they haven't got any good sales people that they want to emulate, then perhaps they can hire a sales superstar and get that superstar to be their sales manager so that all can learn from him/ her.

Unfortunately, the sad story is that only 15% of sales superstars will be competent managers. Here are the reasons why:

• Selling is about getting things done through the customer, while sales management is about getting things done through the sales team;
• The sales superstar is a highly skilled specialist in the former, but not in the latter;
• When the sales team faces difficulties in getting better results, the sales superstar tends to fall back on what she does best, i.e. to take over the sale. In the long run, you'll end up with a sales team of one, the superstar herself;
• Sales superstars know that they are good, but they usually don't know why they are good. hence, they will find it difficult to reflect and analyse what makes them successful, and how to make others be as successful as well.

Indeed, sales superstars can be trained to become good managers. However, in doing so you are depriving the superstars to do what they do best, which is closing those deals!

Interestingly, the best candidates to be the sales managers that are required to coach the sales team to better performance tends to sales people who had shown drastic improvements over the course of her career. These people are usually not "naturals" when it comes to selling, but have improved their performances by analysing, learning and applying the skills that make other sales people successful.

Early on in my sales career I was elected into a management position based on my performance in sales.

I was excited and at the same time not sure what to expect.

Now I know we have all heard the phrase, "Not all good sales people make good managers and not all managers make good sales people." Well, lets just say I believe some people can learn.

Unfortunately I was one of those people that had to learn the hard way.

I found myself in charge of several people that were twice my age (I was in my early twenties) and in places in their lives that found them along with their egos being checked by someone who was a much younger age.

Many of them of course did NOT like that.

Now rest assured I knew my sales job inside and out and that is one of the reasons I was put in the position but I wasn't the best at communicating the process to the team. I had little empathy for their learning curve of the position.

I found myself demanding respect of the team because I had such a lucrative sales career with the company and was "obviously" put in the management position because I knew the process. Of course that is at least what I was thinking at that time.

You're probably thinking to yourself, "Yup, I can tell you were a jack ass alright!"

Well that was mistake #1. Demanding anything of anyone who is in a 100% commission position is anything short of silly. Egos are at play here and if you think anything different you're mistaken.

Demanding a level of excellence is one thing. Demanding people act, do and handle things in a certain way goes against their personal creativity & personality in the sales process. That gives them a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment in sales to begin with along with the financial results too of course.

Let me give you my insight into the difference of commanding and demanding the respect of your team:

1. Commanding respect is made up of your posture. You can be confident of yourself and have a level of excellence that you strive for. You "set the bar" so to speak and you live up to that bar each and every day. People can just pick up on this believe me. It is an air of confidence about you that must not be confused with being egotistical.

You lead by example in your actions and attitude and you lead your team in a way that you would want to follow yourself. I now today know I will not ask of my team what I'm not willing or capable of doing myself. They know this and willingly follow as we develop them and their leadership skills as well.They know I have their best interest at heart.

2. Demanding respect is thinking people should follow your every whim and word just because you're in a position of leadership. Expecting people to do your bidding just because you have a title. This is where I found myself very early on and quickly I experienced the fact that people did not like it.

Regardless I learned that respect was earned even if you had a title.

Titles don't make people. People make the title. I like to say you're sailing a ship of leaders and your at the helm. Hence the word leadership. Be careful where you sail so that you don't lead everyone into a battle you can't win.

Empower your people. Let know know by your actions and your words that you have their best interest at heart.

Know there is a fine balance between having empathy for your teams learning ability and expecting a level of work ethic and excellence on their part. They can be inspired by you, your actions and your words or torn down by them just as fast.

Due to the acute shortage of experienced, good sales people, more and more companies are looking to hiring such sales people (and sales managers too) through headhunters. Unfortunately, most of the results are quite disappointing.

The purpose of companies engaging headhunters is usually to seek direct and alternative ways to source for good candidates. Alternative in the sense that the candidate will not be reading about the position in recruitment ads. Instead, companies hope that headhunters will have a large pool of ready candidates, and in lieu of that, can actually make the cold-calls and poach the right candidates from other companies.

Unfortunately, many headhunters, including some international ones, tend to be rather passive in the hiring process. If they have a good pool of suitable people, that's great. If not, they simply take out an advertisement and publicise the vacancy, something which the hiring company could have done by themselves anyway.

In many cases, the consultants working for the headhunters tend to be also very junior, and may not have the right exposure to decide what will make a good fit for the hiring company. They may be susceptible to manipulation by some candidates, and in some cases, even willfully recommend the hiring company to meet up with less-than-qualified candidates, just to prove hey are doing their jobs.

As a result, most headhunters don't really add value to the hiring companies. That's no to say that all headhunters are bad. There will be times that headhunters can save time and resources while providing candidates that fit at the same time. It's a question about how you evaluate and choose whom to work with.

Here's a list of questions that you may want to ask yourself, or the prospective headhunter, before you decide hiring them:

* How is the track record of the headhunter? How many sales or sales management positions have they filled in the past year? Can they give you references from their other clients for similar positions?

* Do they understand your business, and the qualities and behaviours needed to succeed for the candidates? Will they know if the candidate will fit into your unique sales culture?

* Do the consultants have real work experience, or are they fresh out of school? Do they have a structured interview process that allows them to identify the good-fits from the rest?

* Do they pro-actively solicit good candidates in your industry? If yes, how well do they perform for such pro-active recruitment?

* Do they guarantee you a time frame for the search?

* Will you be updated regularly on the progress?

* Do they make reference checks? How do they make them? (note: your competitor will be most delighted if you were to hire their worst performing sales person, and hence may give glowing references!)

While engaging headhunters may save some time and resources, there is still a lot of groundwork to be done in the initial process. Headhunters should not be perceived as the "all cure" that solves all your hiring problems in an instant. Instead, the good headhunters will be your partners in identifying and planning for your long-term hiring needs.