Here is why some of your seasoned sales hires aren’t working out - and what to do about it.

I speak with healthcare sales leaders every day as a recruiter in the space. More and more, I’m hearing that they need seasoned sales veterans who can “hit the ground running” or that are “plug and play” into their sales team.

To achieve this end, they prefer to take the perceived safe route: hire a senior, well-connected sales pro who is also as passionate and energetic (the best of both worlds). This is all supposed to work out in theory, with their decades of experience serving as a huge asset.

But there’s a problem with this approach - an approach that I am increasingly seeing backfire:

1.   Quite often, these folks are no longer as well-connected as they say they are.

2.   Their passion and energy have changed (which is human and normal). But they still need to make the right impression.

3.   They haven’t kept up with the new world of work technologically and culturally.

In this scenario, the result is predictable - the hire ends up being a bad fit for both the company and the employee. Disappointment ensues. Time, resources and productivity are lost.

What is a sales leader to do? You need to onboard closers - today - and you can’t afford to make bad hires.

I’m not going to tell you not to hire senior people, because I’m against ageism. I also don’t think I need to tell you that living, breathing human beings can’t actually be plugged in.

But I am going to ask you to challenge your assumptions, and rethink what relationships and connections, passion and energy and work itself look like to the new generation of healthcare sales talent.

Let’s change your perceptions

The best and brightest coming up in the industry today see modern relationships and connections in the information age for what they are - not what they used to be. They cut their teeth in an era of ghosting, job-hopping, job-killing, the digitizing of everything, telepresence and virtual offices, stagnated wages coupled with higher costs of living and automation. While they value relationships, they are also not surprised when they, too, go away. And while they understand the need for the human touch, they’ve also been held hostage in its grasp.

As a result, they don’t burn bridges - but they are also less likely to waste time building ones that don’t lead anywhere. They maintain relationships and connections - but are also more likely to operate under a new standard, where all bonds work-related are fragile and fleeting.

The world today moves too fast and is too transparent for the one-on-ones of yesteryear to provide any real value. In-person networking events are akin to riding in a horse and buggy, with some even saying that 99% of networking has become a complete waste of time.

And with the messiness of today’s world being on full display for all to see, requiring candidates to be “highly polished” in order to appear as close to perfect as possible on a superficial level in order to connect with others has become both irrelevant and passé.

So instead of putting relationships and connections on a false pedestal, above all else and at all costs, the top, rising sales talent of today are stirring up a healthier, more balanced mix of valuing and prioritizing relationships, without taking the risk of relying on them entirely.

Today’s emerging sales talent acknowledges, accepts and adapts to the fact that relationships just are not what they used to be. Please see it as a good sign when a job candidate does not exaggerate regarding their own relationships, or overly romanticize relationships in general.

Their passion and energy manifests itself in a different way

A lot of rising sales talent today can be perceived as introverted, which aligns nicely with the fact that schmoozing is dead, and information and substance now reign. Technology has also freed up introverted sales talent up to bring their true self to work. You don’t necessarily have to have “the goods” of the past in order to succeed wildly in sales today - which means that a whole new diverse, untapped pool of passionate people is getting into sales - and absolutely crushing it.

A more diverse group of talented candidates are getting into sales and doing well at it than ever. And it’s a misstep today to assume that bubbliness and chipperness equate to positivity and having a positive mindset. It’s a misstep to assume that quiet people aren’t charismatic or full of passion.

It’s a misstep to assume today that geeks and nerds don’t rule the world. Your next great sales hire might have more of a passion for data than they do for closing. But that passion for data is exactly what makes them a closer.

Now let’s talk about energy. Because of our 24/7, always-on, always-happening connected lives, people themselves can no longer keep up the appearance of being “always on” as well. After all, we are living in the era of the openly flawed and imperfect CEO. He/she is now all of us.

The new generation of talent doesn’t even hold itself up to the unrealistic expectation of being always “energized” in the traditional sense. Instead, their energy manifests itself in resilience and introspection. It is energy directed more internally than externally. They are more willing to let their energy come and go, and still be OK either way.

Dealbreakers for you may be distractions to them

Technologically and culturally, I’m not revealing any big secret here when I say that the new generation of sales stars approaches work differently. For them, minimalism is in, and less is more. Less email, more Slack. Less air travel, more video conferencing. Less commuting, more working from home.

Less extravagance, more accountability.

Hiring managers who adhere more to tradition and view some of the above as dealbreakers are missing the point that, to the new generation, this is merely about restoring some semblance of balance and fairness in a broken world of work and a broken system. It’s nothing personal.

Between working from home, turning their smartphone into a Swiss army knife, instant messaging and video conferencing, the top sales talent of today can get more done in a single afternoon than your old school sales pros of the past could achieve in a week. With social media, they can make and nurture more connections in a year, without leaving the house, than sales pros of the past could in a decade of making physical appearances.

The new generation of sales talent is freer than ever to be great at their job and be themselves while doing it. They are free to solve problems instead of feeling forced to participate in the creation or perpetuation of problems.

In conclusion, viewing relationships and connections, passion, and energy and work itself from the perspective of the new generation of sales talent will only help you attract the best and brightest up-and-comers of today. And healthcare organizations that are busy humanizing the business of healthcare and making it more people-centric will be more receptive to vendors that believe in doing the same.