The Magic Bullet: Hiring and Coaching Resourceful Sellers

What a time to be in the 'thinking critically about selling' business. Every sales article I’m reading lately seems to fall into one of these general takes:

-Prospecting as we traditionally know it is harder than ever, and best practices are evolving and no one exactly has all the answers right now.

-Buyers are much more educated due to the amount of information at their disposal, and are engaging with companies and their sales reps much later in the process than before.

-Customers are inundated with spam, phone calls, and other forms of sales clutter to the point where they are jaded disillusioned throughout the entire buying cycle.

And to be perfectly clear, I agree with all of these takes and commiserate with all the sales leaders and reps out there trying to navigate the waters. The seas are rough right now.

But of course, sales are still being made and I’m aware of plenty of people out there having a ton of success in spite of all the hurdles. So naturally, I’m left trying to figure out what are some commonalities amongst those who are distinguishing themselves from their ostensible peers.

These traits are very much generalities, but these elite reps:

1.????? Have been in their roles a long time.

2.????? Have a lot of sales experience in general, in a variety of industries and business classifications.

3.????? Have a vast network of sales peers, current customers, and internal stakeholders to utilize as resources.

4.????? Have a proven methodology to capture the “low-hanging fruit” in their markets: inbound leads, new openings, ownership changes, prospects who are angry at one of their competitors, etc.

If we take those criteria as a given (and we’re going to have to for the purposes of what I’m about to speculate on), how do we define what’s occurring with these folks? What exactly should we be trying to replicate throughout our organizations?

And I believe I can narrow it down to one word:

Resourcefulness.

Not to go all 7th grade report on you, but resourcefulness is defined as “the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties.”

And that’s really what we’re looking for, right? Those producers who are able to intelligently assess their situations, and come up with a solution as efficiently and as creatively as possible? I’d take a whole team of them, I know that.

The questions for leaders then becomes how do we identify and quantify resourcefulness in our sales reps, and how do we coach to improving it?

Resourcefulness will obviously manifest itself in results, meaning it’s an intrinsic characteristic that top producers tend to possess. But beyond that, it should show up during a one-on-one or debriefing with an individual rep.

One strategy is to ask them about a recent win and explore together to how they made it happen while listening for common themes. If they’re closing a lot of deals because of referrals or introductions, being the first salesperson to reach out to a prospect, or leveraging internal or external networks to get information that their peers simply aren’t given access to, that’s a good sign that rep is resourceful.

During the interview process, I find it helpful to inquire some ways they’ve differentiated themselves from their peers in a behavioral fashion. Some sample questions can include:

-How have you been able to use creativity to get a sale?

-What are some strategies that you’ve personally created that have helped you land more deals?

-What methods do you use to prospect beyond traditional phone and email?

I’m looking for someone who is able to think critically about a sales role and make it their own, because if they can, they’ll be an asset to ANY organization.

And can these traits be coached? In my experience, the answer is, “sometimes, but not always.” And what I mean is that not everyone is inherently going to possess a high level of creative problem-solving acumen. And that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of performing to an acceptable degree. It will likely mean, though, that they’ll not be able to come up with these strategies on their own.

So what can be done to coax improvement? Stress outside of the box solutions in one-on-ones, and offer to collaborate on new ways of thinking, but be careful not to provide the solutions. After all, the goal is to create flourishing, independent craftspeople.

Allow them to create their own ideas before coaching or directing-and make them collaborative. Some specifics would include networking with other sales reps prospecting to the same customers, exploring new ways to track new openings or ownership changes, and leveraging current customers for introductions.

All the experts (and me) are saying that we are in a new era of selling without clear-cut, specific best practices. So why coach to just doing more of things that are only marginally effective right now? Harness the resourcefulness of your people, improve upon it, and look for it in those you’re looking to onboard.

These sales reps are invaluable, because they’re about the only sure answers we've got at the moment.