“I think what they’re looking for is someone that understands their particular task at hand and can clearly articulate how they met back to that.” – Amy Volas in today’s Tip 321
What are companies looking for in sales professionals today?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Amy Volas is back. Amy is a sales fanatic turned entrepreneur, she was bitten by the startup bug and can’t imagine spending her time anywhere else. She created Avenue Talent Partners to help with the tremendous task of growing startups through one of their most valuable assets—salespeople. Here she is with today’s tip:
Amy Volas: So the question is, What are companies looking for in sales professionals today? And the second piece of that question is how has it changed over the last few years? So it’s a bit of a tricky question to answer because not all salespeople are created equal. And I think when I was thinking about this question, I think back to all the feedback that I get from my clients and I think about why they don’t move forward with people in their interview and selection process. And so I want to reverse engineer the question a bit of what are they looking for and what’s missing. And I think what they’re looking for is someone that understands their particular task at hand and can clearly articulate how they met back to that. People really struggle, being specific about what they’ve done, where they’ve done it, who they’ve done it with, what the outcome was, what they learned from it, how they can apply it. Companies are craving that they’re craving natural curiosity that people want to immerse themselves into whatever it is that they might be doing because that translates to the buyer journey. People care about folks that can listen, that they want to work hard, that they want to roll their sleeves up. These are things that go back to a lot of the basics and the human element of things. So think about the criteria so to speak, that cannot be replaced by technology. That’s what the best companies are looking for in terms of the people that they’re hiring for sales.
How has that changed over the last few years? I think because we live in such a world where it’s digital and technology is everywhere and there are a million ways to sunday to get help from a technology perspective. It has made salespeople a little lazy. I’m a salesperson. I promise I come in peace. I’m not trying to be offensive, but we’ve over segmented the sales world. It is really choppy. I grew up in the world of having to do every single thing myself. I was my own customer success person. I was my own BDR, I was my own account manager, I was my own enterprise seller. I was all of it. And I’m so grateful that I had that because it has served me well. And so I think over the last few years, at least the last decade, we’ve fallen into this world of over-segmentation where sellers learn one thing and that’s all that they know. And then to get ahead, they either have to be promoted or they have to leave, which contributes to a lot of other problems that people talk about. But what’s really changed is technology has contributed to that and it’s made people hide behind tech to not be able to have real conversations, which goes back to what companies are looking for in sales professionals today. They want somebody that can communicate. They want somebody that can be accountable. They want somebody that can have a thoughtful strategic business discussion. They want someone that’s going to follow through. All of these things technology can’t really do because it’s a human thing.
Scott Ingram: For more about Amy and Avenue Talent Partners, just click over to DailySales.Tips/321. On that page, you’ll find a link to Amy’s LinkedIn profile. She is an incredible follow, so do yourself a favor and connect with Amy right now.
Then e sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip from one of your fellow listeners!