The Rolodex Myth – Part II

The collective groan was almost audible when our SVP announced that he had filled our vacant Sales Director position from “a star from one of the heavy hitters”.

“She’s got a 90 day pipeline worth about 3 million in new business. We’ll bring her on, hit the low-hanging fruit hard and at least add 500k to next quarters number.”

If Pavlov had met my SVP, he would have given up and skipped the dog.

We had been down this road before, many times. Any candidate, with one of our key competitors listed on their resume, basically had the job before he/she entered our office.

“He did over $2 million in business in 1998 (overlooking that whole “dot com” thing)”

“He didn’t work long for vendor X, took some time off to care for his sick dad, now he’s ready to get back in the game.” (Vendor X fired the crackhead and we were the only suckers to bite on the bait)

“He closed every deal that Vendor X had in 2001, we are lucky to get him.” (We pay 20% less than Vendor X, and yet this superstar wants to come work for us?)

While it does happen that a top member of a sales team will jump ship for an opportunity, there’s usually some….um….”opportunity” there. For example, a startup with a disruptive offering, or the turnaround with a huge equity position are logical scenarios for a person at the top of their game to make the leap.

Selling the same stuff, to the same people, is not that kind of opportunity.

One of the key concepts on which my SVP lack clarity is that the sales rep is part of a bigger package. That package includes the rep, the solution being presented, and the company. With the exception of financial services or other extremely commoditized markets, the elements are not interchangeable.

Take out the rep, you lose ground and have to backup. Swap out the solutions, you immediately put the prospect on the “bait and switch” defensive. Worst of all, try to swap companies, thats almost always a total reset and you have to go back to square one. This is the especially true if the rep stays in the same industry.

This is what the prospect experiences “Ok Mr. Prospect, I know when I was selling widgets with Vendor A I told you how great we were and how we were better than all the rest. Well, now I work for Vendor B….and this time I really mean it…we are the best….until I change jobs again.

In 2004, Guy Kawaski gave a lecture at Stanford on hiring effective people, this is the best three minutes you will spend today, click here for the video.