Kathy Hammond - Why Data is Critical When Hiring for High-Performance Sales Roles

[00:00:02] Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology Invite cross-industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today Give them the technology to connect hit record pour their discussions into a beaker mix thoroughly and

[00:00:23] Voila you get the HR data labs podcast where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business We may get passionate and even irreverent that count on each episode Challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real-world problems

[00:00:41] Now here's your host David Turetsky Hello and welcome to the HR data labs podcast. I'm here as David Turetsky alongside my friend partner Buddy Dwight Brown Dwight Brown. How are you? David Turetsky? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm okay I'm okay. It's been a very strange morning

[00:01:00] It was 24 degrees out here and I don't know why I'm surprised by the fact that it's actually still winter Still meteorological Meteorological forget It's still winter But you know, what's exciting Dwight tell me today we get to talk to Kathy Hammond Kathy

[00:01:20] Welcome. Thanks really looking forward to our discussion Kathy before we get started give us a little bit of background on who you are what you do and how you got to This moment in time. Okay, you know, I've been in sales my entire career and

[00:01:35] you know over the years and as I've of course experienced job hunting myself and so on and the And always wondered like if why someone was making the decisions that they were making So as I have progressed throughout my sales career and then

[00:01:53] Eventually after grad graduate school that I became really interested in workforce solutions so And I had worked with a company for like an employee engagement Surveys and and then and then I went to work for a company called PSI services and they were one of the largest

[00:02:13] Employee selection testing companies in the US and so learned quite a bit there So as I started pairing the the two and seeing how that could really be Leveraged to even to improve a company's sales position

[00:02:29] so I created my built a sales recruiting agency called sales fit and From sales fit I had developed a system that would reliably You know identify attract engage and vet high-performing salespeople And so from that I started of course then marketing that particular system to other companies

[00:02:52] Who could benefit from that? So and that leads me to today Excellent Kathy what we always ask our guests is what's one fun thing that no one knows about Kathy Hammond

[00:03:05] You know, it's funny you asked because and I had brought that up to my husband the other day We've been married a long time and he said really I learned

[00:03:16] I used to work for the at the Guam Hilton at the front desk when I was going to the University of Guam and I Actually brought in someone from the university to come teach us Japanese

[00:03:29] Because we were dealing with somebody Japanese tourists and one of the things because what would they would happen is the tour buses Would come in and they would let off a whole group of

[00:03:39] Japanese tourists and they would come to the front desk and they'd have to get their keys So I would just stand there at that Big wall of all the keys and they would be shouting that room numbers and I had to pull all the keys so I

[00:03:53] I learned how to count in Japanese to and for whatever reason I could just count endlessly because we had 365 hotel rooms at that time Wow, and so I had to at least be able to count to 365 and That's

[00:04:11] Crazy I can imagine what it's like to be standing at the counter with a bunch of people who just get off a tour But whether they're Japanese tourists or anybody, you know clamoring for for their keys

[00:04:21] So wow, you must have a patience of a saint. I had a good memory, too Not when it comes to my husband though You got selective memory As we know in relationships, it's good to have sometimes good to have a long memory and sometimes very short

[00:04:47] But we're not gonna have a conversation today about that today we're gonna have a really fun one So let's get to the topic Our topic for today is the criticality of data in sales recruitment to hire high-performing sales professionals

[00:05:01] So Cathy, what's the biggest mistake hiring managers make when having a need to hire a sales rep a couple? I tried a couple of mistakes. They don't know what a high-performing salesperson looks like

[00:05:21] Hmm, they don't know the the knowledge skills and abilities that they need to possess and then the experience and if they're not able To identify that themselves or they've not identified it as well as not understanding the company's sales Process so that you can align those skills

[00:05:40] With that process to make sure that they can actually perform all of those various tasks If they're not able to if they don't have that information, they don't have that data They're not able to convey that to the HR talent acquisition or you know recruiters so

[00:05:57] They don't know really what they're looking for Don't you think they actually have an example of person on their team and that that is kind of high-performant and they can go Well can Barbara can we look at somebody who's just like Barbara and hire Barbara again somewhere

[00:06:13] Yeah, they could I don't see that a lot of them do it But but they certainly could do that But they'd also have to make sure that Barbara really is a high-performing salesperson Right because we we hire people who are they're good

[00:06:30] But it doesn't mean that they're high performing the top of the game Because it's really what is that they're trying to achieve and so that so that's that's where that disconnect is and

[00:06:42] Could they explain it could they explain what makes Barbara high-performant and could they put it in a job description and What are the attributes of Barbara or what are the attributes of the person who they would like or maybe it's a combination

[00:06:55] Of a bunch of different things. Well, you really need to start at the actual Requirements what what is it that you're first of all trying to achieve? You know, who are you going after what kind of clients, you know, what what level are they are they at?

[00:07:11] And then you would you would have to conduct a job analysis To really determine all of the different steps that are involved all the different Requirements somebody has to be able to perform, you know

[00:07:23] And I've often said, you know in in my 30-plus years in in sales in Doing going for a job interview and and I'm talking fortune 100 companies on down I've never once been asked to prove that I can actually perform

[00:07:38] The skills necessary for success on the job at that company Once you start identifying that then you can go in and you can take say Barbara and say, okay Does Barbara know how to prospect right? Yeah And and what what does that mean to us?

[00:07:55] Prospecting does Barbara know how to conduct demonstrations Can she write proposals? I mean are all of these things that necessary for success on the job at your company because what's going to be your company is Not going to be required at some at another company

[00:08:12] So you have to be able to do that that alignment and so and I like to think of us as really as human capital Alignment specialists right because that's what we're trying to to accomplish

[00:08:23] Do you feel that it's possible to also boil that down to the vital few in other words if you were to pick three key competencies for a job That really represented 90% of what's necessary in that job. Do you think companies do that? No That's not good

[00:08:48] Well, I would say you know that when when we look at all of the The different skills that are required or the or the task to be performed for a sales job. I mean we've identified

[00:09:05] 24 of them and so in order for you to be a high performing salesperson You need to be able to hit the mark on each one of those So if they're just taking even if they take the top three if they identify that

[00:09:17] But they generally don't because there's so much bias in the hiring process That you know, they're not even looking at that. They're looking at you know, do I like the look of you? You know, do we share some things in common? Do we have good chemistry?

[00:09:33] You know I and they have views of salespeople. They should be outgoing and there's no evidence To support this never been a study that's ever supported that Introverts cannot be as successful in sales as an extrovert. So yeah, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions around it

[00:09:54] But because we're talking about hiring managers now and hiring managers typically get put into these roles not necessarily because they're good managers, but because they're good salespeople and when they get elevated to these levels when they try and start to Repeat the process of hiring someone

[00:10:13] You know, you've brought up bias before isn't it their inherent bias that they want to hire someone Literally just like them. Yeah to say well, I was a successful salesperson

[00:10:23] I want to hire someone just like me right Dwight. You're just like me. You have facial hair. You're a guy I want to hire you exactly isn't that really what's in the mentality of a hiring manager in the sales world?

[00:10:35] Sorry, by the way all the salespeople that they think I'm I'm a salesperson too. I know what I'm talking about here But Kathy is that is that kind of where the sales that that hiring manager is in the sales world

[00:10:48] Yes, and it and what's ironic about that is that they themselves maybe they got promoted It doesn't mean that they really were the high-performing salesperson, right? Right, so you can you've got you can a mediocre hiring managers hiring mediocre

[00:11:06] salespeople because they're alike and that's what they're comfortable with and that's where they run into that danger and that's the Exact reason why the Peter principle exists because people can raise to their level of Incompetence and that's just right just kind of factual there

[00:11:23] Like what you hear so far make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe This podcast is made possible by salary comm now back to the show So let's go to our second question, which is really now taking it from another perspective

[00:11:38] Which is taking it from the perspective of the recruiters So what's the biggest mistake recruiters talent acquisition professionals make when they get that job requisition about sales? They don't question enough about What is required that that's one thing and?

[00:11:55] They're not collecting the correct data in order to actually make a placement a really good placement They don't track their numbers, you know, it's funny because sales is metric driven and Yet the hiring for salespeople rarely is and so

[00:12:16] That needs to be foremost also with the with talent acquisition in HR You know understanding that you know What it is that they're actually looking for and then also knowing where to go to find to find that talent

[00:12:32] And then being able to track their numbers so that they can improve upon what they're doing now. I've met a lot of recruiters in the sales space and one of the things that they typically talk to me about is assessments them doing assessments on people that that are

[00:12:50] Applying for the sales roles and sometimes those assessments are for capabilities and competencies But sometimes therefore cultural fit into organizations when you talk about the typical sales process not having Numbers or not having you know, the activity or the data

[00:13:07] Are you talking about it from the you know time to fill and that kind of thing or are you talking about it? From the assessments perspective now. I'm talking about the activities Surrounding the sourcing of the candidate

[00:13:20] Okay, and so that and if they're tracking from where they're getting those particular candidates and then Ensuring that they're meeting certain criteria. But again, it goes goes back to the hiring manager They have to to give the correct data. Okay, we have approximately in our

[00:13:39] In our process of collecting information from from clients and then what we teach also in the recruit salute is we have 121 different points of data collection to understand what it is that we're looking for so this but when when it comes to the

[00:13:59] talent acquisition and HR and even for third-party recruiters It's really making sure that they're Refining the their search and they can only do that by looking at the data from from

[00:14:15] Different various data points where they're sourcing what quality you know, what are the different benchmarks that they have? For the the talent that's required in order to even move them through that talent pipeline So it's not just the one-off sales hire

[00:14:32] It's the constant drumbeat and being able to get all the data from your drumbeat to know what's been successful What's not been successful and how do you? contemplate the appropriate sources of hire and

[00:14:46] Cadence of hiring and whatnot you need to collect all that data you're talking about. Oh, absolutely You know because what happens is that there's a blame game that goes on between the hiring managers and the and talent acquisition who's responsible for for TA and the

[00:15:03] And it's only because that they're not Both reviewing the data from the start and then being able to refine So if you know hiring manager will hire someone that that TA brought in and then

[00:15:18] That person doesn't work out and then they come back and say, you know, hey, that's your fault I hiring manager to the to the TA people that that's your fault. You brought me the wrong person and it's like

[00:15:29] If we're all reviewing we're all on the same page from the very beginning Then we that should problem should not occur So and it's really shouldn't be of them against you know, the recruiters or they HR but that it's your team

[00:15:45] You know, you're in it together. So wait, didn't the hiring manager actually meet the person? Didn't they interview them? Didn't they spend the time to review all the data on and all the you know

[00:15:55] The resume and the back didn't they actually put any effort into it before they did, you know the blame game? Oh absolutely, however Fewer than five percent of hiring managers have received Like an hour's worth of training on how to hire people. I mean hiring is a science

[00:16:16] I mean, it's not something you win. That's what they're doing because no one's been trained So wait, are you telling me Kathy that managers don't grow up knowing how to hire people? I know can you can you believe that it's hard to believe? I'm shocking

[00:16:33] But that's we've been espousing things like training for managers for leaders for a while Not just in the recruiting space, but but for everything. I mean they need help. They need that assistance

[00:16:44] We don't grow up, you know when we're playing, you know, what role do you want to be when you grow up? No one says I want to be a leader. No one says I want to be a manager Oh, you have to do a performance evaluation today I

[00:16:57] Don't want to do performance well, that's actually what people say today I'm gonna be a firefighter. I'm gonna be a sales manager We get and that's the other thing too. That's funny that you say that about firefighters

[00:17:09] I mean the amount of screening and for them to get in there because I mean I worked on the The city of Los Angeles for their fire department for the the voice election and they have to go through a lot

[00:17:22] In order to even get there and then once they're there then they have to be trained There's no barrier to entry to sales So anybody somehow it's like they use some people just say well, it's my fallback position if I can't become axle become salesperson

[00:17:35] right and then so if they're in there and then somehow they manage to get up into a hiring manager role and It's just that they No one takes that seriously that they need that training in order to understand actually how to do it

[00:17:51] But yeah, you know, I mean here I went to graduate school and I and I have a master's in organizational management With emphasis in HR management. We spent One course that was it in anything relating to writing job descriptions

[00:18:08] Interviewing and all of this and even then I thought oh, this is nonsense But that's all that they're even teaching it and at the university level So it's like, you know, where do you pick this up? How do you learn it? And it's it's incumbent upon

[00:18:24] Senior leaders of an organization to make sure their people are trained to perform the jobs that they're doing It takes the vision of a CEO or you know

[00:18:33] Probably the top leader to say this is what we need. This is what we're gonna do but too often doesn't happen Right. Well as a CHRO, I know that one of the things we're gonna focus on this year is leadership development and

[00:18:46] You know getting getting that to be an agreed upon goal is tough I mean, it's obvious but it's tough, right? Yeah Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself man? I wish I could talk to David about this

[00:19:01] Well, you're in luck. We have a special offer for listeners of the HR data labs podcast A free half-hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast or whatever is on your mind

[00:19:13] Go to salary comm forward slash HR DL consulting to schedule your free 30-minute call today So let's go to the third question which is really fascinating kind of brings these two pieces together

[00:19:27] It's why don't we all get along or why don't the hiring manager and the TA team and the recruiting team? Why don't they work together for better hires? And can you give us some examples of what?

[00:19:40] Working together could look like sure. I think that there's some ego at play and if there's If you don't know something You don't want to reveal that by Sitting down with somebody else to say, okay How do we do this together? Right

[00:20:00] The I mean simply the way to do that is really put your egos aside be able to come to the to the table Sit down and really start mapping out. Okay, first of all what like in the case of sales

[00:20:12] What is the sales process you have to understand what the sales processes? It's shocking that a lot of sales leaders have no idea they cannot identify the various stages of their sales process and

[00:20:26] Articulate it. I mean if we've got you know 21 that we in the job analysis. That's the sales process They have to take it from Cold from start at the very beginning all the way down to not just a closing of the sale

[00:20:40] But beyond that to referrals and and customer maintenance and all of that Yeah So and then the hiring manager being able to educate the talent acquisition the HR people on exactly What that is and what that means?

[00:20:55] So when I say, you know, if you ask anybody in a job interview, you're gonna say well, you know How do you feel about cold calling well, they want the job if they want the job

[00:21:05] They're gonna tell you I love it and then you will never be talking to people. There's not gonna do it, right? Right. Yeah, so but it's so how do you uncover that? So it's then really being making sure that you have all of the various questions for each

[00:21:23] aspect of that sales process to be able to uncover that Those that can and those who cannot perform that role right but that's why I was asking a little bit before about assessments because

[00:21:37] It's so hard to ask a question where someone just doesn't come back with a baloney answer that says yes, right? You know, do you like cold calling or you know, are you good at cold calling? Well, sure Yeah, who isn't you know?

[00:21:48] I get a list of people call them one at a time make him a best friend and you know sell him a ton Of stuff. No, that's not really cold So so how you know, is there a is there a role for assessments in this where you know

[00:22:03] The both the TA team and the manager can sit down together take a library of good questions around The competency and then be able to ferret out what actually makes sense to be able to have people Respond to and and do so accurately, you know

[00:22:20] There are some good Sales assessments for example and other but they have to be validated for that particular role in order for them to really be able to predict

[00:22:31] Performance sure however, you know what we have in one aspect of our program is that we have all of the questions the interview questions for hiring managers to ask along with the behavioral anchored rating scale To so that you can see where on the spectrum that individual

[00:22:51] Where they fall Specific to that job task so we don't just say do you like you know to cold call, you know How is that it's like? Describe a time that you had to do this and then you want to hear the details

[00:23:06] But it's not but then you don't want to leave that to chance either for somebody to make an assessment Oh that sounds good or that doesn't we give them from having from subject matter experts and sales

[00:23:17] From the not qualified all the way to the well qualified so that they say this is what you should be hearing at this higher level because it's a it's a matter of elevating the Performance in the organization not just like okay

[00:23:33] They can do the job and you have what do they say 20% of people in the organization are doing 80% of the producing 80% of the result That's in all departments including including sales But you have to know what that looks like at what is it?

[00:23:52] What do what do really high-performing candidates say to that question? And so they should be developing those questions together HR and hiring manager to really and again by each of the job tasks From the and within that job analysis

[00:24:12] so really they're taking the job description and they're going through it with the hiring manager and TA person is actually going to list, you know, here are the ones where we need to have some

[00:24:25] understanding about what the behavioral anchors are here that you're gonna be judging the people against and let's give you some advice and Training on how to listen for the right things and score them appropriately

[00:24:35] As to their level as well as their ability to fit into what you need Well, it it's like forget the job description You have to go from that job analysis break down that job

[00:24:50] What exactly does that person have to do and then you have to then develop the question? That or a couple of questions you might have a couple of other people asking so and Develop the interview question

[00:25:05] so that because now first of all this is gonna eliminate hiring bias because once you're able to score upon that you're going off of Number you're not going off of that managers Interpretation it's all from what they heard

[00:25:20] right, but but that's where HR talent acquisition can help with the hiring manager because the hiring manager is not going to know how to do any of this and

[00:25:30] That part of it the interview that's one leg of the hiring process because of course you want to go back and check references and all of that but You know, it's like I've said and I mean prior to workforce solutions that I've been in

[00:25:46] I had a long career in commercial security systems and and then also wholesale alarm monitoring on a national scale and Our customers were what they called door knockers These were companies that would put out an army of people out into the field to sell alarm systems door door-to-door

[00:26:09] That is a completely different skill set I mean these people were making these college students making a ton of money the one the really good one But it's a different type of sale

[00:26:20] So, I mean somebody I mean I couldn't do it go door-to-door and try to sell something It's sales skill, but it's a different it's a different thing altogether Right and so they they have to have agreed upon measurements between HR and the and the hiring managers

[00:26:40] Everyone has to be they have to be speaking the same language and then also knowing how to measure that To set it all up can be time if they're doing it from scratch themselves is time-consuming can be expensive

[00:26:53] They may need an IO psychologist. I mean, you know our stuff has been developed in conjunction with the IO psychologist But in the long run they're just able to easily replicate it each time that they they need someone so

[00:27:06] You know the investment upfront but it's understanding the process the job description gets written after they identify exactly what is needed because that job description also Job descriptions are a legal document, right? So it's important for them to also Have that accountability factor in there

[00:27:26] I'm not gonna just tell you that you need to be doing cold calls You need to be doing at least 200 cold calls per week, you know in order to get these results But you have to again it all comes back to data. It's all measurements

[00:27:39] Can I go back to something you mentioned before that you you touched on lightly? It's really critical is the reference call Now obviously you can't ask people to sign anything saying Oh, yeah This person was great at this or that of the other thing

[00:27:54] But I think all other things that we don't do a very good job of it What is the structure of a successful reference check? Asking the right questions, right? But that's that's my question

[00:28:05] What are those right questions because you can't ask certain things and people would answer other things, right? So, how do you ask how do you know what the right questions are, you know, and so we and we have a

[00:28:18] Form that that we use for the the because we're really we're talking about their performance But we're we're talking about it and we're asking them in such a way For certain elements about their motivation About how they overcome obstacles

[00:28:35] You know and give it you know, like if they have examples that they have to share It's almost like interviewing them as well. Yeah Yeah, and it's not just you know What can you share with me about this this candidate because it's name rank and serial number

[00:28:51] You know for fear of being sued but this is it this is different to the the process that we take By you know asking yeah generally a bit really about their their How they how they are functioning on the job? How are they getting along with team members?

[00:29:09] You know how you know, how were their relationships with the clients? They're in sales You know and again, I mean depends upon the the job itself Sure, but it's you know structuring those questions so that you're having a conversation not just having getting rote answers from

[00:29:29] You know from employers who may be afraid to respond and to your point name rank and serial number, right? Right and one thing I've noticed is that the really high-performing people These managers want to gush about what this person did

[00:29:45] But then they're also really honest because I asked what was one thing that you would have liked to have seen different you know in like something that maybe was a challenge for them and

[00:29:57] When they go through all the positive stuff, they're very happy to come in with this This is where there might be you know, and where they could use some additional coaching

[00:30:07] I've had some of those calls to Kathy and I got to be honest with you. I appreciate more When they want to know the full circle the rounded questions like you just mentioned Relative to the ones who go so were they a good employee or not?

[00:30:21] What what does that mean? What do you mean by that? Did you like would you hire the value in that answer? Yeah, right exactly there really is so so I'm glad that there is a an answer for

[00:30:33] What's an appropriate way of being able to ask a reference for you know? How do you how do you fit how would they fit in and you know not asking too much

[00:30:42] But asking just enough to be able to be a little more successful in the choice and then making the right decisions for hiring Right Kathy it's been a pleasure talking to you. You're obviously a treasure trove and a really brilliant

[00:31:04] Representative of this process. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been really enlightening. Thank you gosh that was that was fast Well as we say Once we get past our technology issues usually it actually goes by really quickly

[00:31:18] So thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. Thanks so much for being here Kathy Dwight Thank you as well. Thank you. It's been great now. We're all ready for the weekend So everybody take care stay safe and we'll talk again soon

[00:31:35] That was the HR data labs podcast if you liked the episode, please subscribe And if you know anyone that might like to hear it, please send it their way Thank you for joining us this week and stay tuned for our next episode. Stay safe