Hiring Sales & Business Development Talent: Science, Not Art

Hello and welcome to the show. It's a lovely Wednesday morning over here in Abuja. So let's get right down to business. The question for the day is how to find and how to acquire the right talent for your business. And I would be surprised if this is not a question that I've tackled in some shape or form over here on the podcast in the past. But for the benefit of those of you who are newbies, let's go ahead and tackle this again.

And for those of you who are still or old and you've been with the show for a while, let's just take this as a refresher course. So how do you find and acquire the right talent for your business? Now, even though this particular question was asked in the general sense, because the first time I was asked the question, it was asked in the sales context. Yeah. How do you find the right sales guys, sales girls, sales professionals, you know, people who are going to sell for you?

I don't mess you up. So the first time I tackled the question, now is the context. This time it's in a much more general sense. But I have to give this caveat that I'm not a recruitment specialist, I'm not an HR specialist, I'm not a personal specialist. That's the reason why I prefer to limit the ambit of these sorts of questions that I answer over here on the podcast to sales and business development. So I'm going to be limiting this to sales and business development talent.

How do you find the right sales, customer service, support person, all those sorts of all those sorts of things. Now at the end of the episode, I'll have some general How I see. I'll have some general, I don't know, tips, tricks, or whatever to apply to those of you who are coming beyond the sales and business development space, but I'm just trying to let you guys know that this is the angle that I'm going to be answering this question from.

So from a HR personnel hiring perspective, the topics that you should be paying attention to, if you're having this sort of business problem and you want to be listening to podcasts around those sorts of things or looking for material on these sorts of things, then you should be looking for blog posts, websites, you know, things around company culture, around interviewing, around talent management, all those sorts of things.

And that's the beauty of the podcasting space because you can find podcasting topics on virtually anything. I mean, they have on podcasts on what's it called, crochet and knitting. And I find that really, really interesting because crochet, to crochet and to knit, you have to see what the person is doing. OK, well, I'm an outsider, so I'm assuming you have to see what the person is doing with their fingers and with those sticks.

But yeah, we have podcasts on those as well. And anyway, so yeah, go up and do your research. So from a sales and business development perspective, these are the main issues that are involved when you're looking for finding the right talent, trying to acquire the right talent, trying to hire the right person. So the primary question is that we're going to be asking ourselves the, we should be asking our number one, can this person sell #2 does this person have product or industry knowledge?

Number three, are they coachable or as I like to say when I'm speaking to business owner, business owners, do they hear word? For those of you who are not Nigerian, I'll explain what do they hear word? I'll explain what that means. So again, the questions, number one, can this person sell #2 do they have product or industry knowledge #3 are they coachable? Like I tell my Nigerian peeps, this person that you have on staff be like say this person know they hear word, do they hear word?

So something we have to ask as well. So why are these questions important? Number one, can they sell? Because sales is either an art or a science. The jury is still out. People argue over these things all the time. If selling is an art, if you believe selling is an art, then you're looking for someone, you're trying to hire the right artist. If selling is a science or a discipline, then you're looking for someone who has the right process.

If you've been listening to the show for any length of time, you will know or not be surprised that I fall into the science and the discipline ahead of the argument. I think that sales, there's some artistry involved, yes. Some people have some flair when it comes to talking to people, chatting people, or making friends with everyone, Yes, but there's also a science and there's a discipline to it. So there's an A+B equals to C

aspect of sales, which is if you know this and you do this and you do this in this manner, then you can be guaranteed these kind of outcomes, all things being equal. So my ideas on how selling is a science and a discipline, it influences my my approach and how I tackle these sorts of things. Now, another reason why I don't like this whole artist angle is because it makes people believe that some folks are born good at sales and it provides an easy excuse for people to quit when things get tough.

So for business owners, if you think that sales is an art, then you think that the problem why this salesperson doesn't work out was because you had the wrong artist. And then you're keeping an eye out trying to hire the right artist, which in itself is a very tough thing to do. But then when we look at it at the level of the individual salesperson or the individual business person, it lets you off with easy excuses. You can say, oh, I wasn't born good at sales.

People say that I wasn't born good at sales. I don't like talking to strangers. Business is not in my DNAI don't call from a a business family. I don't come from a pushy family. I don't like stress, blah, blah, blah. These are the kind of excuses that we come up with when we fall into this whole artist, artist thing. So, but this is an important question basically because the answer to the question whether you think art is a science, so whether you think sales is an art or a science is going to determine who it is that you're looking for.

But either way, this question can they sell is an important one. You need to decide whether sales is an art, something that people are born with or whether it is a less is a science. You can just follow steps and you can end up being good at this and then hire accordingly. So if you think that you're looking for the perfect artist, the perfect sales specimen, then you better do your job descriptions very well and include that in the in the hiring process.

And I hope that you and your business partner have a good way of figuring out whether this person is indeed the artist that they came to be. But then if you think, like me, that sales is a is a science and it's a discipline, then the onus is on us to make sure that we have knowledge of our processes and our customers and that we have worked out these processes. And then we can bring people within the system and then teach them how to sell.

So can they sell? What is sales? All these questions, these are the kind of things we tackle as #1 then #2 The second question, do they have product knowledge? Do they have industry knowledge? This is important because this is the foundation of good salesmanship or good saleswomanship. Now, there was a previous episode where I spoke about selling drugs, so let me just use that as another example, not because I'm saying you guys should go out and sell drugs.

I'm just trying to stress a point about how product knowledge is important or industry knowledge. Now, I am currently working with a client that is in the alternative energy space. I'm also talking to a bunch of other people who are trying to boost their businesses using content marketing, you know, podcasting and copywriting and all the other stuff like that. And I also have someone that I'm working with who is currently,

he's in the gaming space. So he has a a business hub or a tech hub and then he's in the gaming space. So that is because I have knowledge about the process of selling that can be applied to other industries. However, if you take me despite my skills and tell me to sell drugs because I don't know anything about drugs, I'm going to be a terrible salesperson. These are the industries that I'm working with. I know a little bit about them and I can interview the business owners long enough, engage in qualification and discovery to try and figure out a couple of things about the industry.

And we can figure out the best way to sell these things, whether it is selling solar panels or whether it is trying to get people to download your your games more. But then when it comes to drugs, I know absolutely nothing about the business. I don't know what gives you the quickest high, what gives you the longest high or what gives you the safest high. I have no idea which ones take you up because there's some drugs that you take to, you know, speed you up.

That's something I found out about when I was in the UK 'cause I just assume that every single drug, well, coming from Nigeria, coming from OAU or back from our low university, the best university in, in the whole wide world. My assumption was that you take drugs because you know, you want to, you want to get high, you want to quicken, you want to go up. But in the Scotland found out that some people take some drugs that you know will step you down, will calm you down, will make you mellow and stuff like that.

By the way, I'm not advocating drug use. I'm just trying to show you how complex this industry in quote is, whether it's licit, illicit, illegal, legal, whatever. So I have nothing about, I know nothing about the ones that take you up, the ones that make you down, the one that's supposed to keep you even keeled and block out everything. I have no idea. I also have no idea how these things interact with other medication, whether you're on BP

medication or whether you have diabetes medication or whether you're on Viagra or whatever. I have no idea about which ones are synthetic, which ones are natural. That was also a mind opener to me when I got into Scotland and the member of the police force came to address my set. The jam by two had just come in. Oh, by by the way, for those of you are not Nigerians jam by just means anybody who is new into the university system.

So they came to address we jam by to just let us know like what's up Like, hey, you guys are coming from different countries over here in the UK. These are some of the things that people do you, you know, people will tell you to try this, try this. This thing is not illegal. This thing is not whatever. So nobody can arrest you, but just know that this is how it interacts with your central nervous system. This one is addictive, blah,

blah, blah. They just wanted us to know, you know, just want us to know what's up. Like you're in a new place. This is the layer of the land. People do all kinds of weird stuff here. There are artificial things that people are using to get high. It's not illegal. So police is not going to harass you. You know, they want to arrest you. But just know that you take these sorts of things. You can mess your life up. So it's a weird and vast industry.

I know nothing about this. So even with my my knowledge about sales, if you try to get me to sell drugs, I won't be able to sell effectively precisely because I lack product knowledge or industry knowledge. Now, I use this example not because I'm saying you guys should go out and sell drugs. I'm just using this example because this is something that is highly addictive. And I want to show you guys that it's possible that you might be dealing with something that is highly addictive and that people want and that people are chasing.

But if you lack product knowledge, industry knowledge, you're going to be a crappy sales salesperson. So product knowledge is important when we're talking about shady business like drugs. It's also very important when we're talking about legitimate businesses. So if you're going to be promoting or selling on behalf of a cryptocurrency, whatever, whatever, whatever, you need to know this whole cryptocurrency web three stuff.

You need to have a basic understanding. If you're going to be selling solar panels, inverters, UPS, you need to have a basic understanding of how all these things work. You don't need to know the mechanics of how these things work, but just the basic understanding of this is this, that is that this is how it works together. This is the kind of results, These are the kind of performances, performance that you can expect out of your equipment and things of that nature.

So product knowledge really, really important. So we should be asking ourselves that question, does this person have product knowledge? Does this person have industry knowledge? Now the last question, the one that I said about talking to my Nigerian people, when I say do they hear word, that's just another way of saying is this person coachable and can this person listen? So that is the last question, are these people coachable?

Do they hear word? Can they listen? Can they take correction or do they think they're the issue that they can't learn anything from anybody else? Now from a sales and business about my perspective, this actually is the most important question out of the three that we've looked at so far. Regardless of whatever you, wherever you fall on, whether sales is an art or a science or whether product and industry knowledge is relevant or not, we cannot deny that this is the most important one.

Are they coachable? Do they hear word? This is because someone who is not coachable, someone who does not hear word, will continue to go to the left. Every time you say no, go right. If you tell the person go up, the person will go down. If you tell the person go in a straight line, the person will start going in a crooked fashion. That's because this person assumes that they know everything and that you know nothing.

This person is not quotable. This person will not listen. As we say in this part of the this part of the world, this person doesn't used to hear word. So you can't make progress with this person. This kind of person is going to cause problems for you and your business because they're going to end up making promises that you can't keep. They'll tell the customer a meanwhile, you have never promised on your website or your Instagram that that is something you can do.

They're also going to lead to poor customer service experience because you as a business, you're trying to position your brand one way. You send these people out to sell on your behalf because they're making all kinds of promises. They have no clear system and they're dealing with customers this way or that way, depending on how they believe, sorry, how how they feel when they wake up that day. At least the poor customer, poor customer experience.

And of course, the poor customer experience, it has an impact on the number of people that come back to do business with you or refer others to do business with you in the future. So summary, people that are not coachable, people that don't usually hear word, they have their own ideas about how businesses should run and they're going to end up imposing those ideas on your own customers. This is the reason why this is the most important question.

Does this person hear word? Is this person coachable? Because this is the one that is going to seriously screw you up in the business. So the most important criteria, hire someone who hears word, hire someone who is coachable. Another reason why this is the most important criteria because of the three that we've spoken about so far, this is the hardest one to train. If you believe that sales is an art, you can hire an artist and get the artist to tweak his process.

If you're like me, I believe that sales is a discipline. You can hire somebody who is totally fresh or you can train the person up. Now, OK, when it comes to sales, it is 1 + 2 + 3, or it is A + B + C, or it is start here, move here, say this, and then do this. You can train the person on that. When it comes to this whole thing of being coachable, you can find somebody who don't actually hear word and you can train them to become attentive and listen.

But it's, it's hard work. It's a lot easier to start with someone who hears word in the 1st place. To start with, someone who is coachable and open and amenable to learning and who will learn from you about who your customers are, how you start conversations with them, the processes you want followed on the back end, how you handle complaints, how you handle deliveries, how you handle customer service. The best way to dress, the best way to sound, the best way to answer the phone.

I mean whatever it is, it is better to hire that person that used to hear word on day one and then you now start training them on steps one and two because you can hire somebody who seems to be the perfect artist in your own opinion. The person can sell, but then the person assumes that because they are the perfect artist, they are the alpha and the Omega. And so they will impose their own ideas on your own business and on your own customers.

And then you guys will start quarreling and it'll be serious quarrel. So if you sell paint, you can teach people about your product. This is glossy paint, this is lossless paint. This is this kind of paint, this is that paint, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can train the person on the industry thing, but if this is the kind of person that don't used to hear a word, if this is the kind of person that is not coachable, that is not amenable to learning, that has no humility, they will never adopt your sales process.

And they will talk to your customers anyhow because they believe that their understanding of sales and business is better than yours. This is the reason why #3 is the most important because it's the hardest, the hardest to train on. So if you are worried about finding and acquiring the right talent for your business from a sales and business development perspective, hire someone who is coachable. Hire somebody who used to hear a word, then train them on everything else.

Let me repeat, if you're worried about finding and acquiring the right talent for your business, we're talking about sales now. Sales, customer service, business development, whatever it is that you want to call it. Hire somebody who is coachable first, who is humble first, then train them on everything else. But remember what I said at the top of the show? This relates to sales and business development only. If you run a brain surgery clinic, a brain surgery outfit or whatever, then please hire the best brain surgeon possible,

even if he or she is a bastard. Because if you have somebody who is the best brain surgeon in Nigeria and he's a member of your staff, if he puts 100 people on the table, 99.9% of them survive. I mean this person is the absolute best, but he's a bastard. What you can do is you can limit him to operation table only and hire somebody else who's going to handle the customer service, the interactions, the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

At least your patients when they go into surgery, they will come out alive. So if it's brain surgery clinic then please disregard what I have said. Hire the best person. Even if the person is an idiot, even if the person has poor bedside manner. I guess go ahead, hire the person. Let the person enter first. Is the outcomes you're looking for. We'll figure a way around it. The same thing with engineering when it comes to engineering and building sites and everything will be nice.

If your engineer is good and polite to architects and polite with with workmen and foreman and all of that, it will be wonderful. It will be beautiful. But the main thing is we want this project to be delivered on time. We don't want a house that is going to collapse because you know how how every year we hear that houses are collapsing in Lagos and even now in Abuja, you know, you put on the news, you hear that oh, a house collapse here, a house collapse there.

So we don't houses to collapse. We want projects to come in on time and on budget. So in this case, I guess you go ahead and hire the best engineer possible. Even if the engineer is an absolute idiot and when he comes on site he quarrels with everybody and blah, blah, blah, You can kind of manage those things because you want this thing to, you want the project to be safe and you want the project to run on time. There's a way that we can patch when it comes to poor bedside manner and these sorts of things.

So for medicine and for engineering, yeah, you should be hiring. The best known is no doubt, but for sales and business development rule for your business, the person doesn't have to be OK, like with the, let me see, OK with the cryptocurrency thing. The person doesn't need to know the back end. He doesn't need to know how to code. He doesn't need to know all of that. If you have somebody who is willing to learn, you can teach him up and say, OK guy, this is our sales process.

You run them through all that. Now after that, you now say, OK, look, you have to know a couple of things about these, these web three. You can't go out and be talking cryptocurrency and web three to people. I don't know what's up. You now train the person. This is Web 3, this is cryptocurrency. This is how it aligns. This is how we can use it to get business results or this is how you can use it to get results in the personal space or this or this or that and that, you know,

so you can train them upon all those. Anyway, let me not believe about the point. I think I've already made the the point clear enough. So for all other things that are hiring related, talent related, human resources related, personnel issues related, please be sure to consult the relevant professional because I am not. But I've told you from a sales and business development perspective how we should tackle these sorts of things.

So that's all for today folks. Remember to connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, then connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayede, I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name and e-mail address from the link. We're currently listening to this episode. Thank you very much for your time and attention.

I'll catch you guys at the next episode.