My post on Hiring Salespeople has generated a lot of great comments from people with a lot more experience than me. If you are interested in this topic, go back and read the comments. A friend of mine (who else would say such nice things???), Sandy Hamilton took my little post and created a great Top Ten List for hiring sales people.
A couple of people asked about applying these ideas to other management positions in small companies. If you took Sandy’s list and applied it to let’s say your first Development Manager hire, it would still pretty much apply. Maybe you’d change "SELL STUFF" to "BUILD STUFF", but now that I think about it, you’ve got to have both. Even the Development Manager has to be able to "SELL STUFF". They sell trust to the customer, ideas and processes to the developers, and the need for more budget to the CEO.
We’re all in sales you know, especially in small companies.
I am hoping that your comments are correct. I am a sales person myself. After 20 years of employing, training and managing sales people I have recently started my own business specialising in the recruitment and training of sales people.
One of the most important aspects to a good sales person is the will to succeed, the desire, the heart and the motivation.
It is in danger of being forgotten that poeple buy from people.
Neil
http://www.successfulselling.nl