Where’s Tomorrows Salespeople?

A February 3 article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Bright Future in Sales Millennials are Hesitant” shared results from a Harvard Business School U.S. Competitiveness Project that stated that technical sales and sales management jobs are among the hardest to fill.

The article hypothesizes why and also states that companies are addressing the issue by segmenting the role into teams (prospecting, account management, specialists, etc), utilizing multiple sales channels (inclusive of eCommerce sites as customers see a lesser need for interacting with a salesperson if they know what they want) and that millennial salespeople want career paths rather viewing sales as a career.  Additionally, these roles are undergoing turnover faster than ever before as individuals jump from company to company and sometime from industry to industry.

So, from an electrical industry viewpoint, what could this mean:

• You may be hiring salespeople who don’t have industry experience.  You may need to consider hiring based upon soft skills or experience calling on comparable industries / companies and then need to train them on the basics of products.
• Sales roles may need to be restructured. Perhaps there are business development roles, account management roles, major account roles, more specialists, etc.  The model may change and the “customer contact” may be more of an “orchestra leader” than a “one-stop shop” knowledge base.
• Larger firms may become the trainers for your next sales people. Larger companies have more resources for recruitment and training. “Recruiting” from others may become more profitable if you can show them more “opportunity” (financial, role, territory, flex-time, freedom, input, etc)

And sales skill sets are evolving. There is more of a demand for critical thinkers, solution-identifiers, problem solvers, collaborators.

In an industry that is “aging”, trying to retain the model of yesteryear and hiring people who mimic what you already may not work (unless you only hire people from the industry). Tomorrow’s leaders will be developing their own staffs, evolving HR (or requiring sales management) to be more creative and flexible recruiters. Training will be important as is understanding the changing buying dynamics of customer buying.

What are you experiencing as you search for sales talent?