This week, we spoke with special guest John Shea. John is our co-Founder in The Inbound Sales Academy and an experienced sales consultant. He is also Quintain's Director of Inbound Sales Enablement. The focus of our discussion was on how to hire an inbound sales rep including:

• Where to post the job in order to attract the best candidates
• What skills are needed to be successful at inbound selling
• Tools you can use to objectively assess your sales rep candidates
• How to design a hiring process that is quick, efficient, and will yield great candidates

Listen to the episode to hear it all, or read the show notes below.

Read the Show Notes:

We recorded this week's episode shortly before leaving for HubSpot's INBOUND conference in Boston, where Kathleen is speaking during the Partner Track about how Quintain has added sales enablement services. The reason we were able to add sales consulting to our portfolio of services is that we brought John Shea on board and with him came 25+ years of sales consulting, coaching and enablement experience. John transitioned from a career as a sales rep and later a sales manager to working as a sales consultant several years ago. We met him at INBOUND in 2013, where we began talking about the need for greater sales and marketing alignment. 

Fast forward to today, and now we're all working together to deliver integrated marketing and sales services to clients. We were lucky to have met John and later, Rich McElaney, through the HubSpot community, but not all inbound marketing agencies or companies have the good fortune to have people like these guys in their networks. If this is the case, its important to know what types of qualities to look for in a salesperson.

What Types of Skills Do Inbound Sales Reps Need?

John Shea shared his thoughts on this. He really believes that everything starts with good sales hiring. Too often, companies hire sales reps only to find out 5 or 6 months later that it isn't working. Often this is because we hire on instinct. It could be that we like the person, or find them to be outgoing. These aren't always the most important qualities for a successful salesperson.

There's a difference between hiring a traditional salesperson and an inbound salesperson. Inbound selling requires different skills. Knowing how to evaluate applications and interview candidates is critical to being able to uncover the information and experience that matters. 

What specific skills are needed for a sales rep to succeed with an inbound agency? John says they have to have "cred." Cred is experience, the ability to interact well with your target audience, and a strong personal brand. In the marketing world, this means someone who is already savvy about how to use social media to promote themselves. They do this by having a fully fleshed out profile and using it to share relevant content and publish their own material. If they're not already doing this, you shouldn't waste your time teaching them because they won't be effective in selling to an audience that is sophisticated when it comes to marketing.

What Should the Sales Hiring Process Look Like?

Good sales hiring starts with defining the profile of your ideal candidate. Once that profile has been defined, you then need to determine whether candidates have the required skill set. John Shea likes to use the Objective Management Group sales candidate assessment. This is an online assessment built specifically to evaluate sales rep candidates. It is not a personality test and it will not measure cultural fit with your organizations. Instead, it looks at their skill sets, whether they are coachable and can be managed, and their sales DNA. 

The assessment differs from traditional interview questions because it is focused on observable behavior. Whereas a resume is like a brochure, an assessment goes deeper and can tell you whether the person will really exhibit the desired behavior in real world situations. As a result, it is a great way to determine if your sales rep candidate is even worth interviewing. If a candidate passes the assessment - and only when they have passed the assessment - then you can do a phone interview with them and attempt to peel back the layers of the onion. 

If you're an inbound marketing agency and you are looking to hire a salesperson, you should expect to spend at least 30 to 60 days going through this hiring process. It is actually faster than a typical hiring process because the assessment helps to weed out people who aren't worth interviewing. As a result, you'll spend a lot less time on interviews than you might without an assessment.

Next Steps

If you're ready to start the recruitment prorcess, the first challenge is getting in front of the right candidates. John recommends posting the position on a variety of sites, from LinkedIn to Indeed to Monster.com, and then actively promoting the job.

If you are interested in using the Objective Management Group assessment to evaluate your candidates, you can do so by clicking here. The cost to get started is pretty low at $99 a month for 12 months. The license is good for a whole year and you can use the assessment to evaluate up to 30 candidates.

If you feel you need more support or you'd like help setting up and using the OMG assessment, you can sign up for our upcoming class on Hiring an Inbound Sales Rep. In this 8 week class, John Shea will cover what he does in a typical consulting engagement with clients who are hiring a new rep. The cost for that type of engagement is usually between $18,000 and $20,000, but the class is available for $3499 (and this includes the OMG assessment license). 

If you have any questions and want to get in touch with John Shea, tweet him @SheaJohnR, or reach out to us at @workmommywork (Kathleen)  or @Marketing_Hack (me).

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