The Right Way to Hire Salespeople

A lot of people just aren't disciplined. A lot of people are and a lot of people can teach themselves to be disciplined, especially in sales when you have a process and things. But there's another gear that's not always there and it's devotion. And I'll take somebody who's got a little bit of discipline and a ton of devotion uh over somebody who's all discipline, no heart. >> It's not venture [music] capital, It's private equity, it's the private equity fun. Pour yourself a drink and have a seat. I was having a conversation the other day with someone

who had some questions about what it's like to be an operating partner and they asked me a good question which is how do you spend your time? Now there's a couple ways to answer that. One is how you allocate your time across a bunch of different portfolio companies. Uh the other one is what are the actual activities that You're focused on? And the part of my answer that surprised this person was how much time we spend on recruiting. So that's what today's conversation is going to be about is how we think about recruiting and more

specifically how we think about recruiting one of the roles that I care the most about quota carrying salespeople inside of our portfolio companies. >> So here's the thing for me is why do you even care about this? Because it seems Like it's really in the weeds for a general partner or private equity firm to be thinking about how do I screen, recruit and hire quota a carrying salespeople. I had this conversation with somebody else the other day and they had the exact same reaction was doesn't this feel way too close to the sun and you

know isn't this way too in the details and my answer was no for for a couple reasons like one when we build a budget as investors something we do For every company every year so we set the plan for what we think we're going to do that budget gets simplified into a couple basic assumptions or rules of thumb and one of the rules of thumb that I keep coming back to as the go to market guy is how many salespeople do we have and how productive do we assume they're going to be how much ARR

are they bringing in every year so if you're talking about a growing business you're talking about a relatively small Business like the ones that we invest in you're going to have to hire a couple salespeople and you're going to have to figure out a way to make them productive so there's a bunch of things you can do to increase the productivity of your sales people but the number one thing you can do is hire a good one. And so if you're talking about building a budget that you think you can hit, if you're talking about

hitting that budget repeatedly being a pretty important part Of what we do as investors and providing the help that makes that happen, if you hire good salespeople, you can get a lot of other stuff wrong and still do pretty okay. And if you've hung around the podcast for the last, you know, six or seven years, you've heard us talk a lot about hiring and how we hire and our process for hiring. I think if there's been one great innovation in the [clears throat] last several years at Parker Gale is we just got religion on Hiring

better. So why do you spend time thinking about it and worrying about it? Because we're in the talent selection business, not the talent rehabilitation business. So selecting somebody who's going to perform the way you need to for need them to perform is so much better than trying to get somebody who's off track back on track. So, we spend a lot of time doing it. And I'd say we're just executive recruiters with a better business model. At the end of the day, If you get a a higher right, you can make a lot of other mistakes

and still be okay because that person's going to be in the business when we're not there as investors. They're the ones that are going to be shephering deals through the pipeline and you can trust that that person's doing a good job without any intervention from the outside and that feels good. And the opposite is also true. I think missing on any role inside a company of 50, 100, 150 people, it Hurts because it holds you back. And if you can find out a way to build a process that hires people that move you forward versus

holding you back, you just created a two-point swing. >> You and I think in like epics and like the befores and the afters and we like to kind of create these uh I don't know maybe fake lines uh that was these things that happened before and things that happened after. Uh I would say one of the major things for me, you know, One of the great epics of the firm, uh history is before we got good at hiring and after we got good at hiring and before when we let the management teams just hire who

they wanted and we were maybe the final screen and hire how they wanted, maybe even more importantly that we'll get into today. Um and went to them with a system and a process and got involved in it. again not to micromanage, just reduce um the risk of failure. Uh it's been a total game Changer in my opinion and and and I [clears throat] think this is an area where our companies both need and want the help. So recruiting is annoying. It's annoying to have to screen a bunch of people and kiss a bunch of frogs

to figure out who you want to hire. It's annoying to write a good job description that isn't just a dog's breakfast of all the qualifications and certifications and experiences that this person might Need to have. And it's annoying to like invest in a process that convinces a good candidate who's never heard of your company that this is a place they might want to spend a couple years in their career. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of extra work on top of running the business. But when you get it right, the yield is incredibly

high. And I also think it's a huge trust builder between us and our businesses. Like, hey, I know this is important. I don't have the time To devote to it. And you guys have a process that you can plug into what we're doing and take some of the load off of our plate. Like we that's one of the most important things that we do in the first 6 to 12 months of an investment. And I think it's huge, not just because it gets better people into our businesses, but it also builds that foundation of trust

between us and the management team. I also think um it's something that uh you can get good at And there is a process and a system for it and we talk about it a lot on the podcast because it's worked really well for us. We still see it not being done the way it should be getting done across companies across other private equity firms. Um uh so in the next 40 minutes we're going to basically give you the process on how to reduce the the error rate on hiring salespeople. So let's start with this. Why

are sales people, good sales people, so hard to hire? >> So, salespeople are professionally trained to get you to like them. >> Kind of like private equity people. >> Kind of like [laughter] private equity people. >> Uh they understand the dark arts of building rapport, actively listening to what you're talking about, mirroring what you're giving them back, and creating this feeling when you walk out of a room after spending 30 minutes. You're like, "Huh, I kind of like that Guy." or gal like I might want to do business with them or I might want this

to keep going. >> I could have a beer with that guy. >> 100%. >> I like the cut of her jib. >> Yeah. >> Two two great reasons to hire a salesperson. >> And are those skills important in a sales role? Hell yes, they are. I don't want somebody who can't create a Connection with a person they're meeting for the first time because again, you're building a foundation of trust. And if you don't have that foundation of trust, you're going to be you're going to have a hard time moving the deal along, getting to yes,

getting that person to sell on your behalf. Like that those connectivity skills are necessary but not sufficient. >> But it's a trap. >> It's a total trap. It's a total trap. Like just because a person can get you to like them in a room and you have a good conversation with them for 30 minutes, it doesn't mean they're disciplined. It doesn't mean they're going to work a territory and go find business for you. It doesn't mean they're going to follow up on leads really quickly. It doesn't mean they're going to tell the story that you

want them to tell about the product. It does not mean that they're going to be a Productive salesperson just because they can create rapport with you. So, here's what I'm not saying. I'm shouldn't I'm not saying that you shouldn't pay attention to someone's ability to connect with you in an interview. Everybody likes that. It makes the process of interviewing bearable. But there's more stuff than that that you have to test for. And with sales people, it's especially hard because you have to get past the rapport building stuff to Actually test for this stuff. And not

everybody knows what to ask. And here's what you're up against. You're up against the head of sales saying, "I've got a guy. I worked with him two companies ago. He's a carnivore. He's a killer. He's a meat eater or whatever. >> Whatever. >> He's straight out of central casting. he's got a good jawline, etc., etc. So, you got to break through that. Yeah. >> The head of sales has a guy >> that you've never met who's already been almost offered the job before you even know the process is going, right? Um, and then you've got

uh salespeople who are really good at doing this uh for a living. So, like, how do you break through the I've got a guy I want you to meet versus let's run a real process? How do you break through that from a relationship standpoint with the head of sales or the CEO who's like I want to bring my best guy in? >> So meet them. Don't don't not meet that person. But before you meet them and ideally before you even start talking about who is on the candidate slate, you have to know what you want.

And so I think this is a really important step that people skip, which is they let their ATS or their HR system dictate what the job description looks like. And that's a mistake because what that computer system wants you to do is input a bunch of fields about years of Experience and industry exposure and stuff that like is it an indirect indicator of can that person speak the language of your company? Maybe. But it's not a predictor of performance. Right? So I'm not saying you shouldn't find your own candidates. I'm not saying you shouldn't work

the network. I'm not saying you shouldn't give your leadership agency to pick their team, but if you haven't agreed on like what makes a successful salesperson in this Company and ideally like run the regression on the best salesperson you already have, you're making a mistake. Now, if you don't have that, I do think there's universal qualities that make sellers effective in the world of B2B in our world that you can translate into any business. And I think it pays to know what those are and we're going to talk about them and what you should ask

to honestly assess for those things. So, >> so what are the stakes? You get it Wrong. You know, >> personally waste two years of your life. That's that's what it means to get it wrong is >> why does it take that long in B2B software to figure that out? >> Because you got to give somebody time to ramp after you've given them time to ramp. It's a it's a natural human thing to say, "Oh, they just got here six months ago. We're going to give them one more quarter." And then it's Q4 and Things get

crazy and all of a sudden it's 12 months in and you're like, "Ah, I still have this feeling that this person isn't performing the way that they should." And if you're not looking at your data the way that you should in terms of the ramp of someone from an onboarding perspective or what you expect from an individual quoting sales rep, it's a lot easier to talk yourself out of making that hard decision. >> Totally. And in a middle market, lower Middle market private equity business, maybe there's five, maybe there's 15 quota carrying reps. This is

not like, you know, an army of people that you can bring in and out and swap in and out and there's tons of turnover anyway because you have 400 salespeople. Every single one of these hurts. >> It it hurts. And there's a bias to give them time and to let them prove themselves, especially in businesses with longer sales cycles. Like we do a Lot of stuff in enterprise software where a sales cycle might be 3 6 12 months. And so it's easy to talk yourself into a situation where you feel like you're not being fair

if you don't give that person at least one sales cycle. And it's even easier to talk yourself into that if you've never created a profile for what you're looking for and you don't have a documented sales process where you can assess this person against what to Expect. >> Totally agree. All right, let's get into the framework. So how do we do it? Like what are we testing for? or what are you looking for? How do you know this works? >> Yeah. So, I think there's five universal qualities that make sellers productive. And again, this looks

different for every single kind of business. Fast sales cycles, slow sales cycles. But I do think there's five things that you should be testing for when you are Hiring salespeople or you're going to be in trouble. Okay? >> So, the first one is customer focus. Can this person simplify what a really technical product does and connect it to what the customer is doing or are they just a brochure with legs that's, you know, spouting off the technical specs and saying, "Here's what we have. Here's what it does. I hope you want to buy it." >>

Y >> So that's number one. It's customer focus. >> Can I point out like maybe something that looks good where there might be a false positive? They know the industry well. >> Yeah. >> So when they're interviewing, they can talk about the customer. Oh, I've been in the dealerships. I know how they think. I know the language. I've been selling in this industry for a long Time. Yep. >> So, uh, that's a hard thing to break through. >> Yeah. And it's an easy thing to get head faked on if someone's really fluent in the language

of your industry, but getting under that. We'll talk about how you do that, but they need to be able to connect it to a job that that customer is trying to do and is getting blocked from completing. Okay? And that's different than being able to talk the Language of the industry. So, that's number one, customer focus. Your next one, structure. >> Yeah. So, do they have a sales process or not? >> I use Medic. I use Medpic. I'm a challenger salesperson. I can talk up and down all about the different methodologies I've learned and taught.

And I even at sales kickoff last year, I was the guy who walked everybody through Medic. >> Yeah. And that's this is an interesting one because some people will try to blind you with acronyms of sales process and then you get under the covers and it's they don't really have a sales process. I think a sales process in terms of really strong opinions about the moments of truth that matter for this person that help them win. So maybe that's talking about a qualification framework like medic and just making sure they know everything they need to

Know to win the deal. But I've talked to great sales people who don't use a you know a sales methodology that has an acronym with it. It's just hey here's how I run a discovery call. Here's how I run a demo. And here's how I present a proposal. and they could talk for 90 minutes about the technique involved with delivering those things. >> All right, so customer focus, accountability, what's next? >> That's structure. >> Oh, sorry. You're right. Structure. Accountability is next. I jumped next. Accountability is next. So can they pattern match what they are

doing with their results? Like do they understand that inputs drive outputs? and can they talk about how they think about that versus this is where you get the order taking mentality. So, does somebody just sit back and wait for inbound and then work those deals and take the orders or is somebody doing the stuff that might Not be as fun or might be a little boring, but they understand that it drives results and there's discipline there. How do you discern from somebody who's just at a place that had a hot hand for a while? you

know, maybe four years ago they were at Snowflake. Um, and it's no knock on the salespeople at Snowflake. I'm sure they're wildly disciplined given the leadership team there and how much they're focused on it. But you just got a hot product at The right time in the right place and you're trying to figure out, well, one, wow, this person was president's club every quarter. They crushed it. They can talk the talk. but then they get into your middle market software business and then they can't deliver because you realize, oh, because the so much inbound or

something. So, how do you how do you parse that out? Um, when you have somebody who's good at talking and selling, creating rapport, they had a Great run or two at some places that it then it doesn't become replicable replicable. Um, we'll get into that later, but is that something you know you see often? >> Yeah. The two principles I would point to is one, get specific. So, if the company had a hot hand, that's great. But I want to know how they performed versus their number. And if you're talking to a salesperson that, you

know, is trying to bamboozle you a little bit, They love to talk about company results and they love to talk about things like President's Club, but when you ask them like, "No, what was your quota and how did you perform versus your quota for the last two years?" It starts to get real handwavy and real murky. So I think getting specific is your best defense when it comes to testing people for accountability. >> Okay. So number four on your list is problem solving. >> So every one of our companies has an ASP uh that's usually

measured in tens of thousands of dollars and not hundreds of dollars. That's a decision that's usually not made by one person and usually takes months to play out. So the question is can they manage that type of sales process? You know, maybe you don't get all the way to the e-word enterprise sales where it's taking a year and it's a seven figure deal, but what is have what is going to have to happen? That Person's going to have to sell on your behalf when you're not in the room. You're going to have to figure out

who's got the budget and how that decision-making process works inside the prospect and you're going to have to make sure stuff keeps moving along. That takes a lot of tenacity. So, can they do that or again, are they just taking the order and hoping it closes? That's a that's a different way of existing as a salesperson. And then before we get into The actual questions you ask to discern this, what's the last one on your list here? >> It's drive. And there's a lot of different ways to define drive. Like I define drive as does

this person have a love of the game? >> Yeah. >> And do they have a passion for the commercial sport that they're playing? And more importantly, can they self assess versus like what good looks like In selling? So I want to know that somebody understands what their strengths are and how they put those strengths to work. But I also want to understand like, hey, not every day is a great day and not every quarter is a great quarter. Like when you miss, when you don't perform, or just when you're at your worst, what does that

look like? And if somebody has that self-awareness, it usually is a pretty good sign. >> Yeah. I say that uh devotion is greater Than discipline. >> Yeah. A lot of people can teach themselves to be disciplined. A lot of people just aren't disciplined. A lot of people are and a lot of people can teach themselves to be disciplined, especially in sales when you have a process and things. But there's another gear that's not always there and it's devotion. And I'll take somebody who's got a little bit of discipline and a ton of devotion uh over

somebody who's all discipline, No heart. >> Yeah, obsession is a highly underrated quality in roles like these. And I think it pays to at least ask about it and probably to assess for it explicitly, especially if you're going to hand this person 5, 10, 20% of your growth plan for next year. Like I want to know that person cares and I want to know that person is obsessed with the craft of getting customers to say yes. >> And this doesn't mean they put in the Most hours. They have no work life balance. And it means

they are devoted. They are a student of the game. They want to read stuff about it. They talk to other salespeople. They're curious about their process. They're curious about the products. They're curious about the customers. And they just have a love of the game like you said. So >> yeah. >> All right. Well, why don't we give people the answers to the test? like What are the questions we're actually going to ask these people? >> Yeah. And folks listening to this might be wondering why are we giving away the questions that we're going to use

in interview guides in our companies. And one like, hey salespeople, this is an implicit test if you're doing your research. So if you're watching this right now and you're preparing for a Parker Gail interview, good for you. Uh I like sales people who do their Research. So, this is a little extra credit reward for you doing your thing. >> Well, you're also convinced in the process we've built and you've honed for sales that you can't game it. >> No, there's no hiding. So, here are the an here's the questions we're going to ask and here's

what a good answer looks like. >> No, we're not testing if you can produce a good 30-se secondond sound bite. We are testing that when you give us the Chance to watch the game tape on your career. You get to provide the highlights, but we get to critique and ask for more detail. So, the number one thing that people say at the end of a panel interview with us in a final round is you guys really want a lot of detail. And we're like, yeah, because detail is truth. >> Yeah. >> And we want to

know the truth about what you've accomplished, what you're like, And what it would be like to work with you. We hear two things. That was exhausting and exhilarating, and it was a lot of fun. Um, so can we like for people who haven't downloaded our hiring handbook, who haven't listened to our previous episodes on how we hire, like just explain a panel interview because I think a lot of people are used to just having one interview at a time and meeting five people. We do it the opposite. So maybe a little give 30 Seconds on

a panel interview. What is >> What's the problem with the typical hiring process? The problem with the typical hiring process is it takes a long time. like scheduling time with you, scheduling time with me, scheduling time with the CRO. Already you're talking about a lot of headaches and probably two weeks of just back and forth before you nail it down. And you all hear different things because you're all asking different things and you're All hearing the answers in different context and there's no basis of comparison that's statistically significant. So, if you've written a good profile

and you've all agreed on what matters in this role, you help me say that a lot. Um, our approach is to take that profile, figure out what you want to ask to test for those things, to go super deep on their history and their career, and to do that where we're all in the same room. So, you, me, the CEO, The CRO would all be in that conference room over there with the same interview guide with the same two-hour block, and we would ask the person the same questions so that we hear the same things

at the same time. And then we have a blind calibration. We'll literally send out a Google sheet with scoring for each question, which we've agreed on what a good answer versus a bad answer is. And then we'll blind calibrate. So the CEO ultimately makes a Decision on who works for that business. But we want that CEO to have the benefit of the doubt on what we heard, what we missed, and how we felt leaving that room when that person told the highlight reel of their career to us. And if I'm giving them a four out

of four on an answer and then and you're giving them a one out of four on an answer, it's a great opportunity for us to have a conversation about what we missed. That's impossible to have if I Interviewed them for an hour and then they spent an hour with you and you talked about stuff completely different. I say I had a great conversation with them and you're like, I had a horrible conversation with them. I can't benefit at all and you can't benefit at all from what happened in that room. So that's why we all

want to be in the room together. So So what are the questions? So, we're going to go through those same things you're looking for, those same Five, and we're going to give you the questions that we ask. So, customer focus, like what do you what's the core question when we're trying to get to customer focus? So, I want them to prove to me that they've done the translation of their product and that they can do it on demand. I don't think it's fair to ask them to do it for your product because they don't even

work here yet and they haven't had the benefit of interacting with your customers or your Team. But they should be able to do that for their product. So what I like to ask is, you know, if I'm interviewing you, Devon, I want you to explain your product to me like I'm a potential customer. So talk me through it, but also include the questions that you ask to uncover the problems that point to someone being a good fit for us. And then I want to hear what you're listening for. So there's three elements to this. One

is I want to hear a little Bit of the pitch like a customer would because you will intuitively know if the person is good at that or not or if they're just a brochure with legs. >> I want to hear the questions that they ask because without a good question, a good answer has nowhere to go. And I want to hear kind of the >> the internal monologue they have as they're asking those questions. Like what are you listening for? What are you picking up on? Which is an implicit Signal that they know how to

active listen? If there's one skill that good sales people have, it's active listening. So, if they can't do those three things, if they can't animate the product, if they can't ask good questions, and if they can't tell me what the triggers are that they're waiting to hear so they can jump on them. >> Yeah. >> I'm not impressed. >> So, my pitch is I have uh number I sell number go up technology. That's my is number go up. Uh >> depending how how much the number goes up, but maybe I'm buying, but yeah. Yeah. You're

also listening for this as the non-salesperson uh sitting in these. I'm listening for do they just run the tape, right? Did they listen to the question you asked and then or do they just start running their tape? Do they start trying to elevate you out of the Question and into the conversation they want to have? >> Yes. >> Which is very 30,000 foot level. You know, I'm a people pleaser. I'm a drive hard. I, you know, love process. I med medic challenger, you know, yada yada. uh or are they really kind of getting us in

the weeds? And that's why we can give away the answers the questions before the answers because if you can't get into the weeds and walk me through a day In the life, >> um that's a problem for us, right? Maybe good for somebody else, but for us, we need a day in the life. What does that mean for you? You talk about like, hey, if we had game film for you of you at work, it would be creepy, but it would be pretty awesome. We'd be able to watch that. So, what is what's a good

answer? What's a day in the life? Um, as you get to customer focus, >> I don't need this person to be a jobs to Be done expert or a jobs to be done wonk. I happen to be one. So, I think about things in terms >> The first step is admitting it. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm in recovery now. Um, I want to hear some version of the words that a customer would use to talk about the problem and the workarounds that they're dealing with today. that gives you as a seller the signal that like, oh

yeah, we can definitely help. So, if it's a CRM, It's, hey, let me guess. You're keeping track of all your customers in a spreadsheet somewhere, and despite hiring two people to make sure that's up to date and all that, you're still dealing with dropped leads, you're still dealing with uh difficulties coming up with campaigns and whatever the third thing is, right? So, notice what wasn't in there. There wasn't a lot of technical jargon. There wasn't a lot of product specs. There wasn't a lot of Speeds and feeds. Like the simpler they can make the language

and the more customeary they can make the language, I think that is a signal of selling intelligence. And if someone's really good at memorizing the technical brochure, well, good for you. But you're not creating the logical signal in a customer's mind that this can solve the problem that's ruining my day right now. And if there's one thing a seller needs To do, it's to create that trigger that, oh, this isn't the most powerful tool. It isn't the most AI enabled tool. It's the thing that takes the workaround I'm dealing with every single day and removes

it. >> And bonus points for they can separate by persona. >> Yeah, >> there's, you know, red, yellow, and green in our type customers. Here's how I figure out if they're red, yellow, and Green in discovery. And this is kind of the I'm crafting the pitch uh to that person uh because I'm I can read their mind because I have so much pattern recognition. And if you want a bonus question here, ask them how they disqualify people. >> So what did you hear from a customer that would say, "Ah, this is more of a tire

kicker or it's somebody that we might be able to help, but they're going to waste our time in the sales process Or it's just not a good fit." Like research would tell you people want two things from salespeople. One is perspective on the market and two is help navigating their options. And if the person you're interviewing demonstrates that they can do both of those things, you can probably trust them in front of a customer. >> And your big red flag is uh kind of brochure uh in a suit. >> You do the this is what

we have. This is Exactly how it works. By the way, this is exactly how it works. Do you want to buy some? Please, please, please. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's the brochure with legs approach is I'm going to title wave you with the technical specs of the product and hope it just knocks you down and you can't recover from it and you buy out of exhaustion or or you know overwhelm. Our little inside joke is when we hear somebody doing that it's like no but the transistors and the Resistors and we need the flux capacitor. It's

just like just reading the spec sheet. Uh and then what's a green flag when what are you giving somebody a four on uh as as for the customer focus conversation? >> They sound like a customer mind reader. So if they can describe what a day in the life looks like for this person and what a bad day looks like and what the workarounds are in and what they can take out of the way. So some jargon is Part of the fun, right? We all work in technology for a reason. Technology products are basically magic, but

you have to translate it into language that the customer uses every day to talk about stuff. So if they're doing that and if they can talk about the work they've done to do that individually, I'm good. >> All right, let's move to structure. The questions we asked for structure. I would say for me earlier in my career, I Probably overrotated on structure. I wanted a ton of it. Uh because that made me feel like you can you can uh manage the inputs, you can't manage the outputs, right? So focus on the inputs, not the outputs.

and somebody who was ringing that bell for me in the interview would would get moved on. What I was probably missing was more of that customer focus and day in the life and mind readader stuff, the art versus structure and the science. So, how do You get to structure? How much is enough uh without being too much and what are we asking for that? It's fun to spend 10 minutes nerding out on sales stuff practitioner to practitioner. So if somebody uses a qualification framework like medic or if they have a specific practice that they've put

to work like sure let's talk about that. It's good to build rapport. It's good to hear that they have something like that. I think growth happens one customer at a Time and I think you get customers one meeting at a time in our world of B2B. So ultimately what I'm asking about here is meeting management and meeting execution. So the question I will ask is walk me through your sales process. Not your stages in the CRM, but walk me through the moments of truth in a typical deal for you guys when those happen and what

you're trying to do in those moments of truth. So typically that's discovery, that's when you Demonstrate the product, it might be when you present the proposal. But I want to hear that that person's done the thinking. That there's a couple of things that move the needle and they have a strong opinion about what executing that customer interaction looks and feels like and they don't let it get off the rails. And a bad answer is when you can tell that somebody is thinking about this for the first time and they might do a really good job

of Brainstorming, but brainstorming sounds like, well, yeah, you know, when I'm in a discovery meeting, I'm trying to build some rapport for the first five minutes. Then I guess I asked some discovery questions and technical requirements and about integrations and and you can kind of tell it's like n >> you're brainstorming. You haven't [clears throat] done this before a meeting before. >> And the really good candidates will say, You know, I've got two points in my sales process that really matter. And here's my three to four point checklist of what I'm trying to do at

both of those points. And this is a this is kind of an odd question because the bad answers can go on for 10 times longer than the good answers. >> 100% agree. The tighter the checklist, the better the answer. And then your immediate followup is, >> okay, well, tell me about a story where You either got off the rails on that checklist or where really good execution on that checklist led to you creating momentum in the deal that wasn't there before. And the really really good people will have both the checklist and the story ready

to go because they're thinking about it every single day. And if they use a methodology, I want them to be able to quickly explain how they, you know, kind of, hey, here's medic or medic or whatever they're using. Let me Explain how how I've used it in my career. And then um the points at which it really has a big impact for them versus just explaining methodology they were taught at sales training that they don't use versus and here's how I've adapted it to my business and here's how it works and here's where it's fallen

down. like for a quota carrying sales rep, big fan of them leaning into to process. >> Yeah, 100%. >> So, what are you listening for? And then um again like uh red flags, green flags. >> Yeah. Again, the red flag is like brainstorming for the first time in front of you. Yeah. >> Which is like great, you can think on your feet, but you are not preparing for meetings or you don't have a standard that you're working towards. >> And the 10-minute answer. >> Yeah. And just the here's all the things that I do. The

title wave approach [snorts] of trying to overwhelm you. don't worry, I'm doing all the things. And a really good answer is, this is what a good meeting looks like for me, and these are the couple of meetings that really dictate if we're going to win the deal or not. >> Yeah. I like to hear, uh, here's what a good day looks like. Here's what a good week looks like. I know if I do these things every day, my week's going to be good. If I do my this every week, my Month's going to be good.

I can hit the quarter. I have multiple ways to >> hit the quarter if I can. I'm thinking about that rather than have my sales manager telling me, yeah, >> hey, this one isn't going to happen. So, like, get rid of it. You need more. So, something could articulate that shows me that they Yeah. They use structure for with a purpose. It's not just they've been told they have to run this methodology versus that methodology and They begrudgingly do it, but do selling the way they've always sold. Yeah, sales is hard. It's not complicated. So

simpler rules of thumb usually tend to be signals that somebody has figured something out that actually works versus, you know, just trying to hit you with a bunch of sounds that exist in the world of go to market and hope that that convinces you that they're the they're the person. Yeah. All right, let's go to accountability. Yep. Which is often the Hey, it was my fault. We missed the number, but you know, I'm not going to blame marketing. You know, the leads weren't bad, but at the end of the day, I've got to, you know,

so you get the very humble like I take accountability for it. if we missed it, it's on me kind of thing. Um, how do you get past that? >> First is ask about results and don't accept non-specific answers. And there's a lot of people out there interviewing sales people who go 0 for two on that Framework. Like you should ask what this person's number was and how they performed against it. And don't accept I was, you know, 100 plus% versus quota every single time. Okay. What what was the number again? Just let me write down

the dollar figure. >> This was my quota%. >> This is what I hit. Yes. >> This is how I got there. >> Yeah. And and you'd be amazed at how many people try to gymnasticize out of The first question, which is what was the target in dollars and what was your performance in dollars? And you're going to hear confusing stuff from candidates that you shouldn't hire. You're going to hear resistance first. People just not wanting to go there either because they don't remember what it was. Bad sign. Yeah. >> Or they're trying to like stir

up muck on how much was new versus upsell or new product or whatever. Or we changed the Forecast halfway through and it was confusing. It's like, okay, then it might be true. But you know what? >> Sales guys should know what their number is. They know cuz they know how they're going to get paid >> 100%. So, and they could complain that they did change the forecast on them. changed how people get paid, but they should be able to walk through and it changed to this. Yeah. And then I had to hit this number and

the payout wasn't Great and that's why I'm interviewing for this job. Okay, that's a great answer. >> And if you answer the question, which by the way is like maybe my number one thing that I'm looking for in any interview and the number one thing that tells me you're a simplifier and not a complicator. um you earn the right to explain what the results were because we hire plenty of salespeople who didn't hit their Number last year or had an underperforming year or worked in a really tough situation. Like that can be a good thing,

>> but this should be a 30-se secondond answer. Okay, what was your number for the last two years? How did you perform against it? And if you're in person or on Zoom with this, can they have pull up a spreadsheet or pull out a piece of paper and say like here's what it is? Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Is it written down and is it true? And I I don't care if there's a cheat sheet involved. And and in some ways, like we could have a philosophical debate about this, but if somebody has notes, I don't

know. The biggest thing that tells me that they prepared. Yeah, I'm okay with that. And I'm going to ask you who your sales manager was and I'm going to call them as a reference. and I'm going to tell you, I'm going to call, You know, Sarah with an H and I'm going to ask her, uh, was this the number he had to hit? And this is, is this the number he did hit? Like, so that's why >> you can't hide from it. >> No, we're going to we're going to check the references and ask the

same questions >> and come back to it at a later interview and see if it changed. That's kind of a fun little game. >> Totally. Totally. >> All right. So, anything else on accountability? like, "No, this is this is the one question where body language might matter as much as the answer." So, you're looking for a really concise articulation of how you did and you [snorts] don't want somebody who hides from it. And you can look for squirming. Yeah. >> Conversational squirming and body squirming. Like, if somebody doesn't like talking about results, that's not Somebody

who's going to embrace, you know, a good sales manager asking them about lead followup or deal discipline. like that's going to show up when they get to that job. So, pay attention to what you see and pay attention to how you feel about it when you ask that question. >> And it's not confidential. It's not stuff that they can't share with you. And sometimes it might be a tell of actually how much money they made in the Prior role given how they hit or missed plan, but like you're going to get to that anyway. So,

don't, you know, advice to sales people like don't hedge on that stuff. Just tell us. People who care about how they perform remember how they perform >> 100%. That's why they're salespeople or they' be good sales people because they're keeping score. >> Yeah. >> All right. So, problem solving like uh This is big for like a CEO, a CRO, like we want people who are >> uh simplifiers, not complicators. People who come to us >> with solutions, not problems. All those good things you want to think about. But like for a quoting sales rep, what's

the expectation for problem solving? Like what do you mean by problem solving? And how do you ask and how do you ask for about it? >> You know how to wrangle the complexity That is part of any B2B commercial role. So again, let's talk about the buyer for a second. Buying any kind of technology is too big of a job for one person inside of a business. There's very few things in our portfolio that somebody can just say yes to and turn on. That's a good thing because when it when it gets in there, it's

sticky and it solves a valuable problem. So, we like that as investors, but as a salesp person, that makes your job harder because it's not Only your job to pitch, it's your job to marshall that process along. So, can you do that? Like, can you talk about what the sticking points are in that sales process for your customer? Can you talk about how you get them past those sticking points? Can you talk about how you look a couple steps ahead and you figure out what's the procurement or finance or IT or security thing that's going

to trip you up or make the deal die or whatever it is. And I I don't Just want to hear about that conceptually. I want to hear a story about a complex or gnarly deal. So, I will ask I like the word gnarly because people who get it get it right away. Tell me about a gnarly deal that took one of two things or both. >> [snorts] >> a lot of extra effort or a lot of problem solving to close. And how did you do it? And a good answer is a story with a beginning,

middle, end with an Actual customer with stages that you can see and chapters that you can examine. And you're like, "Wow, that sounds hard." And I can see the impact that you made in making that deal happen. >> And I'm okay with it. The deal didn't close. >> Yeah. >> And here's what I learned. Yeah. and here's how I applied it in another situation and we got through it. It was less gnarly because I recognized it Early. >> I went to my CRO or we sat down with a CFO. I also like an answer where

it's like, hey, the customer was asking for stuff maybe I wasn't so sure we could deliver on. So, I sat down with a deal desk. I elevated it. We sat down with a CFO and decided we could sell at that margin because the opportunity for cross-ell and upsell was so much better. I want to hear that too. problem solving, not just in the room. >> I was able to do the Jedi mind trick and get them over it. I wanted to be like, "No, I went back to my team and we solved the problem together

and came back with something that really worked for them and was fine for us." Yeah, a really good answer is less about um their skill or dexterity as a seller and it's much more about like a clear articulation of the obstacle in the deal. So, can they explain to you, oh yeah, that was the boulder in front of Us, and this is how I got my team together to get that boulder out of the way. If you can hear that, that's a good sign. The classic trap answer here is the big deal that just took

some extra resources that closed and it's impressive because it's seven figures or whatever. So, oh yeah, there was a huge RFP and it was $2 million and we had to we had to bring the CEO to the demo and then we had to come up with this proposal template that had three extra Pages and thank god it closed. Like, yeah, I don't care. I can't see what the obstacle is. I can't see how you had to think creatively to get the obstacle out of the way and I have no evidence that you can do anything

other than add a few extra people to the meeting invite to get that thing done. Or as you peel back that deal, it was the company needed revenue. They sold a bad deal at a bad margin and it just has a very impressive number on it, but it wasn't a great deal For the business. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. So, this is another one where just like again, specific, specific, specific. If someone's vague and they can't describe what the obstacle was and they can't tell you a story about a time where they went the

extra mile to get that obstacle away, not a good sign. >> Yeah. And I want to see people are collaborating with the sales leadership And the company leadership say like what's possible here can we give away implementation because to get it because their current vendor is being really tough on giving up and maybe we need to give them some free PS to get you know to get it over the hump or something. Yeah. So creative thinking >> clear articulation of the obstacle and marshalling extra resources to get it done. That's what you're listening for. >>

Okay. So the last one's drive. Um, I can Think of lots of ways to get at it. Lots of cliched ways to get at it. I mean, what salesperson doesn't have drive? Um, so how how are we getting at this other than like where we can check the math? It's just just not a vibe. >> Yeah. >> Cuz I've had plenty of conversations with plenty of my peers in private equity where they hear about our hiring process and they're just like, I know it when I see it. Well, that's a waste of Time. And uh

I don't argue with them cuz I know it's not true, but uh they know it when they see it. And drive feels like to most people listening or watching this. Well, yeah. I know it when I see it. >> Yeah. I again, you use [snorts] the word devotion. I use the word obsession. >> Yeah. I think people who are devoted to the craft in their work and people who are obsessed with perfecting that craft, one, they just get good at what they do, Right? So great. Um, the side effect of that is they're able to

self-critique their own technique. And so I think the best way to kind of back into an honest assessment of drive is to ask them to do that. And I actually thought about giving this question away because I think it's the best question that we ask. But screw it. I think it can benefit a lot of people out there. It's it's a trick question. Okay. >> So there's two parts. So the first thing That I will ask is I want you to rate yourself. So on a scale of 1 to 10, just in terms of general

sales ability, what would you give yourself? >> 9.8 because there's always room for improvement, >> right? And that's that's what people will give you. Most people don't have such a high opinion of their selling ability. So good for you. I told you, right? >> Sell number goes up. >> Most people say most people say eight or nine. Yeah. Right. Because one, they're trying to be polite, but two, like nobody's perfect. >> Yeah. >> And that's when I pounce. So the second part is the trick question. All right. which is what would cause you to move

up one point on that scale if you could improve it, internalize it, nail it. If you change something about yourself, what would what would cause you to move Up one point on that scale? >> Yeah. >> Because that forces you to talk about something that has two qualities. It actually matters to results in your opinion and you haven't nailed it yet. >> That is a trick question. You dirty rat. [laughter] You got me. And a bad answer, again, somebody thinking about it for the first time is a bad answer. And that doesn't mean they're bad

at their job. It Doesn't mean they haven't spent extra time trying to perfect something. It doesn't mean doesn't mean they can't be productive. But I am going to give the point to the person who knows exactly what that thing is and can explain why it's really hard, but why they're working on it and the results that they think it can create. >> I get at it in non- sales interviews. uh around tell me the most impactful feedback you've gotten in your career And it like makes you sick to your stomach. You think about a lot

you were embarrassed to hear it because it made you you knew it was true and you've worked hard on it to to avoid uh to not have that feedback again. >> Yep. >> This is maybe a better way to get at because you get the really confident answer of 9.8 eight. Uh, always room for improvement. And then like, well, what would cause you to be a 10? And then They have to think about like, oh, if I was more process driven, if I was more customer focused, if I was more, you're kind of getting at

the stuff you got to. And bonus points for them telling you the thing that you've already picked up on an hour into the interview. You're like, "Oh, yeah. He's actually pretty self-aware." And a really good answer tends to get it like the spirit of variability. like they're going to tell you a little bit what they're like at Their best and at their worst and the conditions that make it harder for them to be at their best. And so I think it's also a really good opportunity if you're a CEO, a CRO or somebody in the

leadership hierarchy for this person, which is like, okay, well, how would you want to work on that? Like how could I support you in working on that if you became part of this team? And so in three questions, you've just done a couple things. Like one, you've totally Disarmed them. Yeah. >> And created like a nice little moment of of you know lightness in the interview. Two, you've invited them into this like moment of vulnerability to share something that they should have reflected on and that the really good people absolutely have [snorts] reflected on. And

three, you sent a signal about your leadership to this person, which in our portfolio, most of the people that we're recruiting have Usually not heard of the company that they're interviewing for. And that's really important because a really good hiring process, yes, it assesses you fairly but rigorously, but it also gives you a signal about like what it would be like to work here. So creating a moment where you can have a conversation about how you're going to be supported, how you're going to be coached, and like a real thing that you can work on

together that person's excited to work on. Like How many interviews actually do that? Not many. So, what about the cynical salespeople out there saying, "Oh, you're going to I'm going to be vulnerable, but that's going to be too vulnerable. Um, uh, and I'm going to not get the job because I shared too much or I was too, you know, honest." Is that true? I don't know. It seems like that seems like a like a trauma response from past companies. Yeah. >> And if that comes out, then it's like I Don't know. Let's have a conversation

about that. Then you have can have a conversation about what don't you like in terms of leadership? What are some of the experiences that you want to avoid? What do you want more of versus less of in this role? And as I'm listening to those, I'm also listening to like how coachable are you going to be? >> Yeah. >> Because most of the people that outperform their quota in our portfolio Are also highly coachable. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And what's a bad answer? Uh I care too much. I work too hard. I don't have a

work life balance. Again, again, it's it's it's either something totally inconsequential, like I've had people tell me, um, you know, I probably spend too much time on rapport building at the start of calls or I I shoot the a little bit too Much >> at the start of calls. Like, >> okay, well, is that important? >> Um, I'm looking for something that's like a basic sales technique that has some variability in it. you're talking about what you're like at your best and at your worst and you want to be at your best a little bit

more. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah." Like, I can I can see how if you did that, that would hurt you. And I appreciate you being vulnerable about That. Because if they're vulnerable, if they're vulnerable about that, they're going to be willing to tell you like something they don't have on the job that's keeping them from performing. They're going to be able to tell you something a customer told them about the product that isn't very flattering. Like I like to say, you can't fix a secret. you're kind of testing for if this person's going to tell

you the secrets when they're on the job. >> All right, so we just gave the sales people answers to the test, right? Here are the questions that are coming your way. um uh let's uh elevate a little bit and give like a founder or a CEO of a company who's trying to hire salespeople, >> has had a rough go of it, has had turnover, uh underperformance, pulling their hair out, like you know, what advice would you give to an owner of a business trying to solve this for Themselves without a Paul Stanic uh on their

board? >> Yeah, I mean some of it is just stylistic, right? So, I think we touched on this in all five of the questions, but regardless of what you ask, you should be asking and listening for specifics versus conceptual or abstract because sales people love to give you the conceptual or the abstract. And they will bamboozle you if you let them. And the easiest way to not get bamboozled is To demand specifics and incorporate that into your grading for these questions. That's that's number one. >> Yeah. And don't be scared to say like, I need

a little more. One thing we use that I think it's disarming in a good way is at the very beginning of the interview we say, "Hey, a lot of interviews we see are at 30,000 feet." Like we want to be at three feet, not 3,000 feet, at 3 feet. And then you've given yourself the opportunity later in The interview to say like, "Hey, I think we're you maybe at 3,000 4,000 ft. Could we get could you get me in the room?" Yeah. And that's just a way of like give me more specifics. More specifics. If

you say that a handful of times in the interview, you know the answer. You just can't do it. >> Yeah. pre-apologize for what you're going to do later in the interview. >> Yeah. We say early like, "Hey, we're going to we might interrupt and that's Just not not us being rude. >> Sorry in advance." >> Yeah. We want to go deeper or we need to move on to the next thing. So, you've given your the opportunity to do that. >> A lot of people just want to be nice and they're just going to So, you're

either going to miss something because the person is just very comfortable being high level and you can get them down there if you if you if you try. >> Yeah. >> Uh so, you might miss somebody good if you don't because like, oh, they're just being too high level. But you're not trying to prompt them to get back. If you prompt them to get back and they don't, you know the answer. They're not they can't they can't do it or they're unwilling to do it and that means they're not very coachable in my opinion. >>

Yeah. So that's that's number one is just demand specifics and stories. I Think number two goes into what you do before you ever interview somebody, which is write a profile for what you're actually looking for. Forcing yourself to write down what you're looking for is a highly underrated hiring hack. And if you have one or two serviceable salespeople, I would encourage you to involve those people in that process. Either at least observe them and say, "What's true about these people that I would like to clone?" And ideally, like It's a huge compliment to say, "Look,

I'm looking for somebody that looks a lot like you and what you do every day. What do you think we should test for?" And ask them some of these questions. Where are you at on like an upfront assessment? I'm okay with like a wonderlick or something and saying, "Hey, have your two best sales people take one and then just find people before you even interview them that's have similar Scores to your two best salespeople." Yeah. Look, there's a lot of research that says there's two uh qualities that predict job performance in roles like these in

Western society at least. And it's um problem solving and conscientiousness. So like can you work your way through stuff? Do you have the the horsepower to work your way through stuff? and do you drive and do you finish things? So, there's a bunch of assessments out there that are much more Personality based. I mean, we use personality based assessments, but it's much more for how are we going to get the most out of you and how are we going to team up together, >> but if you're going to use an assessment for a role like

this, I think it's more useful to test for those two qualities. There's a lot out there that can help you do that. I don't think it's necessary. And I think if you run a process like ours that's more behavioral In nature where you're demanding real examples, it's just as good in a lot of ways. >> I agree with you. Get good in interviewing. Don't use the crutch of some assessment to tell you whether you should, you know, interview or hire somebody or not. >> Yeah. And then if if you're a founder, we didn't talk about

this yet, but a lot of the research out there would say behavioral interviewing is really, Really good. So tell me about a time, give me specific stories. And it's even better when you pair it with what's called a work sample. So if you're only asking them backwards looking qu backwards looking questions about what they've done on the job, that's great. That gives you a lot probably enough in a lot of situations. If you add to that some kind of homework assignment, so bring something with you and present it to me that you would use with

a customer Or do some research on us and come up with a one-pager or a prospecting email or you see so much when you ask someone to do a little bit of work and it complements the questions that we ask really really well. So, if you're looking for one more thing to do beyond just the questions that we laid out here, it's that. We'll probably do an episode on homework assignments and work samples later on, but anything really is better than nothing. Yeah. And I'd leave It open-ended enough so that [snorts] somebody could really knock

your socks off by going a little further. If you restrict it, hey, I need this all on one page or whatever, you know, winds up being, uh, I think you miss a little people who might want to go the extra mile and really impress you and show you some more stuff. And this might not be a popular answer, but the most important part of that for a quota carrying individual contributor role is how much Time did they spend on it? Because if they spend a bunch of time on that homework assignment, that's a pretty good

sign of what you're going to get on the job. And if somebody mails it in and they just pull up something that's on their hard drive, look, they nail the presentation, you should feel good about that. But I want the person who spends a little bit more time on the extra credit assignment that tells me something about who they are. Yeah. Uh here's one that Most founders, you know, business owners, CEOs don't want to hear. It's kind of a two two-parter, which is onboarding and coaching and training. Uh you can't just hire a salesperson and

just leave them alone. We could have a whole episode on this. >> We will. You should you should have some is I think is our position. You should have an onboarding program. Sounds scary when you use the P word, but that can be very simple. And you should train these People. And now with call recording software where it's literally possible to paste a couple links and give the new person that you're handing a quota to exactly what your best sellers are already doing. There's no excuse not to do it. >> Yeah. It's never been cheaper

and easier to do it. Um and yeah, on the coaching side, I think really good the best sales people want coaching and if you're not going to give it to them, they'll leave And find a team that actually is feels like a team with a coach 100%. Uh, anything else as we uh finish off the founder advice? No, it's I mean the basics can go a long way here, right? And I'll go back to a point we made at the beginning of the episode, which is this is an extra job. Like nobody who is interviewing

salespeople and making the final decision on these things is a full-time recruiter. We all have extra day jobs, right? Like you're an Investor. I'm an operating partner. CEOs are CEO and CRO's are trying to bring the number in. And it's really, really easy to pick your head up after a busy day and be like, who am I interviewing? What am I asking this person? What am I actually looking for? And not have that stuff prepped and decided in advance. And so my number one thing I would tell people is figure out what you're looking for

before you start looking for people and figure out what you're going to ask Them and make it consistent across candidates. And ideally build that backwards from what your sellers are already doing that are already high performing. But if you don't know what that is, these five areas are a pretty good place to start because universally they tend to map back to the people that you know really perform inside our businesses. All right, let's land this plane for our really lazy listeners uh and viewers now on YouTube. Uh how uh Give me one takeaway, one takeaway

from all this. I mean, print out the transcript. YouTube makes it easy. Uh write down the questions. Uh but if you had one takeaway from this, Paul, given the thousands of salespeople you've interviewed over the years, what would it be? Yeah, I mean sales reps who can learn what the product does, translate it into the handwriting of the problems that your customers are trying to solve and the job they're trying to get done And explain that really clearly and share with you a pattern of performance and how that shows up. That's who you want. You

want someone who can do that translation exercise and who can really nail 30 or 60 minutes with someone they've never met before and figure out how they can solve their problem. And you want somebody who can prove to you that they've created results with that approach. And if they can do those two things, you're probably going to make a Pretty good hire. Paul, this was great. You're uh better than most uh at what you do. And uh certainly the hiring piece of it makes your life as the operator so much easier when you hire the

right people. Um, if you like this, if you want more of this, uh, our core tenant at Parker Gale is we share what we know, it's in our theme song, uh, uh, that we wrote 12 years ago. Uh, so if you're listening to this, uh, go to YouTube and, uh, subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you're watching this on YouTube, go to Spotify, uh, and the Substack, uh, and hit subscribe to both of those. Uh, really appreciate it. Leave some comments down below and tell us what we missed. >> Thanks, guys. Neither this podcast nor

any of the information contained here constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or instrument in or to participate in any Parker Gale fund or Other investment vehicle. Past performance is not indicative of future results and there is no assurance that any Parker fund will achieve its objectives or avoid significant losses. This podcast may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Parker is an investment adviser registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration with the SEC does not imply A certain level

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not constitute an endorsement or testimonial of Parker Gail or any fund. For additional information regarding Parkerale, please refer to Parkerale's website www.parkergale.com or formadv available at advisorinfo.se.gov. >> From the heart of Chicago to all over the globe, couple private equity geniuses, [music] they share what they know. They love to mess with technology where the future [music] is sink or swim. It's the private equity fun cast with Devon and Jim. [music] Technology issues and middle market back companies. They bicker with each other and they don't [music] take themselves [singing] too seriously. It's not venture capital, It's

[music] private equity, it's the private equity fun. Pour yourself [music] a drink and have a seat.