Opinion
Larry Shurtz: Panel interviews are ineffective for assessing sales candidates
“I'm not a fan of panel interviews. I like doing interviews one-on-one. I strongly advocate that for my leaders because the relationship between the people that you work with for and around really matters, and I think that's difficult to get out of a panel.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shurtz: Abrasive sales candidates will treat customers badly
“Do I ever hire people that I don't like where I'm like, oh my God, like, I just don't like that person. They're offensive. They're abrasive. No, I just don't even hire them. Because if they're that way to me, they're going to be that way with our customers.”
Insight
Shurtz: Inaccurate sales forecasting reveals poor business understanding or diligence
“If you can't forecast accurately, either you don't truly understand your business, you aren't truly doing the amount of diligence with customers and opportunities, you don't have enough opportunities to be able to balance out some of the riskier things with so…”
Insight
Shurtz: Sales is 60% inherent talent and 40% learned skill
“I, today, am probably in the sixty-forty, if you press me, I still think it's a lot of art. I still think it's a lot of talent, and when I say talent, I'm talking things that you and I, like, that, that, it's hardwiring. That hardwiring was, when we turned 13,…”
Insight
Larry Shurtz: High-end EQ and empathy cannot be trained
“The, in my opinion, the things you cannot train EQ. Really, really good high-end EQ. I just, I firmly believe that that's in you. And I think that is the art, and I would tell you, as it relates to things like empathy, which is what we're all looking for from …”
Insight
Shurtz: Candidates demanding rapid offers via leverage fail value alignment tests
“I don't like the hostage negotiation strategy of, Hey, I got a bunch of offers. You know, you need to get me one in the next week. That's probably not the, like, especially if it's that language, That person doesn't match our value statement anyway. Certainly …”
Opinion
Larry Shurtz: A 45-minute interview reveals candidate mindset better than case studies
“There is a lot of value sometimes out of the case study, but for me, the case study gets to what is your mindset and your thought process. It gets to the what and the how. And I don't know, like, I feel like I can get that out of talking to you for 45 minutes.”
Insight
Shurtz: Empathetic servant leadership drives sales loyalty more than compensation
“The impetus on leadership these days, and the impetus on what I think is like true servant leadership, I think that is driving more loyalty. You know, you can wrap empathy into this as well. I think those are, for most people, and I could be completely wrong o…”
Insight
Shurtz: Initial employee onboarding must be in person to convey culture
“I think the initial indoctrination or immersion And if that's a safe word to use needs to be in person. I don't think there's a better way to communicate the culture of the company to interface with important objectives, to talk and meet with executives.”
Insight
Larry Shurtz: Trust interview gut feelings as doubts usually manifest as problems later
“I hear that a lot with people and I, my advocacy is trust your gut. Normally those things will show up. Later and without fault. The hiring mistakes that I've made end up showing up in our example right now that were things that I didn't feel a hundred percent…”
Insight
Shurtz: Early Startups Should Target Category Killer Logos Over Volume
“So for me, the entire orientation of an organization in the early, early stages, I'm talking like sub a hundred. Now I think needs to be figure out the industries and the verticals. You can be successful and go get brand names, category killers and rotate hard…”
Insight
Shurtz: Tech companies eliminating CS still execute customer success functions
“You kind of need to go unpack titles versus roles, I think, and some of the companies that say, we don't need customer success. Someone Is playing that role and call them whatever you want.”
Insight
Shurtz: Pure sales farming does not exist in cloud software
“I actually kind of don't, I don't think that farming is a thing and in the cloud world, it's just not, I mean, you're responsible for finding new use cases across the entire bag that you have to sell.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Shurtz: Genesys requires close to $100M contract value for dedicated account coverage
“If I thought about Genesis, you would need to be, you'd probably need to be close to a nine digit customer.”
Opinion
Larry Shurtz: Blaming low sales on reduced customer spending is a mindset problem
“But I would be really, I would really push back on A leader or an AE that barring force majeure or some macroeconomic pandemic or a financial crisis, if you're selling to the banks, I would really push back any time today of someone saying, you know what? Peop…”
Insight
Shurtz: Overcommitting as a sales leader causes severe health and mental strain
“If you're personally trying to do too much, you know, this is where you really get into what I would think are, or what I know are mindset challenges. These end up in health challenges. You really get spread way too thin when you're trying to do too much”
Insight
Shurtz: Adding sales priorities without removing old ones breaks team execution
“When you're when you're like, it's a very diminishing trait when you try and do too much, my opinion, because you flow it down and you keep adding things on. You never take anything off. Like the list just kind of keeps growing. And when the list grows, your t…”
Insight
Larry Shurtz: Effective sales playbooks start with outcomes and work backward
“I always start playbooks with like outcome, outcome first and work backwards, right? Because I think you can get play super playbook happy. Super playbook heavy. Everybody's got a playbook. Playbooks end up conflicting with each other.”
Insight
Larry Shurtz: Hiring failures stem from role ambiguity, not talent deficits
“I have a high confidence score that when you aren't clear about what you want, what you specifically want, That's when you may end up missing and hiring the wrong person has very little to do with whether that person was talented or not. It has to do with, hav…”
Insight
Shurtz: Rushing candidate diligence leads to costly 12 to 18-month hiring mistakes
“I think this is where a lot of hiring mistakes are made because you do not do enough diligence and the challenge is compounded globally because in some markets you hire the wrong people. That could be a year to an 18 month process to get a new person back in s…”
Insight
Shurtz: Discuss Compensation Expectations Mid-Process, Not at the End
“I like to know that we can afford someone and get to a comp structure before, like, it's time to have a comp discussion. I think you need to do that sooner rather than later. I don't, it's not the first conversation. It's not the last conversation.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shurtz: Corporate onboarding will never return to pre-COVID in-person defaults
“We will never rotate all the way back to the way it was, and I'm talking a little bit about, like, in-person versus digital or remote.”
Insight
Larry Shurtz: New sales reps should never meet clients alone
“I wouldn't send you a loan as a new AE. I would send you with either your boss or someone else”
Insight
Larry Shurtz: A bad hire is multiple red flags plus coaching failure
“Bad, bad is the sum of a lot of red flags and a lack of improvement with coaching.”
