Shurtz: Abrasive sales candidates will treat customers badly
Larry Shurtz · Larry Shurtz: How to Hire, Train & Retain the Best Vertical Teams | E1151 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 10, 2024 · at 34:25
Larry Shurtz, Chief Sales Officer at Genesys, explains his strict hiring policy against arrogant or offensive sales reps, regardless of their past sales record.
0:00 / 0:13exact quote · 13.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“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.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Larry Shurtz
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.”
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…”
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,…”
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 …”
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 …”
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.”