Sales Candidates

“I think anyone that did something that was based on passion and obsession and that was inherently repetitive for long periods of time so you could string it all together in a game or in a play, like, that's a good profile for sales.”

“Somebody that's passionate about their career will know every single one of these details. They're proud of it. They hang their hat on it, right?”

“Super easy. I'm going to pull up your resume. So help me understand. Why did you go from this company to that company? Why, what was the motivating factor there? Why did you make that move? Oh, well, they offered me a bigger base salary. We're done. Why did yo…”

“I think that a hiring panel is equivalent to You showing up to a customer meeting, and there's three or four people that are in the room that you are presenting to. A hiring, like a panel presentation is, for me, an opportunity to see how someone is going to h…”

“And if you're like that, I was awesome. I have no feedback for myself. Then that's a red flag.”

“Oh, I think the prior company is a really interesting one, because I think what's hard about sell me my company, meaning, you know, let's, let's say you sell me 20 VC, right? You're a 20 VC expert, and I'm not. So, you know how to pitch this product better tha…”

“98 out of a hundred folks won't bother an interview. They won't bother. They're just gonna click on apply on the ATS and tell you, hey, I recently stumbled upon whatever it looks like. Do you have time to discuss?”

“So do a demo for me. And if they won't do it, they're not a salesperson.”

“I think if you ask why questions about how decisions got made, you tend to find out if they were making them.”

“If you hear too many mentions of I mean, of course it's sales and you want folks to be proud of their performance, but if it's too much on just what they did independently, for me, that's a red flag because I think no one wins, you know, independently. It's a …”

“And frankly, when people talk about, for example, you know, job changes, a lot of job changing, huge red flag for me. At some point, everybody's got a good reason, but if you, say, do one or two year stints for, like, several in a row, that's a huge red flag.”

“And then you gotta do something that's not easy. You gotta say, sorry, but I don't hear it. And shut up. Because what salespeople do every day? They face rejections. And I give them rejection right away. Sorry, but I don't hear it. So if they come back, okay, …”

“Yeah, I don't believe there are specific questions. I think it's not what people say when you ask questions, Harry, and when you ask for examples, it's how they answer the questions and the examples. Do they have authentic conviction? Can they speak openly and…”

“Like I told you I'm a data junkie, but then I would go underneath that question and ask about what's the average deal size? What's the length of deal process? You know, and I really then go second level, third level, and unpack the data even further, because i…”

“Then finally, and this is a controversial one out there on LinkedIn right now, but the thank you know, earlier I talked about out professionalizing The competition. This is another piece of professionalism from my seat. I think it's a solid way to stand out af…”

“And even if you get up until the very end, where you have an A player, and they've just done great, and you're so excited, and you're at the offer stage, and they start playing coy, just walk away. Like, it just isn't worth it.”

“I think beyond that, I think probably the biggest lesson I learned about hiring salespeople is the easiest way to assess a salesperson is to get them to sell to you.”