I got a joke in my inbox the other day that I’ll paraphrase and use here.
The joke: Guy’s sitting in his car in McDonald’s parking lot watching two kids. As usual, McDonald’s has a sign out front reading, “Closers wanted.” So, as he’s watching these two kids, they walk up to the sign, take the “C” and run away. Leaving “losers wanted”. Come on. That’s really funny.
It got me to thinking, same thing happens every day in the business world. What company wouldn’t want to hire a hot shot salesperson that has a big time reputation as a closer? So how many times does a company runs an ad, go through the interview process and hire what they believe to be a Closer? How many times do they wind up with a LOSER that costs them business, hurts their reputation, demoralizes the existing personnel, in addition to wasting valuable company resources?
Let’s try something new. I know that Dave, Chris and Mike have dealt with this and can offer insight into the cause and potential solution, so let’s see how they comment when they read it.
The joke: Guy’s sitting in his car in McDonald’s parking lot watching two kids. As usual, McDonald’s has a sign out front reading, “Closers wanted.” So, as he’s watching these two kids, they walk up to the sign, take the “C” and run away. Leaving “losers wanted”. Come on. That’s really funny.
It got me to thinking, same thing happens every day in the business world. What company wouldn’t want to hire a hot shot salesperson that has a big time reputation as a closer? So how many times does a company runs an ad, go through the interview process and hire what they believe to be a Closer? How many times do they wind up with a LOSER that costs them business, hurts their reputation, demoralizes the existing personnel, in addition to wasting valuable company resources?
Let’s try something new. I know that Dave, Chris and Mike have dealt with this and can offer insight into the cause and potential solution, so let’s see how they comment when they read it.
RainMakers & Sales Rock Stars 
The problem with hiring sales professionals is often the interviewer’s inability to see past the sales pitch that the interviewee is shoveling. Men tend to mistake bravado for confidence, thus hiring the jerks instead of the candidate with quiet confidence. Or in the case of a woman being interviewed, she is not always comfortable with promoting herself thinking mistakenly that you will intuitively get her the same way in which she gets you.