On Hiring Seasoned Sales Vets

Many times I have heard a sales manager say, “We don’t need training here because we hire seasoned vets.” I always am amused at that statement.

I’m working right now with an organization that has 25 people in their salesforce, all of whom are between 25 and 40.

They did not hire seasoned vets.

They hire young ambitious talent who are interested in learning how to be better at what they do. And they are crushing the competition.

Recently, I administered the Hogan personality inventory to their 25 people. And almost universally, their Ambition levels were very high.

In this case an Ambition score determines the fuel tank of energy that a person has to get their job done – and do it well. Even the VP of Sales was surprised at the pattern of highly ambitious people that he and his management team had selected.

It was probably instinct more than anything and probably some of the less ambitious people were spit out of the system quickly because they couldn’t make it.

So you sales managers who are hiring season vets in their 50s – I need to be careful with this because I’m in my late 50s – you’d better be careful because your lunch will be beaten by highly ambitious groups of young people who understand social media, how to use Google for research, how to learn new skills that they don’t presently have, and how to use all of the technologies that help serve customers better.

Seasoned vets? Not for me.