It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in. Having an effective recruiting process that incorporates the use of an accurate sales assessment early in the process is as important as an accounting system that provides cash flow reports.

This is worse than mediocrity, more evil than a salesperson violating his non-compete, more horrible than complete failure, more disturbing than complacency, more serious than ambivalence and more disastrous than excuse-making.

We have discussed many of the problems associated with optimizing and understanding the sales force but it all comes down to consistency. There may be expectations, accountability and coaching. The same goes for motivation, effective recruiting, support, direction and guidance. When all of the salespeople consistently perform pipeline building-activities, most of the problems in a sales organization disappear.

A sales manager from the company we discussed in ‘Retooling the Sales Force’ asked me about a candidate they were considering. He had mixed emotions: on the one hand, this candidate was actually borderline hirable, a rarity for them. On the other hand, the sales manager was frustrated over the lack of recommended candidates. Now that they were assessing candidates prior to interviewing them, he didn’t understand why so many of the candidates were not recommended.