Data and Context Predict How Your Next Sales Hire Will Perform

I was watching a Red Sox game when the broadcaster introduced the Royals’ leadoff hitter, Carter Jensen. He’s a rookie who is having a great year.

I looked at the numbers. .232, 24 home runs, 73 RBIs.

Then I looked at Jarren Duran. .204, 20 home runs, 69 RBIs. And the national take on Duran this season very unkind.

So which is it? Great or awful?

Same as sales metrics. It depends on context. Context shows up the second you ask, “Compared to what?”

Jensen is 23. He’s a catcher in his first real season, setting Royals rookie records for extra-base hits and tying the franchise mark for rookie home runs. For a kid who just got here, those are loud numbers.

Duran is a veteran. Two years ago he hit .285. Last year he hit .256 with 84 RBIs. This year he’s hitting .204. He’s in the same neighborhood as Jensen on home runs and RBIs, and the verdict is the opposite. The rookie is ahead of the curve. The veteran is behind his own.

That’s not a stat contest. That’s context.

Back in the 1990s I was playing over-30 senior men’s baseball. Not softball. Real baseball. In addition to me, the roster had the real Jimmy Olson, Tony Curtis, and Charlie Brown. We were a bunch of characters.

It was the league’s first year in Central Massachusetts, and most of the guys on my team hadn’t played baseball in years. Fittingly, that summer our shortstop dislocated his shoulder jumping for a line drive, our best pitcher broke his arm throwing a curveball, and one of our catchers fouled a ball off his nose, which created an explosion of blood.

None of that was a mystery. You don’t take guys who haven’t played in a decade, place them at pitcher, shortstop and catcher, and act surprised when the body files a complaint. The context was rust and an aging body. The injuries were the logical outcome of the prediction you ignored.

Hiring works the same way. The damage shows up later. The context was sitting there on day one.

A client was very high on a candidate for a hunting role. On OMG’s Sales Candidate Assessment, his lowest score was a 60 in Hunting. The target for that role is 88, and the attribute Prospects Consistently is required. He didn’t have it.

I looked at the resume before the interview. He hadn’t been in a direct selling role in more than 15 years. The words that jumped out were “handled” the biggest accounts. The account-manager jobs were in the fine print. The assessment had already said the quiet part out loud.

“Why am I interviewing this guy? He’s a complete compromise. He isn’t a hunter and you need a hunter.”

“But I like him. He knows our business. He knows our customers. He’s such a good fit.”

Eight months later they fired him. He never built a pipeline. They burned through $200,000 in salary watching a guy who hadn’t played shortstop for fifteen years get injured on the first play.

The assessment had the prediction. The resume had the context. The interview was a likability contest. They didn’t need the interview to know how this would end. They needed the interview to talk themselves into ignoring what they already knew.

Most sales leaders still do it that way. They skip the data because they liked the guy, wanted the hiring process to end, and they treat the inconvenient truths in the resume as background noise.

If the candidate hasn’t successfully done, or isn’t currently doing, exactly what you need them to do, the context says they won’t suddenly do it for you either. Industry knowledge is not hunting. Existing relationships are not a pipeline. Chemistry is not Prospects Consistently.

Jensen and Duran again.

Jensen is a rookie. Duran is a veteran. Jensen is having a great year — for a rookie. Duran is having an awful year — compared with what he has already proven he can do. Same looking stats. Opposite verdict. The context did the work.

Your next sales hire will come with a number too. Quota they “carried.” Revenue they “owned.” Accounts they “handled.” None of those numbers mean a thing until you ask compared to what, in what role, against what standard, and with what evidence they can do this job.

You want three things before you make an offer: data that predicts, context that shows fit, and the discipline to believe both when the candidate is charming. Together they tell you what this person will look like in eight to twelve months. Before you terminate. Before you start the search over. Before you spend the $200,000. Before you get frustrated – again!

You can wait for the dislocated shoulder, the broken arm, and the exploding nose.

Or you can admit that context and data are important, while everybody can still walk off the field.