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  • January 2021
  • Article
  • Top Sales Magazine

Sales Hiring Is Hard to Do (Don't Make It Harder)

By: Frank V. Cespedes
  • Format:Electronic
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Abstract

In the aggregate, hiring in sales is more expensive than many companies’ cap-ex decisions. But it rarely gets the same attention and companies fail to deal with challenges inherent in sales hiring. Unlike many other business functions, there is no easily identified resource pool or educational priors for sales positions. If you’re looking for an engineer, accountant, finance person or software developer, you can find majors in those subjects. But few colleges and universities have sales programs or even a sales course. Meanwhile, more than 50% of U.S. college graduates, regardless of their majors, will work in sales at some point in their careers. This article discusses how to avoid two common mistakes in sales hiring and why, in recovering from the pandemic’s economic impact, there are few things more worthy of senior management attention than their companies’ sales hiring practices.

Keywords

Salesforce Management; Selection and Staffing; Human Resources

Citation

Cespedes, Frank V. "Sales Hiring Is Hard to Do (Don't Make It Harder)." Top Sales Magazine (January 2021), 38–39.
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About The Author

Frank V. Cespedes

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • March 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Performance Improvement Consulting and Hi-R-Me: Making Sales Calls

    By: Frank V. Cespedes
    • March–April 2021
    • Harvard Business Review

    Selling After the Crisis

    By: Frank V. Cespedes
    • February 15, 2021
    • Learning Solutions

    How Real Sales Learning Happens: In the Flow of Work

    By: Yuchun Lee, Mark Magnacca and Frank V. Cespedes
More from the Author
  • Performance Improvement Consulting and Hi-R-Me: Making Sales Calls By: Frank V. Cespedes
  • Selling After the Crisis By: Frank V. Cespedes
  • How Real Sales Learning Happens: In the Flow of Work By: Yuchun Lee, Mark Magnacca and Frank V. Cespedes
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