Do you hire a mature or a young salesperson?

By Michael Lang

It’s very rare that I get requests from employers to hire mature aged salespeople or sales leaders.

Why is this the case?

Employers have the belief that great sales leaders and salespeople should have a bundle of youthful energy and be highly motivated.

Rarely, do the employers or leaders look at themselves and reflect on their own energy levels.

I once had a employer who wanted to hire a high energy sales leader because the company needed a improvement in motivation. I asked the employer, “Isn’t it your role to motivate your sales team?"

There is a correlation to experience and skills - we all know that and yet business leaders have trouble accepting maturity is NOT related to motivation or energy.

The important difference:

After reviewing 1.8 million data-sets on sales teams, we see that less experienced salespeople (0-2 years experience) tend to ‘wing it’, while more experienced salespeople (20 or more years experience) tend to be more structured and skill orientated.

Here is the Sales Competency analysis:

On average, experienced salespeople are 105% more likely to be strong and effective than less experienced salespeople.

The biggest differentiation between less experienced and experienced salespeople is the Qualifier Competency:

Self-limiting beliefs showed that experienced salespeople are 213% more likely to have supportive beliefs around qualifying than their less experienced counterparts.

There are 21 Sales Core Competencies that SG Partners with Objective Management Group measure. Reach out to us by clicking here to receive your FREE comparison.