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Improving Sales Performance
Focused on Talent: Selection with Emily Estey and Tirzah Thornburg
In this episode, we’re continuing our season-long deep dive into the latest Talent Magazine from The Center for Sales Strategy.
And today, Emily Estey and Tirzah Thornburg are here to help break down the latest facts and trends when it comes to selection.
Together, Emily and Tirzah bring so many great points to the table, such as:
- Why it pays to do the stressing BEFORE the hire, not after
- How talent banks are a great tool for hiring both internally AND externally
- And, finally, why holding out for talent, even when the candidate pool is tight, is always the right decision
LINKS:
The 2023 Talent Magazine
Emily Estey
Tirzah Thornburg
Matt Sunshine
The Center for Sales Strategy
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a podcast highlighting tips and insights aimed at helping sales organizations realize, and maybe even exceed, their goals. Here we chat with thought leaders, experts and gurus who have years of sales experience from a wide range of industries. I'm your host, Matt Sunshine, ceo at the Center for Sales Strategy, a sales performance consulting company.
Matt Sunshine:In this episode, we're continuing our season long deep dive into the latest talent magazine from the Center for Sales Strategy, and today Emily Estey and Tirzah of Thornburg are here to help break down the latest facts and trends when it comes to selection. Together, Emily and Tirzah bring so many great points to the table, things such as why it pays to do the stressing before you hire and not after, how talent banks are a great tool for hiring both internally and externally, and, finally, why holding out for talent, even when the candidate pool is extremely tight, is always the right decision. With that, let's get the conversation going All right. So what are some of the biggest trends when it comes to selection? Are there any major areas of focus that you're passionate about that you can speak to that Tears. Tirzah They're coming to you first on that one.
Tirzah Thornburg:All right. Well, first thing is because the economy is super unstable right now. Companies are looking hard at their bottom lines, so finding the right person and putting them in the right seat is really important right now. If someone's talented but they're put in the wrong position and they're not happy and they quit, then everybody suffers. It's going to negatively impact the team, the company, everybody.
Tirzah Thornburg:So nobody has time or the resources to make a bad hire. So it's really really important to put the work in before you're hiring, find the right candidate, make sure they have the right talent, the right skills that are going to help them succeed in that position, and then really just giving them the training, giving them the onboarding that they need to be successful. Really important to put that training and that onboarding thought into focus right now, as opposed to doing it after you hire this person. You can't. I mean, it used to be somebody would just be handed a phone book and said here, you know what do your cold calling from the phone book or managers that I've had, managers express hey, you know what?
Tirzah Thornburg:just jump in this person's experience. They know what they're doing. They can just jump in. Those days really are gone. I mean, honestly, you have to think about how you're going to onboard. You have to have training, even for somebody who's been in the industry for 30 years. They need to know how you do things. They need to know what's important to your company. So really putting that effort in beforehand and for me, I mean I'm just really passionate about helping managers find the right person and put them in the right seat, do the stressing before they hire them, so that they don't have to stress afterwards, so they have that onboarding plan available and then you can say, hey, you know, I know how to get this person on board and successful. So really just helping them to do that is really important to me right now.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, I mean, I think it's selection has always been really important. But I think what you're saying and I know I'm seeing this too and, emily, I would love for you to jump in but there's a big gap between the experience level sometimes of the people doing the hiring and the people being hired. And the people doing the hiring remember well, when I got started, this is what it was. And the people doing getting selected are like, well, that's really nice, but I got a lot of choices to choose from and a lot of these other companies are offering really good onboarding and really good training and really good everything. So I'm glad that's the way you did it long time ago, but I'm doing it the way they do it now and go in this direction.
Emily Estey:That's the scientific version of saying, yeah, we've been hired by companies because they were interviewing people and some of the people that they were interviewing were like well, what's your tell me about your onboarding plan? What's your training plan? And they're like, you know, I don't have one. Like I mean, literally that's part of how we've got you know been brought on board before. I would just say that like I'm still I mean, I don't know if this is not a trend, but I'm super passionate about the you know, any sort of job analysis and specification sheet.
Emily Estey:Like you have to be buttoned up to know exactly what you're looking for, because that bright and shiny thing comes along. You know that bright and shiny person not thing, but person comes along and maybe they have just positivity off the charts and you're just like blinded by it. I see that happen. I mean I, when I'm working with my clients that's one of the biggest I'm really hard on them when it comes to selection, I'm really hard on them and I think you have to know exactly what you want and then make sure that you hire for exactly what you want, not for what you think you love. Yeah, that's well said.
Matt Sunshine:So, emily, in this year's talent magazine which, by the way, anyone listening this, if you haven't seen the talent magazine, you should, because it's amazing you wrote a case study discussing how oftentimes utilizing a talent bank not only can help with when selecting external candidates, but also internal candidates or internal people. Could you give some of your thoughts on that and maybe offer up a few tips around how companies can best utilize that kind of approach?
Emily Estey:Well, my thought is first, is that I don't think companies do that enough. Usually there's very few leadership positions and there's a lot of like sales positions in our case, a lot of sales positions and not very many leadership positions. So I think sometimes leaders just it's not even on their radar because they're like oh, there's a whole succession thing that's going to happen here and, you know, I don't know if any of these people are going to do it. The other thing that's really important to remember is a lot of times in this case that I wrote about the, this person was a salesperson who then got promoted to a manager and again, that doesn't happen that often internally because we don't have the positions available.
Emily Estey:But I think the most important thing is that you have to keep your eyes open, because if you're not developing a leader for your organization, you might be developing a leader for somewhere else down the road. So be, be mindful of those people that are, who are going above and beyond, who are jumping at more opportunities to take on more and and consider your role as being a developer of people. Like that's really what we want to be thinking about. How are you contributing to the growth of your team. You're going to see some internal candidates pop from that, and I think it's really awesome when you have a known person. We also have to remember, you know, not all sales people are great managers, right Like we know that for sure and just because they've been there the longest doesn't mean they should be the manager. So but but there are those special people who can be both great salespeople and great managers, and it's important to just really keep your eyes open and give those people opportunities.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, well said and I really like the way you focused and spent a few seconds talking about the fact that we're people, developers, first and foremost. That's what we should be doing. I mean, and you're right, sometimes we don't have in our own company the opportunity to help, to give a position to someone, but that doesn't mean that person still shouldn't get that position. And I know this sounds so like people listening, probably like are you saying we should like make people leave our company, but sometimes they do and that's okay.
Emily Estey:Yeah, but I mean, if you're that person that I mean, do you know? Like okay, great, so you're that person that develops people and maybe they go someplace else, but how do they feel about you for the rest of their life? Right, and how, what kind of good branding are you going to get from that particular person? Like you know, like they're going to spread that reputation all over the place.
Matt Sunshine:So I mean what they happen when you do the right thing. Good thing to happen when you do the right thing, yes, so let me throw this out there, this one, this question is for either one of you the gig economy. We've heard a lot about the gig economy over the last couple of years. It has brought about new challenges in terms of selecting and evaluating freelancers and contract workers Is are there any unique considerations that should be that company should have in mind when hiring?
Tirzah Thornburg:in this context, so to say, I have an interesting view on that just because I was a contractor and I did that for a couple of years and then the right position came up and I moved into that position and I've been there ever since and so, honestly, still talents important. I mean, when you're trying to find the right contractor, they need to match you have the talents that you're looking for because you're potentially hiring for somebody that then you might hire full time later on. So you don't just want to hire thinking yeah, they'll be here for a little bit of time and then we don't have to worry about them. And then the other thing is you also want to think about your team's culture. Yes, maybe they're a temp worker or maybe they won't be in the office all the time, but nonetheless a single person who doesn't fit on the team can really wreck your team if you hire badly.
Tirzah Thornburg:So you want to make sure your contract are aligned with the culture you've built. You know, are they going to be honest? Are they going to be, you know, fit in well with your team, even if they're not working with the team full time? You might want to take the temperature of your team. Make sure that your full time workers are not worried that they're going to be replaced by contractors, because that's the other big concern right now is is my job in jeopardy because they're hiring part-time people and they're hiring contractors? Are they going to, you know, lose me? So people are worried about the economy. You want to make sure that the team knows how you guys are. Good, we're just bringing on somebody who's going to help out and then make sure that person fits in with the team as well.
Emily Estey:Yeah, I love all that. The only thing I would say is I think demonstrations of work are important, right, like, is there a portfolio? Is there? If you're hiring somebody to you know freelance video or freelance editing or whatever, we need to know that they can do that job, because we don't have the opportunity to train those. That's part of the reason why you hire contractors. So I think demonstrations of work is the only thing I'd add to what Tiers has said.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, and I just want to double click Tiers on something you said about the culture. So companies should have core values. I know we have core values equality, integrity and responsiveness. And whether you're a contractor, a freelancer, full-time employee, a part-time employee, our core values don't change. For you, it's still quality, integrity and responsiveness. So if someone comes on for us as a contractor, that doesn't mean that they don't have to participate in that Right. So the goal is there.
Emily Estey:Right, and that's why that's one of the reasons why you have core values, right, because then everybody's held to the same standard and the same expectation. So then you immediately know if you've hired a contractor and they do not live up to whatever your core value. It becomes pretty clear, pretty fast, right.
Matt Sunshine:Absolutely yeah, contractors are great. I love. I actually think it's good for a lot of companies to be using contractors and freelancers.
Matt Sunshine:I think it's smart, brings in fresh perspectives, brings in new ideas. Maybe helps you accelerate and get things done faster than you could. Allows you to scale up and down based on your needs, talent, experience and fit. Still important. Yeah, exactly, all right, Tirzah. This one's coming at you because you had an article in the Talent Magazine where you talked about the 90-day quitting trend and how to overcome it. Which what a provocative headline that is, I know everyone's like. What does she mean? So why is it that so many new employees walk away around the three-month mark, and how can companies best ensure that they aren't fueling this trend?
Tirzah Thornburg:So when I was doing research for this article, I ran into a really scary statistic and they said that back in 2019, about one in five people quit in their first 90 days. But that was a trend that they noticed back then. 2022, it's up to almost one in three, which is kind of terrifying because suddenly you're hiring somebody, you're putting this effort into training them and a lot of managers they really do a great job, they're really good at onboarding, they're really good at training. The person stays for approximately 90 to 120 days and then quits. The main reason in sales that we've seen is, quite frankly, prospecting and cold calling. They hate it and it happens new hireers think, oh, it's gonna be easy. I mean, how hard can it be? And then they actually get into it. They're like, wow, this is hard, I don't like it, so they quit.
Tirzah Thornburg:Experience sellers, too. This is not just limited to new sellers, people who are new to sales. It is experienced sellers. They've been in the industry 20, 30 years but they didn't have to do the cold calling. They didn't have to do the prospecting at their previous job. Nowadays, I haven't run into a manager in the last probably two and a half three years that said ah, you know, we just give them a big list and they don't have to cold call. Everybody has to cold call. A lot of experienced sellers quit their old jobs because the manager said, hey, guess what? You have to cold call now and they go to a new job thinking, well, this is gonna be better and it's not. And so they're quitting too. So really, really important, the best thing that you can do is make sure that that cold calling expectation is really clear. I mean, quite honestly, if it's not blatantly clear to your new hire, you haven't done your job. Couple of things that you can do.
Tirzah Thornburg:Emily, you mentioned that job analysis and spec sheets super important. Define what the role is gonna require. What talents does this person need? What experience do they need? What are your must haves? I talk to a lot of managers who get blinded by the shine. Somebody has an awesome personality, like we love them, we wanna make the marks, but they ignore the fact that this person does not have their new business development talents. So it's really important what are my must haves? Before I meet the person, before I even look at their assessment, what are my must have talents? What can I not live without? Then you can create your job posting and you wanna make sure you're fishing with the right bait. I'm looking for a hunter, and so therefore, this is the language that I'm gonna use to make sure that person is excited. They're competitive, they're a hard worker. You wanna make sure that job posting is fitted for the right type of candidate. Also, your interim referrals Reach out to the person who has that experience.
Tirzah Thornburg:Who is that hunter, or who is that person who's great at developing relationships? And who do you know? Is there somebody in your professional network? Is there somebody in your personal network that's going to resonate with them if they say you know, I was thinking about it and you know so, and so you'd be great at this job Awesome, I want their contact information. I wanna reach out to them Really important to make sure that you're looking for the right candidates and then that you give them that assessment so they know you say that you know, hey, they've got those talents, or you know they should have been great, but those talents are just not really there.
Tirzah Thornburg:I'm a little concerned. I tell managers all the time just definitely listen to your instincts. Person might say all the right things, but if you've got kind of this sense. You know I'm a little nervous here. Listen to that instinct. Are they saying the right things but maybe not demonstrating it? Make sure that this person is gonna be good for this job, definitely. Do you know? Try and get feedback before you hire. What are their talents look like? How are they going to work together? How are they going to fight against each other? And then again, it's really important to think about how are you going to Make sure, first of all, that the cold calling, the prospecting expectations crystal clear, and then also, can you have them demonstrate that?
Tirzah Thornburg:I'm a huge fan of having them bring in a prospect list. Hey, here's a hundred people that I can call on in my first couple weeks on the job. Great, let's look at that. Hey, some of them are, you know, being called on by other, by other people. Some of them do not meet the qualifications that we need. They're gonna see that list dwindle and that's gonna be a real life. Oh, hey, it's not as easy as I thought it was. What is this gonna look like? Okay, who are the other people that you would call on, because your list of a hundred people just dropped down to 50? That's the real life. This is what it's gonna be like. There are a lot of different ways that you can kind of audition that job, but definitely doing that so that they understand what cold calling is gonna be like in real life. So they don't get on the job. You put that training in and then they quit at 90 or 120 days.
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, I think that's. That's great, and the more experience that you have with that, the better. Let's. I want to, I want to. I want to use that your answer to talk a little bit more about referrals. And, emily, let me come to you on this one Employee referrals has been proven to be a very effective way. In fact, our research would say it's the most effective way Over the years to find quality candidates. In your experience or your expertise, how can organizations optimize their employee referral program to help them make those Smart hires and get more in the in the pipeline, get, bring more to the talent bank anything you're seeing out there right now?
Emily Estey:Well, first of all, I have to say that that's how I got my job at CSS was from an employee referral, and I think that's I mean, I think that's how we do a lot of those hires. So the first thing I have to say about this is your employees Employees will refer candidates to a company they love working for, first and foremost. So if your culture isn't in check, you probably need to look at that. If you are asking for employee referrals and you're getting a lot of like blank stares, then that's probably your first sign that maybe the culture needs a little reshaping. But beyond that, I think and even with that, sometimes you're likely Probably gonna have a smaller group of people who will really do this for you. It's probably not going to be everybody.
Emily Estey:I mean, we know some people are just better at recruiting than others, right, like we know that it's a talent that we look at. So I think One of the best things to do is maybe you have a referral team, maybe you get those people together and they try to. They either compete with each other for the most referrals or they as a group are the referral team and they're always actively looking for people out there. You could always give them an incentive, pay, a referral bonus. That's something that people do often, but the other thing, too, is making sure that your team if you even have a referral team, or that your team Gets the opportunity to hire people that they want to work with.
Emily Estey:So that I think that is really important. And I read you know, in our company we ask often like who do you know, who do you know, who do you know? And we kind of never stop asking that. So that continues to make people really think about it. So, inside, like thoughts about referrals, like who do you know? We're gonna give you 15 minutes in the sales meeting to think about who you know. Give them time to do it.
Matt Sunshine:Just a few, just a few Reminds me a lot of the nominator process 100% Not. Who do you know that's looking for a job?
Emily Estey:Who do you?
Matt Sunshine:know that is really good at.
Emily Estey:This yes.
Matt Sunshine:Yes, you know the other thing I'll say about this, and this came up in a talent focus management workshop recently, tfm, and I don't remember who said this, so and I'm gonna butcher the quote so how about that? I don't know who said it and I don't even know what the quote is.
Matt Sunshine:I don't even know if it's true and I don't know who said it, I get the gist of what I'm about to say that if people are on a scale of one to 10, if there are nine or a 10, okay, nines and tens like to be surrounded by nines and tens.
Emily Estey:Right.
Matt Sunshine:Right, people that are like a five or six. They like to be surrounded by people that are threes in force right Cause they like to look better than the others. But folks that are nines and tens they wanna be surrounded with people that are just as good as them, and I don't know if that is. I don't need to see data to know that they're 100% true 100% true, all right.
Matt Sunshine:All right. Last question for the both of you, and I would like both of you to respond to this If there's one piece of advice that you could give in the realm of selection, what would that be? What's an actionable takeaway that someone could use that might be real beneficial for them? Here's a go.
Tirzah Thornburg:Okay, mine is hold out for talent. I you, just you have to. The candidate pull is tight and we really get that. The last 18 months have been really hard and so many managers are like I've been trying, I've been trying and I just, I gotta hire a war body. I just don't care, I gotta hire somebody. And my advice is don't, just don't. A lot of managers are frustrated. I get it. They're making desperation hires and they almost always backfire. They quit after again, they quit after 90 days. If they don't quit, it's almost worse, because then you're trying to let go and you're trying to shove them out the door and they don't wanna leave. So my best advice hold out for talent, create your mice tabs list. You create that job posting and just make the right hire. Don't make desperation hires, because it's the worst thing you can do right now.
Matt Sunshine:Emily.
Emily Estey:Mine is don't be in a hurry. So there you go. Tirzah and eye are exactly on the same page, Coming at it from just a little bit of a different angle. Though, every hire that you make is a reflection on you as the hiring manager, right? Your reputation is at stake with not only your clients, but also internally, with the people that are already working for your team, right? So make sure it's a nine or 10. Make sure it fits with the group, because it really is. People are gonna be looking at you first, going what are you doing? So that's whenever I'm talking with managers, I'm always like you know, if you hire this person, how's that gonna reflect on you?
Matt Sunshine:Yeah, it sends a message to everyone else. It sends a message to everyone else. This is what I think looks. This is what I think good is. I just hired this person.
Emily Estey:That's right, absolutely.
Matt Sunshine:Guys, excellent, excellent, excellent information today. Thank you so much for sharing Everyone listening. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate that. If you wanna reach out and connect with either Tirzah or Emily, we'll have their LinkedIn, the links to their LinkedIn, in the show notes. So please do that and we look forward to talking to you again on another episode of the sales performance improving sales performance podcast.
Tirzah Thornburg:See you later. Awesome Thanks, matt. Bye, thanks, matt.
Matt Sunshine:This has been improving sales performance. Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, join us every week by clicking the subscribe button For more on the topics covered in the show. Visit our website, thecenterforsalesstrategycom. There you can find helpful resources and content aimed at improving your sales performance.
