Not only is it difficult to find and recruit top technical sales professionals, but most technical sales reps don’t have any formal education or extensive experience in tech sales that you can use to easily identify them. These factors combined with the fact that the average sales rep tenure at technology companies is only 2-3 years, it can be very difficult to find a candidate who talented and a long-term fit. If you’re looking to hire a tech sales rep, there are 3 attributes you should look for to identify a candidate who will be successful and have a future at your company.
Learning Centered
Since there’s no real formal education or training programs to teach sales reps specific technologies, they need to be able to learn new information quickly and be able to tackle difficult problems. Look for a salesperson who is easily coachable and who welcomes feedback. Not only should they be interested in learning about new technology, but they should also be interested in professional development. A high-performing tech sales pro is constantly working to improve their skills and new challenges. Even if a sales rep does not have experience selling your exact technology, a top performer who is eager to learn will be able to be successful in the open role.
Critical Thinking Skills
As with most sales positions, it’s important to be able to identify the customer’s needs. But when dealing with complicated technologies and solutions, this need becomes much more critical. Look for a sales rep with critical thinking skills and who take the time to explore all options and alternatives when trying to solve a problem. Also, this person should be able to take criticism and provide new solutions if they’re ideas are being challenged. If you perform a mock selling experience, look for reps who ask a lot of questions to get to the root of the problem and work with the client to accommodate their needs.
Persuasive
Not everything is black and white in selling and tech sales rep need to be able to stray from the script when necessary in order to get the result they need. Look for sales reps who are persuasive and who can hold their own in conversations. Even though what they’re selling may be more complicated, they still need to show enthusiasm and be able to command the stage to inspire customer buy-in. Without these influential skills, it will be very difficult for a tech sales rep to be successful.
As technology continues to grow, the tech sales rep will be critical to the growth and success of new companies.
