More than one in five salespeople don’t have the qualities to succeed in the field. Selling is hard enough for people with the DNA to succeed; it’s nearly impossible for people who lack those qualities, said my latest guest on PowerViews, Dave Stein, CEO and founder of ES Research Group Inc., which assists sales trainers in selecting the appropriate providers.

Dave, a former sales rep, sales manager, VP of sales, competitive sales strategist, consultant, and sales trainer, has worked in 26 countries—with companies from the Fortune 10 to start-ups.

Here is the full video of our discussion and below are some salient outtakes.

Consolidation is Going to Continue

Click to start video at this point—I asked Dave what major changes he’s seen in sales and marketing. In addition to a number of company consolidations, including Miller Heiman merging with Channel Enablers of Australia, Dave said selling has changed dramatically. Selling around insight into a customer’s organization is growing, he said. Salespeople are using specific information about what they can do for a client’s business plan.

Many Salespeople Are Not Qualified

Click to start video at this point—When he looks at a sales post mortem, trying to assess what went wrong with the vantage point of hindsight, Dave said he often finds that salespeople who seemed promising aren’t qualified to do the job. He estimated that 20 to 33 percent of salespeople do not have the personality to be successful salespeople.

How to Define a Lead

Click to start video at this point—There’s often a disconnect between how sales and marketing people define a lead, and Dave said this misalignment has been around for decades. A lead should be defined collaboratively between those working in sales and marketing, he said.

How Much Social Selling Should Sales Reps be Doing?

Click to start video at this point—Are you a sales rep in the high-tech industry? If so, you should probably be doing a lot of social selling. But if you’re a rep who sells heavy machinery, spending a lot of time on Twitter and LinkedIn probably isn’t an effective and efficient use of your time, Dave said.

Commit Yourself to Not Hiring Bad Salespeople

Click to start video at this point—Sales is difficult enough, but hiring the wrong people to do the job makes it even harder. Dave said companies need to make a commitment to hiring the right salespeople.

You can connect with Dave and learn more about ES Research Group via the following resources:

Website: www.esresearch.com

Blog: www.esresearch.com/blog

Email: dave at esresearch dot com

The next PowerViews will be with Chad Burmeister of ConnectAndSell. Stay Tuned.

By Dan McDade