Choose Your Side: Welder or Seller?
Over the last few days, I’ve been talking to distributors about training their salespeople. Everyone has a lot of great strategies for getting the most out of their young salespeople. One of the things I’ve been discussing is the skills that make a good salesperson. The distributors agree: personality is the ultimate key. But it’s where they don’t agree that I’m most interested in.
I’ve heard some different perspectives, and I want to know what you all think. Here’s the question: Let’s say you are in charge of hiring a new salesperson for your company. Would you prefer someone with 5 years of sales experience or someone with 5 years of technical (welding, cutting, joining, etc.) experience? Let’s assume both candidates have great personalities. There are two basic schools of thought on this.
One side says, “I’ll take the sales experience. You can always teach the technical know-how through manufacturer product training. It’s more important to know sales skills that only come from experience, such as time-management, customer service and self-motivation.”
The other side says, “Give me the welder. You can teach selling, but there’s a risk they won’t like the industry. On top of that, customers respond to a knowledgeable salesperson, so someone with technical experience has a head start.”
What do you think? I want to hear your argument for picking one side over the other.
Tags: sales training, salesperson, Welding
